Carlyle was born in Ecclefechan, a village five miles north
of Annan, in Dumfries and Galloway, which today lies close to the
M74. The house in which he was born is preserved as a museum by
the National Trust for Scotland. His father was a stonemason and
farmer, and the household in which Carlyle grew up was strictly
Calvinistic. As a 15 year old, Carlyle went to Edinburgh
University, obtaining his degree in 1813.
Thomas Carlyle lived from 4 December 1795 to 5 February 1881.
He was an essayist, satirist, and historian whose work was hugely
influential during the Victorian era (his entry in the the
Victorian Dictionary of National Biography covered 20 pages) and
his collected works, published in 1974, ran to 30 volumes: yet he is
also a man who by modern standards is very difficult to categorise.
The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical
Timeline.
