S.R. Crockett

Born the son of a Galloway farmer in Balmaghie, Kirkcudbrightshire, in 1859, Samuel Rutherford Crockett went to school in Castle Douglas and graduated from Edinburgh University in 1879. After travelling across Europe as a tutor he became a minister of the Free Church in Penicuik in 1886. In the same year he published a collection of verse entitled 'Dulce Cor'. It was the first of many publications including many novels which were mostly historical tales based in Scotland, mostly the south west of the country especially his beloved Galloway. He soon gave up the ministry and concentrated on his writing.