Robert Mudie
Encyclopedia
Robert Mudie was a newspaper editor and author, born in Angus
, Scotland
on 28 June 1777, was the youngest son of John Mudie, a weaver, and his wife, Elizabeth, née Bany. After attending the village school he worked as a weaver until he was drafted into the militia. Largely self-educated, from his boyhood he was an avid reader, reared mainly on the Encyclopædia Britannica
. He taught himself Latin
by beginning in the middle of Virgil
, reading to the end, using a dictionary.
At the end of his four years of militia service he became master of a village school in the south of Fife
. In 1802 he was appointed teacher of Gaelic and drawing at Inverness Royal Academy
, although he knew little Gaelic. About 1808 he became drawing-master to Dundee Academy
, but soon also took on the department of arithmetic and English composition. He contributed much to the local newspaper, and ran for some time a monthly periodical. Becoming a member of the Dundee town council, he worked energetically for burgh reform with R. S. Rintoul
, editor of the radical Dundee Advertiser
and later of The Spectator
. In politics he was ‘an ardent reformer’. He had about this time some acquaintance with Thomas Chalmers
, then in St Andrews
. Mudie's speeches, attacking corruption on the council, led to the loss of his post as teacher of arithmetic (his drawing post was beyond the council's control). He tried, unsuccessfully, to start a mercantile and mathematical academy and launched two short-lived periodicals, The Independent (April–September 1816) and The Caledonian (June–October 1821). On the failure of these, in the autumn of 1821 he sold his life appointment as teacher in drawing and moved to London
, where he was a reporter on the Morning Chronicle
, reporting George IV
's visit to Edinburgh
, which he also described in a volume, Modern Athens (1824). He was subsequently editor of the Sunday Times
and wrote largely in the periodicals of the day.
About 1838 Mudie moved to Winchester
, where he was employed by a bookseller named Robbins in writing books, including a History of Hampshire (3 vols., 1838) and a stream of other topographical volumes. The enterprise failed, and Mudie returned to London, impoverished and in broken health. He edited the Surveyor, Engineer and Architect, a monthly journal; it began publication in February 1840 but was not a financial success. Throughout this unsatisfactory and ultimately wretched career, Mudie maintained a steady flow of publications. His first works were The Maid of Griban (1819) (verses) and Glenfergus (3 vols., 1819), a novel. In the 1820s he turned to topography
, often writing in a moralizing tone, and produced a long list of volumes, of which two on London, Babylon the Great (2 vols., 1825) and A Second Judgment on Babylon the Great (2 vols., 1829) are the most striking. For Things in General (on London and elsewhere) (1824) he used the pseudonym Laurence Langshank. Mudie became a keen ornithologist
and published several volumes, such as The Feathered Tribes of the British Islands (2 vols., 1834) and The Natural History of Birds (1834); he also wrote on other aspects of biology. He was also the author of books on natural philosophy
, mental and moral philosophy
, China
, India
, copyright
, and the seasons of the year. Mudie wrote the greater part of the natural history section of the British Cyclopaedia (1834), the text to Gilbert's Modern Atlas of the Earth (1840), and a topographical account of Selborne prefixed to Gilbert White
's Natural History of Selborne (new edn, 1850). Mudie died at Pentonville
on 29 April 1842, leaving destitute the widow of his second marriage, Frances Wallace Urquhart, second daughter of Captain John Urquhart, a sea captain of the East India Company
with one son, and four daughters.
He wrote and compiled altogether about ninety volumes, including Babylon the Great, a Picture of Men and Things in London; Modern Auicus, a sketch of Edinburgh society; The British Naturalist; The Feathered Tribes of Great Britain; A Popular Guide to the Observation of Nature; two series of four volumes each, entitled The Heavens, the Earth, the Sea, and the Air; and Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter; Man: Physical, Moral, Social, and Intellectual; Man, as a Moral and Accountable Being; The World Described; The Picture of Australia. He also wrote a novel, Glenfergus. He furnished the letter-press to Gilbert's Modern Atlas, the "Natural History" to the British Cyclopaedia, and numerous other contributions to periodical works. He was editor of the Caledonian Quarterly Magazine, as well as its illustrator and chief contributor. He hand-carved the woodcuts used to illustrate the Caledonian Quarterly.
Angus
Angus is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, a registration county and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Perth and Kinross and Dundee City...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
on 28 June 1777, was the youngest son of John Mudie, a weaver, and his wife, Elizabeth, née Bany. After attending the village school he worked as a weaver until he was drafted into the militia. Largely self-educated, from his boyhood he was an avid reader, reared mainly on the Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
. He taught himself Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
by beginning in the middle of Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
, reading to the end, using a dictionary.
At the end of his four years of militia service he became master of a village school in the south of Fife
Fife
Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...
. In 1802 he was appointed teacher of Gaelic and drawing at Inverness Royal Academy
Inverness Royal Academy
Inverness Royal Academy is a secondary school located in the Culduthel area of Inverness, Highland, Scotland.- Catchment area :...
