James Nichol

James Nichol (1806–1866) was a Scottish publisher in Edinburgh.

Life

He was born in Brechin,[1] the younger brother of John Pringle Nichol, whose 1855 book The Planet Neptune he published.[2] Their parents were John Nichol from Northumberland, a gentleman farmer, and his wife Jane Forbes from Ellon, Aberdeenshire;[3] John Nichol became a Glasgow merchant.[2]

James Nichol was apprenticed to John Smith, a bookseller in Montrose. He then went into business in Montrose with his brother Davidson Nichol, a stationer. He moved to Edinburgh and the firm of John Johnstone, later Johnstone & Hunter. In 1850 he set up his own publishing company.[2] In 1851 he attended the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland for the Presbytery of Brechin.[4]

Nichol was buried in The Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh.[5] After his death, the business was carried on by his son John D. Nichol.[2][6]

Works

Nichol's publications included:

Literature

Protestantism

Nichol was an elder of the Free Church of Scotland special committee on Popery.[11]

Begg was the editor from 1851 of The Bulwark, or Reformation Journal, the organ of the Scottish Reformation Society, which was published by Nichol.[12][13] It has been called "the Victorian era's most influential anti-Catholic periodical".[14] Witness published on 4 October 1851 an advertisement for the fourth issue of Bulwark, by Nichol, with messages of support from Hugh M'Neile, Hugh Stowell, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, Arthur Kinnaird and others.[15]

Standard Divines of the Puritan Period

Author Date Title Volumes Editors etc. References
Thomas Adams 1861–1862 Works 3 Joseph Angus [1][2][3]
[16]
Thomas Brooks 1866–1867 Complete Works 6 Alexander Balloch Grosart [4][5][6][7][8][9]
[17][18]
Stephen Charnock 1864–1866 Complete Works 5 Introduction by James M'Cosh [10][11][12][13][14]
David Clarkson 1864–1865 The Practical Works 3 [15][16][17]
[19]
Thomas Goodwin 1861–1866 Complete Works 12 Preface by Canon John Cale Miller, Life by Robert Halley [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]
[20][21][22][23][24]
Richard Sibbes 1862–1864 Complete Works 7 Alexander Balloch Grosart [30][31][32][33][34][35][36]
Henry Smith 1866–1867 Works 2 Life by Thomas Fuller [37][38]
Thomas Manton 1870–1875 Complete Works 22 Memoir William Harris, essay by J. C. Ryle Uniform with the series, but published by James Nisbet, London: [39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60]

This reprint series began in 1861, when the Library of English Poets was complete.[2] It was under the supervision of a Council of Publication, consisting of William Lindsay Alexander, Thomas Jackson Crawford, William Cunningham (later replaced by James Begg), David Thomas Kerr Drummond, William Henry Goold and Andrew Thomson. The General Editor was Thomas Smith.[25][26] It has been stated that behind the project were "both a respect for the Puritan divines and a larger cultural ambience that reflected a hunger to reproduce the past."[27]

In his closing address as Moderator of the General Assembly for the Free Church of Scotland, Begg said

Here let me very strongly urge the careful perusal of those noble works of the old Puritans published by my friend Mr. Nichol, and so ably edited by my friend the Rev. Thomas Smith. I know nothing more fitted to elevate the tone of our pulpit, next to a complete mastery of the Word of God, than an earnest study of the works of men so honoured of God, so mighty in the Scriptures, and in the spiritual anatomy of the human soul, as the Goodwins, Clarksons, Adamses, and Sibbses of ancient times.[28]

The series was supplemented by Biblical commentaries, beginning with one by Henry Airay.[29]

Family

Nichol in 1851 married, with James Begg officiating, Mary Fraser, daughter of Thomas Fraser of Lodge Lane, Liverpool.[30] Her father, who died in 1835, was a slave-owner in Demerara; her mother was Elizabeth Brotherson.[31] A legal case in the Court of Session in 1879 gave Fraser family details. All four of Thomas Fraser's children were illegitimate. At the time the case was brought, Mary Nichol was 59, and her son James Thomas Nichol was 25, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Peter McLagan was one of the trustees of an agreement of 1842 with William Fraser, brother of Thomas, for the payment of annuities to the children of Thomas.[32]

James Nichol's son John Davidson Nichol was born in 1834.[33]

