Robert Fergusson was an Edinburgh poet whose life and legacies continue to resonate in 2024, the 250th anniversary of his untimely death. A two-year project, funded by The Leverhulme Trust, and based at the University of Glasgow has been examining and commemorating these legacies.
POETICAL LEGACY
Fergusson has often been considered as a ‘poet’s poet’, influencing a huge range of prominent cultural figures such as Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, Tom Leonard, Robert Garioch, James Robertson, Meg Bateman, and many more!
He initially wrote his poems in periodicals, primarily in Edinburgh’s Weekly Magazine. By 1773, Fergusson was writing so extensively for the magazine that he became a kind of house poet, contributing to almost every issue. Although he began with works written in English, Fergusson also wrote the first Scots verses published in the Weekly. Robert Burns would not have continued writing poetry if not for Fergusson’s Scots verses, which he read and he said reinvigorated his interest in writing!
MEDICAL LEGACY
Fergusson died aged 24, after falling down a set of stone steps and hitting his head. This caused what twentieth century doctors believe to have been a brain haemorrhage. At the time of the fall though, Fergusson was considered to be ‘furiously insane’ and confined to Edinburgh’s Bedlam asylum.
Dr Andrew Duncan (1744-1828) treated Fergusson at this time, and became intensely interested in his case. He decided to erect the first ‘well-constructed’ asylum in Edinburgh after witnessing Fergusson’s decline and the conditions he was living in. Although it took a number of years to fundraise, the Morningside asylum opened for the first time in 1813 to paying patients, and in 1844 to all patients in Edinburgh’s Bedlam. In 2024 this is now the Royal Edinburgh Hospital – which treats patients with brain injuries in the Robert Fergusson Unit.
FERGUSSON IN 2024
250 years later, ‘The Works of Robert Fergusson: Reconstructing Textual and Cultural Legacies’ project is running a range of events to celebrate Fergusson. These include an exhibition at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow; talks at the University of Glasgow and Scottish National Gallery available both online and in person; and an event ‘Remembering Robert Fergusson’ at St Cecilia’s Hall on Thursday 17th October (Fergusson’s death-day!) to mark this momentous event. Special guests are Scottish writer and broadcaster Billy Kay, authors Andrew O’Hagan and James Robertson, and musician Kirsteen McCue.
The project is also editing the first full, consistent and transparently edited textual edition of Fergusson’s works, contracted by Edinburgh University Press to be published in 2026. Fergusson’s entire corpus, including manuscripts which have not yet been published as part of his canon, will offer the first reliable edition of his poems for an academic and popular audience.
For more information about Project Fergusson, please visit our website. Our events page can be viewed here.
