Family
Brewster married twice. His first wife, Juliet Macpherson (c. 1776–1850), was a daughter of James Macpherson (1736–1796), a probable translator of Ossian poems. They married on 31 July 1810 in Edinburgh and had four sons and a daughter:
- James (1812–)
- Charles Macpherson (1813–1828), drowned.
- David Edward Brewster (17 August 1815 –) became a military officer (Lieutenant Colonel) serving in India.
- Henry Craigie (1816–) became a photographer.
- Margaret Maria Gordon (1823–1907) wrote a book on Brewster, which is considered the most comprehensive description of his life.
Brewster married second time in Nice, on 26 (or 27) March 1857, to Jane Kirk Purnell (b. 1827), the second daughter of Thomas Purnell of Scarborough. Brewster died in 1868, and was buried at Melrose Abbey, next to his first wife and second son. The physics building at Heriot-Watt University is named in his honour.
Read more about this topic: David Brewster
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“Being so wrong about her makes me wonder now how often I am utterly wrong about myself. And how wrong she might have been about her mother, how wrong he might have been about his father, how much of family life is a vast web of misunderstandings, a tinted and touched-up family portrait, an accurate representation of fact that leaves out only the essential truth.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“I swear ... to hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture.”
—Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.)
“Like plowing, housework makes the ground ready for the germination of family life. The kids will not invite a teacher home if beer cans litter the living room. The family isn’t likely to have breakfast together if somebody didn’t remember to buy eggs, milk, or muffins. Housework maintains an orderly setting in which family life can flourish.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)