Notes

  1. ^ Boase, Frederic (1897). Modern English Biography: Containing Many Thousand Concise Memiors of Persons who Have Died Since the Year 1850, with an Index of the Most Interesting Matter. Netherton and Worth, For the author. p. 1131.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "The Late Mr. James Nichol, Publisher". Bookseller. 31 May 1866. p. 9.
  3. ^ Burnett, John. "Nichol, John Pringle". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/20084. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ Free Church of Scotland Assembly (1852). Acts of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, Etc. 1843-54. p. 288.
  5. ^ Rogers, Charles; Club, Grampian (1871). Monuments and Monumental Inscriptions in Scotland. Grampian Club. p. 154.
  6. ^ Publishers' circular and booksellers' record. 1866. p. 314.
  7. ^ Pittock, Murray G. H. "Nichol, John (1833–1894)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/20083. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  8. ^ Landor, Walter Savage (1897). Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor. R. Bentley and son. p. 256.
  9. ^ Landor, Walter Savage (1859). The Hellenics of Walter Savage Landor. J. Nichol.
  10. ^ Notes and Queries: A Medium of Inter-Communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, Etc. Bell. 1873. p. 373.
  11. ^ The Free Church of Scotland Monthly Record. T. Nelson & Sons. 1863. p. 883.
  12. ^ Wolffe, John. "Begg, James (1808–1883)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/1959. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  13. ^ Scottish Reformation Society (1864). The Position of Popery in Great Britain. p. 2.
  14. ^ Burstein, Miriam Elizabeth (July 2017). ""In Ten Years There Is an Increase of 450 Priests of Antichrist": Quantification, Anti-Catholicism, and the Bulwark". Journal of British Studies. 56 (3): 580–604. doi:10.1017/jbr.2017.65.
  15. ^ "The Bulwark, or Reformation Journal". Witness (Edinburgh). 4 October 1851. p. 1.
  16. ^ Fox, Henry J. (1876). The Student's Common-place Book: a Cyclopedia of Illustration and Fact, Topically Arranged: English literature. Barnes. p. vii.
  17. ^ Sherbo, Arthur. "Grosart, Alexander Balloch (1827–1899)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11659. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  18. ^ Palmer, Keith (22 May 2025). John Newton's Theology of Suffering and Its Application to Pastoral Care. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 105. ISBN 979-8-3852-3938-2.
  19. ^ Clarkson, David (1864). The Practical Works. Nichol's series of standard divines, Puritan period. James Nichol ; James Nisbet and Co. ; W. Robertson.
  20. ^ Haykin, Michael A. G.; Jones, Mark (20 July 2011). Drawn into Controversie: Reformed Theological Diversity and Debates Within Seventeenth-Century British Puritanism. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. p. 316. ISBN 978-3-647-56945-1.
  21. ^ Goodwin, Thomas (1861). The Works of Thomas Goodwin. Vol. I. Edinburgh: J. Nichol. pp. vii–xxviii.
  22. ^ Clarkson, David (1865). The practical works of David Clarkson. Edinburgh: J. Nichol.
  23. ^ Goodwin, Thomas; Halley, Robert (1861–1866). The works of Thomas Goodwin. Vol. II. Edinburgh: J. Nichol. pp. ix–xlviii.
  24. ^ The British and Foreign Evangelical Review. Johnstone & Hunter. 1867. p. 211.
  25. ^ Goodwin, Thomas; Halley, Robert (1861–1866). The Works of Thomas Goodwin. Edinburgh: J. Nichol. p. n5.
  26. ^ Gouge, William (1866). A commentary on the whole Epistle to the Hebrews : being the substance of thirty years' Wednesday's lectures at Blackfriars, London. Edinburgh: J. Nichol. p. n5.
  27. ^ Barrett, Matthew; Haykin, Michael A. G. (30 September 2015). Owen on the Christian Life: Living for the Glory of God in Christ. Crossway. p. 202. ISBN 978-1-4335-3731-8.
  28. ^ "Special Duties and Dangers of the Free Church of Scotland. The James Begg Society". www.nesherchristianresources.org.
  29. ^ Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle. 1864. p. 822.
  30. ^ "Marriages". Witness (Edinburgh). 10 May 1851. p. 3.
  31. ^ "Thomas Fraser ???? - 1835, Legacies of British Slavery". www.ucl.ac.uk.
  32. ^ Scotland Court of Session (1879). Cases Decided in the Court of Session, Court of Justiciary, and House of Lords. Scottish Council of Law Reporting. p. 591.
  33. ^ "4513. John Forster to RB, Correspondence, Brownings' Correspondence". www.browningscorrespondence.com.
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