Early Life and Education
Buchan was the first child of John Buchan— a Free Church of Scotland minister— and Helen Jane Buchan. Born in Perth, Buchan was brought up in Kirkcaldy, Fife, and spent many summer holidays with his grandparents in Broughton, in the Scottish Borders. There he developed a love of walking, as well as for the local scenery and wildlife, which often featured in his novels; the name of a protagonist in several of Buchan's books— Sir Edward Leithen— is borrowed from the Leithen Water, a tributary of the River Tweed.
After attending Hutchesons' Grammar School, Buchan was awarded a scholarship to the University of Glasgow at age 17, where he studied classics, wrote poetry, and became a published author. With a junior Hulme scholarship, he moved on in 1895 to study Literae Humaniores (the Oxonian term for the Classics) at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he befriended a number of individuals, including Hilaire Belloc, Raymond Asquith, and Aubrey Herbert. Buchan won both the Stanhope essay prize, in 1897, and the Newdigate Prize for poetry the following year, as well as being elected as the president of the Oxford Union and having six of his works published. It was at around the time of his graduation from Oxford that Buchan had his first portrait painted, done in 1900 by a young Sholto Johnstone Douglas.
Read more about this topic: John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir
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