Samuel Hunter (editor)
Samuel Hunter (1769–1839) was a Scottish journalist, magistrate and officer of yeomanry. He was the editor of the Glasgow Herald.
Life[edit]
He was born on 19 March 1769 in the manse of Stoneykirk, Wigtownshire the son of Rev John Hunter (1716–1781) and his second wife Margaret McHarg (d. 1786).[1]
Receiving his elementary education there, he qualified as a surgeon at Glasgow University, and for a time, about the end of the 18th century, practised his profession in Ireland. Somewhat later he acted as captain in the North Lowland Regiment of fencibles, and settled in Glasgow.[2]
On 10 January 1803 Hunter became editor and co-proprietor of the Glasgow Herald and Advertiser, to which he then for 34 years spent most of his time running. Soon afterwards, in a French invasion scare, he figured first as major in a corps of gentlemen sharpshooters, and secondly as colonel commandant of the fourth regiment of Highland local militia.[2]
Sitting on Glasgow town council, Hunter also rose to be a magistrate. He was an implacable opponent of political reform and in 1820 fresh military activity in response to radical unrest brought him forward as commander of a choice corps of gentlemen known as the Glasgow Sharpshooters.[3] From this time till 1837, when he retired from the Herald—then a sheet of four pages, appearing bi-weekly—he was one of the most prominent Glasgow citizens.[2]
After retiring Hunter settled at Rothesay, and he died on 9 June 1839 whilst visiting his nephew, Rev Dr Archibald Blair Campbell, D.D., parish minister of Kilwinning, Ayrshire. He was buried in Kilwinning churchyard.[2]
References[edit]
- ^ Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae; by Hew Scott
- ^ a b c d Lee, Sidney, ed. (1891). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 28. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- ^ Craig, Maggie (2020), One Week in April: The Scottish Radical Rising of 1820, Birlinn, pp. xvi, 51 & 104-105, ISBN 9781780276328
Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1891). "Hunter, Samuel". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 28. London: Smith, Elder & Co.