John Marius Wilson


John Marius Wilson was a British writer and an editor, most notable for his gazetteers. The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales, was a substantial topographical dictionary in six volumes. It was a companion to his Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland, published 1854–1857.
He was born in Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire, in about 1805, and was ordained as a Congregationalist minister, working for a time in County Galway, Ireland. From the late 1840s onwards, he devoted himself to writing and editing, living in Edinburgh, where he died in 1885, aged 80.

Selected works

  • The Farmer's Dictionary or a cyclopedia of agriculture in all its departments, principles, methods, recent improvements and business affairs as taught and practice by the most distinguished British agriculturists of the present day
  • The Rural Cyclopedia: or a general dictionary of agriculture, and of the arts, sciences, instruments, and practice, necessary to the farmer, stockfarmer, gardener, forester, landsteward, farrier, &c.
  • The Potato, its diseases, uses, etc.
  • A Memoir of Field-marshal, the Duke of Wellington; with interspersed notices of his principal associates in council, and companions and opponents in arms
  • The Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland : or, Dictionary of Scottish topography 2 vols.
  • Landscapes of Interesting Localities mentioned in the Holy Scriptures...
  • The Divine Architect, or The wonders of creation
  • The land of Scott; or, Tourists' guide to Abbotsford, the country of the Tweed and its tributaries, and St. Mary's loch
  • Earth, Sea, and Sky; or, The hand of God in the works of nature
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