Alexander Balfour

Alexander Balfour (1767–1829) was a Scottish novelist born in the parish of Monikie, Forfarshire. Biography Balfour was born on 1 March 1767 to parents who were both of the humblest peasantry. Being a twin, he was from his birth under the care of a relative. He was physically weak. His education was of the scantiest. When a mere lad he was apprenticed to a weaver. Later he taught in a school in his native parish, and many lived to remember him gratefully for his rough and ready but successful teaching of them. In his twenty-sixth year (1793) he became one of the clerks of a merchant manufacturer in Arbroath. In 1794 he married. He commenced writing at the age of twelve. Not very long after he filled "the poets' corner" in the local newspaper. Later he contributed verse to the British Chronicle newspaper and to The Bee of Dr. Anderson. In 1793 he was one of the writers in the Dundee Repository and in 1796 in the Aberdeen Magazine. Four years after his removal to Arbroath he changed his situation, and two years later, on the death of his first employer, he carried on the business in partnership with his widow. On her retirement in 1800 he look another partner, and, having succeeded in obtaining a government contract to supply the navy with canvas, in a few years he possessed considerable property.