Arthur Edmondston

Arthur Edmondston , doctor, Lerwick Town Councillor and author of A View of the Ancient and Present State of the Zetland Islands (2 vols., 1809), two treatises on opthalmia, and other works. He was born on the 10th of November, 1775, the eldest son of Laurence Edmondston , merchant in Fetlar, and Mary Sanderson of Buness House, Unst. Edmondston studied medicine in Edinburgh, becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. He then served as an army surgeon in Egypt under Sir Ralph Abercromby, and subsequently settled in Lerwick, where he was a well-known and notoriously litigous figure. He was the uncle of Thomas Edmondston and Jessie M. E. Saxby. Arthur Edmondston also published Observations on the nature and extent of the cod fishery carried on off the coasts of the Zetland and Orkney Islands, Edinburgh, 1820. He died on 17 February 1841 in Lerwick. Arthur's brother, Laurence, had a great-grandson, also called Laurence, who represented Unst in the Zetland County Council.