John Struthers


1776 - 1853

Minor poet and editor. Struthers was born at Long Calderwood, East Kilbride. He began as a farm worker, but moved to Glasgow where he learned the trade of shoe-making. His first work, Poor Man's Sabbath (1804), was successfully published thanks to his mentor Joanna Baillie (1762 - 1851) who had met the publisher Archibald Constable (1774 - 1827) through Sir Walter Scott (1771 - 1832). Struthers visited Scott in Edinburgh in 1808. His later works include The Peasant's Death (1806), A Winters Day (1811), The Plough (1818) and The Vale of Clyde. He later joined the Glasgow publisher Khull, Blackie & Co. as an editor. He edited a three-volume collection of songs The Harp of Caledonia (1819), which included works by Baillie and Scott. He also wrote a series of biographies many of which later appeared in Chambers Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen.

A house at Calderglen High School (East Kilbride) was named in his honour in 2008.


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