George Buist (journalist)

George Buist FRSE FRS FRSSA FGS LL.D. (1805–1860) was a Scottish journalist and scientist. He was editor of the Bombay Times.

He was the son of the Rev. J. Buist, born at Tannadice, Forfarshire, on 22 November 1805.

After studying at St. Salvator's College, St. Andrews, at St. Mary's College, and Edinburgh University, he was licensed in 1826 as a preacher. He preached irregularly for six years, delivered a course of lectures on natural philosophy at St. Andrews town hall in 1832.

In 1832, also, Buist became editor of the Dundee Courier (later the Constitutional). He left it in 1834, and set up the Dundee Guardian on his own account, and also the Scottish Agricultural Magazine. He was invited to edit the Perth Constitutional in 1835. After a visit to London in 1837, and two years' management of the Fifeshire Journal, he accepted in 1839 the post of editor of the Bombay Times.

Buist was at the Bombay Times for 20 years. He used its columns to argue against retaliation after the Afghan uprising of 1842. After the loss of his first wife in 1845, he went back to the United Kingdom for a few months, and over the period 1845–6 became a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was admitted to six other learned societies.

In January 1846 Buist was back again at the Bombay Times, where he continued as editor. He went on leave to the United Kingdom again in 1856, leaving Robert Knight in charge.

From January 1858 Buist ran the Bombay Standard; he had been sacked by the proprietors of the Bombay Times, who were Parsis, for hate speech against Indians in the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

In 1859 Buist retired from journalism to take up a government appointment at Allahabad. He died at sea, en route to Calcutta on 1 October 1860.

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