Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/41

 the old town had some special advantages. There was a fine harbour, and ready access to the surrounding districts, not only by the roads, but by the firths of Dornoch, Dingwall, and Inverness. He therefore formed the bold and original idea of making it a depôt of supplies for all the country round, and this plan he carried out with energy and success for many years. He brought flax and other commodities from Holland. He traded with Leith and London, and was the first to introduce coal (about 1770), called by the country people ‘black stones.’ On the suggestion of his old schoolfellow, Dr. Hossack of Greenwich, he started the manufacture of kelp. He also employed many of the people in their own homes in spinning and weaving in connection with the British Linen Company, of which he was the first agent in the north, and encouraged fishing and farming industries. For more than thirty years he was the only magistrate in the place, and such was the confidence in his judgment and integrity that during all that time no appeal was taken against any of his decisions. The general respect of the neighbourhood was shown by his popular title as ‘the maister.’ Forsyth not only did much to revive the old glory of the town, but helped many young men to make their way in the world; one of these was the well-known Charles Grant, chairman of the East India Company, and M.P. for Inverness. Forsyth died at Cromarty 30 Jan. 1800. He was twice married, first to Margaret Russell, who died within a year in childbed, and next, after eleven years, to Elizabeth Grant, daughter of the Rev. Patrick Grant of Nigg, Ross-shire. He had nine children, three only surviving him. He and his family were large benefactors to Cromarty. Hugh Miller, himself a native of Cromarty, says: ‘He was one of nature's noblemen; and the sincere homage of the better feelings is an honour reserved exclusively to the order to which he belonged.’ He also says of the inscription on his gravestone in Cromarty churchyard, that its ‘rare merit is to be at once highly eulogistic and strictly true.’

[Memoir by Hugh Miller, 1839.] 

FORSYTH, WILLIAM (1737–1804), gardener, was born at Old Meldrum, Aberdeenshire, in 1737. In 1763 he came to London, and was employed in the Apothecaries' Garden at Chelsea under Philip Miller, whom he succeeded in 1771. Thirteen years later he was appointed superintendent of the royal gardens of St. James and Kensington. Soon after coming to London he gave much attention to the growth of trees, and brought out a plaister, the application of which he asserted would cause new growth in place of previously diseased or perished wood. For this he was accorded a vote of thanks in both houses of parliament and a pecuniary reward; but the efficacy of the plaister was disputed by Thomas Andrew Knight and others, its composition differing but slightly from similar preparations commonly in use in nurseries and plantations. Several letters on this topic will be found in the volumes of the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ cited below.

In 1791 he published his ‘Observations on the Diseases, Defects, and Injuries of Fruit and Forest Trees,’ and in 1802 his ‘Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit Trees,’ which reached a seventh edition in 1824. He also contributed a paper on gathering apples and pears to Hunter's ‘Georgical Essays,’ and a ‘Botanical Nomenclature’ in 1794, 8vo. He was a fellow of the Linnean and Antiquaries Societies. He died 25 July 1804, at his official residence, Kensington. The plant named Forsythia after Forsyth in Thomas Walter's ‘Flora Caroliniana,’ 1788, p. 153, is now designated Decumaria (cf. and, Genera Plantarum, i. 642).

[Gent. Mag. 1804, vol. lxxiv. pt. ii. p. 787, 1805, vol. lxv. pt. i. pp. 431 (typ. err. 341), 432; Nouv. Biog. Gén. xviii. 210; Field's Mem. Bot. Gard. Chelsea, 58–90 (not continuous); Johnson's Hist. Eng. Gard. 250.] 

FORSYTH, WILLIAM (1818–1879), Scottish poet and journalist, son of Morris Forsyth and Jane Brands, was born at Turriff, Aberdeenshire, 24 Oct. 1818. He was educated at Fordyce Academy and the universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh. For some years he studied medicine, becoming assistant to a country doctor, and twice acting as surgeon to a Greenland whaler, but he never took a medical degree, and ultimately abandoned medicine for literature. His first engagement was as sub-editor of the ‘Inverness Courier’ (1842) under Dr. Robert Carruthers [q. v.], and while with him he largely assisted in the preparation of ‘Chambers's Cyclopædia of English Literature,’ a work of high value. In 1843 he became sub-editor of the ‘Aberdeen Herald,’ then conducted by Mr. Adam, and he contributed in prose and verse for several years. In 1848 he joined the staff of the ‘Aberdeen Journal,’ one of the oldest and most influential of Scottish newspapers, and eventually was appointed editor, an office which he held with much honour for about thirty years. Forsyth was in politics a liberal-conservative. He gave his ardent support to all measures tending to the elevation of the