Summary

Sir Samuel (Samuel, Samuel) Ferguson (Ferguson) (English, March 10, 1810) - Irish writer, poet, lawyer, archaeologist, archivist, antiquarian, artist, and civil servant; president of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) in Dublin (1882), founder of the Irish Antiquities Museum.

Samuel Ferguson was born in Belfast on March 10, 1810, the third son of John Ferguson and Agnes (who often read to her six children works by Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Keats, Shelley and other English-language authors, which seems to have determined young Samuel's fate. He studied at the Royal Belfast Academy and the Royal Belfast Academic Institute. He later moved to Dublin to acquire a law degree at Trinity College, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1826 and a master's degree in 1832.

Samuel Ferguson's father squandered the family fortune, and the young man had to support himself as a student. He began to write and by the age of 22 had become a regular contributor to Blackwood's Magazine. In 1838 he was invited to the bar, but he continued to write and publish both in the aforementioned Blackwood's and in the Dublin University Magazine.

Ferguson settled in Dublin, where he practiced law. In 1846 he visited European museums, libraries, and archaeological sites closely related to Irish science, which helped him in founding the Irish Museum of Antiquities.

In 1848 Ferguson married Mary Catherine Guinness (1823-1905), the third cousin of Arthur Guinness and eldest daughter of Robert Rundell Guinness." At the time he was defending the young Irelander poet Richard Dalton Williams. Samuel Ferguson retired from the bar in 1867, when he was appointed first deputy curator of the public records of Ireland.

In addition to his poems, Ferguson published a number of articles on topics of interest to the Irish in antiquarian magazines. In 1863 he traveled through Brittany, Ireland, Wales, England, and Scotland to study megaliths and other archaeological sites. This research was important to his major antiquarian work, The Ogham Inscriptions in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, which was edited after his death by his widow Mary Catherine Ferguson and published in 1887.

After the publication of Ferguson's collection of poems, Lays of the Western Gael, in 1865, he was awarded an honoris causa by Trinity. He wrote many of his poems with Irish and English translations and received a knighthood in 1878.

In 1882 Samuel Ferguson was elected president of the Royal Irish Academy, an organization dedicated to the advancement of science, literature, and archaeological research. His home on North Great George Street in Dublin was open to anyone interested in art, literature, antiquities or music.

Samuel Ferguson died on August 9, 1886, at Hout and was buried at Donegor in County Antrim, Ireland.

Sources

1. Samuel Ferguson
2. Фергюсон, Сэмюэл
3. ^ "Sir Samuel Ferguson". Northern Ireland Literary Archives. 15 June 2016. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
4. 1 2 3 4 Samuel Ferguson // Internet Speculative Fiction Database (англ.) — 1995.
5. 1 2 3 4 Samuel Ferguson // Brockhaus Enzyklopädie (нем.) / Hrsg.: Bibliographisches Institut & F. A. Brockhaus, Wissen Media Verlag
6. 1 2 3 4 ФЕРГЮСОН // Большая российская энциклопедия — М.: Большая российская энциклопедия, 2004.
7. 1 2 Фергюсон, Самюэль // Энциклопедический словарь — СПб.: Брокгауз — Ефрон, 1902. — Т. XXXVа. — С. 567.
8. «Sir Samuel Ferguson. In Memoriam». The Irish Monthly. The Irish Monthly Vol. 14, No. 160 (Irish Jesuit Province). 14 (160): 529—536. 1 October 1886. JSTOR 20497465.
9. ^ [a b] Internet Speculative Fiction Database, Samuel Ferguson, läst: 9 oktober 2017.[källa från Wikidata]
10. ^ [a b] Bibliographisches Institut & F. A. Brockhaus & Wissen Media Verlag (red.), Brockhaus Enzyklopädie, Samuel Ferguson, läst: 9 oktober 2017.[källa från Wikidata]