Sir Thomas Dick Lauder

Born in Edinburgh on 13 August 1784, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder inherited the baronetcy of Fountainhall and built a wide-ranging career as an author, antiquarian, and amateur artist. He wrote during a period when readers were becoming fascinated by Scotland’s past and its dramatic landscapes, and he became one of the writers who helped feed that interest.

He is especially associated with books on the Highlands and Scottish life, including travel writing, historical sketches, and works that mixed observation with local tradition. Lauder also wrote an important early account of the great Highland flood in Moray in 1829, a work valued both for its eyewitness detail and for the way it captured the human impact of the disaster.

Alongside his writing, he took a serious interest in art, natural history, and public life. He died in 1848, but his books still offer a lively window into how 19th-century Scotland was seen, remembered, and imagined.