George Beattie

George Beattie (18 September 1786 – 29 September 1823) was a Scottish poet. Biography George Beattie was the son of a crofter and salmon fisher at Whitehill, near St Cyrus, Kincardineshire, where he was born in 1786 to parents, William Beattie and Elizabeth Scott. George was the third eldest of seven children whose names in descending chronology were: James - born/baptised on 10.12.1780; Joseph - born/baptised on 16/05/1784; George/William - born/baptised on 18.09.1786; Mary - born/baptised on 27.02.1789; Catherine - born/baptised on 19.03.1791; Elizabeth - born/baptised on 08/05/1794 and David - born between 1791-1798. He received a good education at the parish school of St Cyrus. During his boyhood and even into adulthood, he was notorious for his frolics and love of practical jokes. It is also related of him, that on Saturday afternoons it was his delight to wander among the "braes" of St Cyrus, and that he used to "visit the auld kirkyard with a kind of melancholy pleasure". When the boy was about thirteen years of age, his father obtained a situation on the excise at Montrose, and "young George", it is said, walked all the way to his new home "with a tame kae (jackdaw) on his shoulder". After an ineffectual attempt to become a mechanic he obtained a clerkship in Aberdeen, but six weeks later his employer died, bequeathing him a legacy of £50. Returning to Montrose, Beattie entered the office of the procurator-fiscal, and on the completion of his legal education in Edinburgh he established himself in Montrose as a writer or attorney. His remarkable conversational gifts, especially as a humourist and his philanthropy rendered him a general favourite among his companions, and, being combined with good business talents, contributed to his speedy success in his profession. Beattie also became factor to the Kirkside Estate in St Cyrus, owned by General Sir Joseph Straton, K.C.B., a Peninsular and Waterloo hero. As an adult, George was considered to be very handsome despite being rather short and stout. He had black wavy hair, blue eyes and a face full of friendliness and fun. Poems In 1815, he contributed to the Montrose Review a poem, "John o' Arnha", which he afterwards elaborated with much care, and published in a separate form, when its rollicking humour and vivid descriptions soon secured it a wide popularity. Its incidents bear some resemblance to those of Tam o' Shanter of which it may be called a pale reflex.