John Howie

Born at Lochgoin in Ayrshire on November 14, 1735, he was a Scottish biographer and farmer whose life remained closely tied to the covenanting traditions of southwest Scotland. He is chiefly remembered for Biographia Scoticana, first published in 1775 and widely known as The Scots Worthies.

His book gathered the lives and testimonies of notable Scottish Christians, especially Presbyterians who resisted pressure from church and state authorities. That work gave him a lasting place in Scottish religious history, not because he wrote from public fame or university life, but because he brought together stories that many readers wanted preserved.

Accounts of his life describe him as spending most of it in relative obscurity at or near the family farm of Lochgoin. He died on January 5, 1793, but his best-known book continued to be reprinted and read long after his lifetime.