Hugh Miller: Stonemason, Geologist, Writer

This biography of Hugh Miller by Michael Taylor covers his life from stonemason, through geologist and newspaper editor to husband  and father.

Hugh Miller was an important figure in Scottish society championing the right of ordinary men and women; criticizing the Highland Clearances and supporting the right of communities to appoint their own Minister of Religion. A self-taught geologist who was in correspondence with Charles Darwin and gained an international reputation, he visited Orkney 1846 and labelled it the ‘land of the fishes’, so numerous were the fossiliferous deposits he found. One of the fossils, the asterolepis, he wanted kept in Stromness, a now called ‘homosteus milleri’ is still displayed in the fossil cabinet in the museum.