Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Macdiarmid, John

1447554Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 35 — Macdiarmid, John1893Thomas Wilson Bayne

MACDIARMID, JOHN (1779–1808), journalist and author, was born in 1779 at Weem, Perthshire, where his father, James Macdiarmid (1743–1828), was parish minister. His mother was Catherine, only child of John Buik, minister of Tannadice, Forfarshire. A brother, James, was an officer in the army (Hew Scott, Fasti Eccl. Scot. pt. iv. p. 817). After receiving elementary education at home, he studied at Edinburgh and St. Andrews Universities, and for a short time was a private tutor. In 1801 he settled in London as a man of letters. There he wrote for various periodicals, and edited the 'St. James's Chronicle.' When war with France broke out in 1802 he specially studied the subject of national defence, and in 1805 published, in two volumes, 'An Enquiry into the System of National Defence in Great Britain,' deprecating the substitution of volunteers for a strong standing army. In 1806 appeared his 'Enquiry into the Principles of Civil and Military Subordination,' skillfully treated, and in 1807 a friend helped him to issue, in a handsome quarto, his useful 'Lives of British Statesmen,' reprinted 1820, 2 vols., and 1838, 1 vol.

Macdiarmid, who was always in poverty, died in London of paralysis, 7 April 1808.

[Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen; D'Israeli's Calamities of Authors.]

T. B.