Robert Dick

Rarely is it ever obvious why someone from humble beginnings should – in an unlikely corner of the country and for no financial gain whatsoever - chose to devote all their spare energy into the pursuit of knowledge, especially in a minority interest such as natural history. Robert Dick is one such, a hard-working Thurso baker who roamed the bleak landscapes of Caithness towards the middle of the nineteenth century.

He was born in Clackmannanshire but lost his mother at an early age. Perhaps it was to escape his particularly harsh stepmother that he sought solace in the countryside around him. ‘All my naturally buoyant, youthful spirits were broken. To this day I feel the effects. I cannot shake them off. It is this that still makes me shrink from the world.’

He became apprenticed to a baker and when his father, an exciseman, was posted to Caithness, Robert was encouraged to set up a small bakery in Thurso.

His working day began at five in the morning but after slaving over his hot ovens all morning he left the shop in the hands of an old housekeeper and set out. He carried ‘three pounds of chisels in his trouser pocket, a four-pound hammer in one hand and a fourteen pound sledge-hammer in the other, and his old beaver-hat filled with paper and twine’. Often, laden with rock specimens, he would not return home until well after dark, ready to start work again only a few hours later. His Sunday walks attracted the disapproval of the local church but he refused to give them up.