Hugh Miller

Hugh Miller was born in 1802 in a thatched cottage built a century before by his great grandfather, a small-time buccaneer. From the size and shape of the baby’s head the midwife predicted that Hugh was destined to become the village idiot!

Miller was only five years old when his father was lost at sea and, a decade later, both his young sisters died. He considered himself ‘a wild and insubordinate boy’, but found a mentor in his uncle Sandy Wright. ‘There are professors of Natural History that know less about living nature’. Above all his uncle taught him ‘the habit of observation’. Armed with his great grandfather’s hammer the boy developed an abiding interest in rocks and fossils as he roamed the coast and hills. Once he was cut off in a cave by the tide, and had to be rescued by some passing fishermen.

Miller widened his geological horizons with visits to Lairg, where his cousin George was ‘the one whose pursuits most nearly resembled my own, and in whose society I most delighted to share’. Bad weather virtually closed down the building industry in winter, so as a stonemason, George was free to follow his diverse, intellectual interests.