| Administrative History | Archie Watson was a bookseller in Aberdeen in the early 20th century. He wrote a biographical essay on John Skinner (1721-1807), Episcopalian minister and poet.
Born in 1721 in Aberdeenshire, John Skinner was the son of a schoolmaster and obtained a bursary to Marischal College, Aberdeen, in 1734. He taught after leaving university but became Episcopalian and eventually was ordained and appointed rector of Longside in Aberdeenshire in 1742. He suffered a good deal during the anti-Jacobite persecutions of the Episcopalians, but remained stoically in his parish, where poverty made him turn to writing as an additional source of income. He was a respected poet, encouraged by Burns, and a church historian, and wrote 'Ecclesiastical History of Scotland', 1788. He remained in Longside till 1807 when, now widowed, he removed to Aberdeen to live with his son, but died a few days later and was buried at Longside. |