John Hill Burton (1809 - 1881), historian, was born and educated at Aberdeen, was in 1831 called to the Bar, but had little practice, and in 1854 was appointed Sec. to the Prison Board of Scotland, and in 1877 a Commissioner of Prisons. He became at an early period of his life a contributor to Blackwood's Magazine and other periodicals, and in 1846 published a life of Hume, which attracted considerable attention, and was followed by Lives of Lord Lovat and Lord President Forbes. He began his career as an historian by the publication in 1853 of History of Scotland from the Revolution to the Extinction of the last Jacobite Insurrection, to which he added (1867-70) History of Scotland from Agricola's Invasion to the Revolution, in 7 vols., thus completing a continuous narrative. Subsequently he published a History of the Reign of Queen Anne (1880). Other works of a lighter kind were The Book-Hunter (1862), and The Scot Abroad (1864). Burton's historical works display much research and a spirit of candour and honesty, and have picturesque and spirited passages, but the style is unequal, and frequently lacks dignity. On the whole, however, his is regarded as the most generally trustworthy and valuable history of Scotland at present existing.
He came of the Westmorland Burtons of Shap, but his grandfather, the Rev. Edward Burton, settled in Ireland as rector of Tuam, and his father, Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Netterville Burton, of the 36th Regiment, was an Irishman by birth and character.
The separate discovery led to a bitter dispute, but Burton's expedition, with its discovery of the two lakes, was the incentive to the later explorations of Speke and Grant, Baker, Livingstone and Stanley; and his report in volume xxxiii.
Burton's "anthropological notes," embracing a wide field of pornography, apart from questions of taste, abound in valuable observations based upon long study of the manners and the writings of the Arabs.
JOHNHILLBURTON (1809-1881), Scottish historical writer, the son of an officer in the army, was born at Aberdeen on the 22nd of August 1809.
His Manual of the Law of Scotland (1839) brought him into notice; he joined Sir John Bowring in editing the works of Jeremy Bentham, and for a short time was editor of the Scotsman, which he committed to the cause of free trade.
Burton was pre-eminently a jurist and economist, and may be said to have been guided by accident into the path which led him to celebrity.
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