David Mather Masson was born in Aberdeen in 1822. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and then he studied at Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he graduated with degree of MA in 1839. He then went to Edinburgh University to study Divinity with the intention of entering the Church, but he gave up his studies. Masson then pursued a literary career, first in Aberdeen, then Edinburgh, then in London. He became Professor of English Literature at University College, London, in 1853, a post which he held for some twelve years. Then, in 1865, he was elected to the Regius Chair of Rhetoric and English Literature at Edinburgh University. While at Edinburgh University, Masson took a prominent part in the fight for the university education of women and he was the first professor to lecture to classes organised by the Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association.
Masson's publications include British novelists and their styles: being a critical sketch of the history of British prose fiction (1859), and the multi-volume The life of John Milton: narrated in connexion with the political, ecclesiastical, and literary history of his time (1859-1894).
In 1893, Masson was appointed Historiographer Royal for Scotland. He resigned his Chair at the University in 1895. Professor David Mather Masson died in 1907.
Offering a glimpse of Masson's well-attended lectures are the notes taken in 1868 by the Physician, James Allan Gray, born in 1854. Gray was awarded the degree of MA in 1872 and obtained a Bachelor of Medicine and Master in Surgery in 1876 and became registered in Scotland in that year, on August 2. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine with a gold medal in 1880. Gray became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicans of Edinburgh in 1881. James Allan Gray practised in Leith for 51 years and died in 1930.
From the guide to the Lectures of Professor David Mather Masson (1822-1907), 1868-1889, (Edinburgh University Library)