, although he knew little Gaelic. About 1808 he became drawing-master to Dundee Academy
High School of Dundee
The High School of Dundee is an independent, co-educational, day school in the city of Dundee, Scotland which provides both primary and secondary education to just over one thousand pupils...
, but soon also took on the department of arithmetic and English composition. He contributed much to the local newspaper, and ran for some time a monthly periodical. Becoming a member of the Dundee town council, he worked energetically for burgh reform with R. S. Rintoul
Robert Stephen Rintoul
Robert Stephen Rintoul , British journalist, was born at Tibbermore, Perthshire, in 1787, and educated at the Aberdalgie parish school...
, editor of the radical Dundee Advertiser
The Courier
The Courier & Advertiser, more commonly known as simply The Courier, is a broadsheet newspaper published by DC Thomson in Dundee, Scotland...
and later of The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
. In politics he was ‘an ardent reformer’. He had about this time some acquaintance with Thomas Chalmers
Thomas Chalmers
Thomas Chalmers , Scottish mathematician, political economist, divine and a leader of the Free Church of Scotland, was born at Anstruther in Fife.-Overview:...
, then in St Andrews
St Andrews
St Andrews is a university town and former royal burgh on the east coast of Fife in Scotland. The town is named after Saint Andrew the Apostle.St Andrews has a population of 16,680, making this the fifth largest settlement in Fife....
. Mudie's speeches, attacking corruption on the council, led to the loss of his post as teacher of arithmetic (his drawing post was beyond the council's control). He tried, unsuccessfully, to start a mercantile and mathematical academy and launched two short-lived periodicals, The Independent (April–September 1816) and The Caledonian (June–October 1821). On the failure of these, in the autumn of 1821 he sold his life appointment as teacher in drawing and moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where he was a reporter on the Morning Chronicle
Morning Chronicle
The Morning Chronicle was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London, England, and published under various owners until 1862. It was most notable for having been the first employer of Charles Dickens, and for publishing the articles by Henry Mayhew which were collected and published in book format in...
, reporting George IV
George IV of the United Kingdom
George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...
's visit to Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, which he also described in a volume, Modern Athens (1824). He was subsequently editor of the Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
and wrote largely in the periodicals of the day.
About 1838 Mudie moved to Winchester
Winchester
Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...
, where he was employed by a bookseller named Robbins in writing books, including a History of Hampshire (3 vols., 1838) and a stream of other topographical volumes. The enterprise failed, and Mudie returned to London, impoverished and in broken health. He edited the Surveyor, Engineer and Architect, a monthly journal; it began publication in February 1840 but was not a financial success. Throughout this unsatisfactory and ultimately wretched career, Mudie maintained a steady flow of publications. His first works were The Maid of Griban (1819) (verses) and Glenfergus (3 vols., 1819), a novel. In the 1820s he turned to topography
Topography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
, often writing in a moralizing tone, and produced a long list of volumes, of which two on London, Babylon the Great (2 vols., 1825) and A Second Judgment on Babylon the Great (2 vols., 1829) are the most striking. For Things in General (on London and elsewhere) (1824) he used the pseudonym Laurence Langshank. Mudie became a keen ornithologist
Ornithology
Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds...
and published several volumes, such as The Feathered Tribes of the British Islands (2 vols., 1834) and The Natural History of Birds (1834); he also wrote on other aspects of biology. He was also the author of books on natural philosophy
Natural philosophy
Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...
, mental and moral philosophy
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
, and the seasons of the year. Mudie wrote the greater part of the natural history section of the British Cyclopaedia (1834), the text to Gilbert's Modern Atlas of the Earth (1840), and a topographical account of Selborne prefixed to Gilbert White
Gilbert White
Gilbert White FRS was a pioneering English naturalist and ornithologist.-Life:White was born in his grandfather's vicarage at Selborne in Hampshire. He was educated at the Holy Ghost School and by a private tutor in Basingstoke before going to Oriel College, Oxford...
's Natural History of Selborne (new edn, 1850). Mudie died at Pentonville
Pentonville
Pentonville is an area of north-central London in the London Borough of Islington, centred on the Pentonville Road. The area is named after Henry Penton, who developed a number of streets in the 1770s in what was open countryside adjacent to the New Road...
on 29 April 1842, leaving destitute the widow of his second marriage, Frances Wallace Urquhart, second daughter of Captain John Urquhart, a sea captain of the East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
with one son, and four daughters.
He wrote and compiled altogether about ninety volumes, including Babylon the Great, a Picture of Men and Things in London; Modern Auicus, a sketch of Edinburgh society; The British Naturalist; The Feathered Tribes of Great Britain; A Popular Guide to the Observation of Nature; two series of four volumes each, entitled The Heavens, the Earth, the Sea, and the Air; and Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter; Man: Physical, Moral, Social, and Intellectual; Man, as a Moral and Accountable Being; The World Described; The Picture of Australia. He also wrote a novel, Glenfergus. He furnished the letter-press to Gilbert's Modern Atlas, the "Natural History" to the British Cyclopaedia, and numerous other contributions to periodical works. He was editor of the Caledonian Quarterly Magazine, as well as its illustrator and chief contributor. He hand-carved the woodcuts used to illustrate the Caledonian Quarterly.