Charles MacLaren


1782 - 1866

Editor. Born at Ormiston (East Lothian), the son of a farmer and cattle-dealer. With his friend William Ritchie (1781 - 1831), and others, MacLaren founded the Edinburgh-based Scotsman newspaper in 1817 and served as its editor for 25 years. He is also notable for identifying the location of the city of Troy as Hisarlık in Turkey, but his work received little attention for many years as most classicists of the time thought the city was fictional. He became editor of the 6th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1820) and maintained an interest in Geology, publishing A Sketch of the Geology of Fife and the Lothians in 1839. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1837) and served as President of the Geological Society of Edinburgh (1864-66). MacLaren lived on George Square in Edinburgh and lies buried in Grange Cemetery.


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