Martin Martin

1660 - 1718

Geographer and Mapmaker. Martin was a native highlander, born in Skye, and a Gaelic-speaker who reported on the products and people of the Western Isles of Scotland. He was educated at the Universities of Edinburgh and Leiden. He mapped St. Kilda (1697) and worked with John Adair in the mapping of the Hebrides. Martin's work 'Description of the Western Isles' (1703) was derided for its inaccuracies by Dr. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, although they had the benefit of writing some 70 years later. Martin died in London and is buried in the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

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