Allan Ramsay, 1686-1758

Allan Ramsay (1686 - 1758) Allan Ramsay was born in Leadhills, Lanarkshire in 1685. He was apprenticed as a wigmaker in Edinburgh c 1704, on completion of which (1709), he opened his own shop in the Grassmarket area of the city.

He became increasingly involved in Edinburgh intellectual and literary circles from 1710, and in 1712 co-founded the Easy Club, a society with strong Jacobite leanings which met to discuss literature and politics. Many of Ramsay's early poems received their first public airing when read aloud to club members, and by 1720 he had given up his wig-making business and set up as a bookseller. In 1725 he moved to premises in the High Street where he opened what is generally regarded as Britain's first circulating library.

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