Skip to main content
James Boswell .info logo James Boswell .info
  • James Boswell
  • Biographies
  • FAQ
  • Forum
  • Literature
  • Original sources
  • Scholars
  • About the site
Home

Joseph Ferguson - tutor to James Boswell and Vicar of Tundergarth Parish

Biography


Birth: 1718
Death: 1791

Resident tutor to James Boswell (and his brothers) from 1752 to sometime in the mid-1750s. Licensed in 1759, he was ordained vicar of Tundergarth Parish, Annandale, Dumfriesshire on 17/9-1761. Among his parishioners were John Johnston, whom he visited several times during the disease which eventually led to his (Johnston's) death.

Life with James Boswell

Boswell gives a description of Ferguson as a tutor, in a letter to John Johnston (July 21, 1763) as follows "I would remind you of Mr. Joseph Fergusson, of his velvet bretches, his grizly Wig and his Speech concerning Kate Straton: Of his systematical morality which he learnt from Professor Hutchison, his excellent Equivocations, and his bawdy narrations." They corresponded on and off until Fergusons's death.

Mentioned in

Joseph Ferguson is mentioned in:

  • London Journal 1762-1763

  • Add new comment
Google
Custom Search

Random biographies

William Robertson
George Keith
Alexander Bruce
Johann Heinrich Samuel Formey
Friedrich von Anhalt
James Bruce
John Gordon
Alexander Wedderburn
John McCulloch
August, Prince of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg

Did you know?

James Boswell died in 1795 believing he had touched and kissed a cache of Shakespeare's original letters and papers discovered by a Mr. Ireland. His friend, Edmond Malone, publicly exposed the lot as a forgery just a year later.

(C) Thomas Frandzen 2004-2010