George Thomson (musician)

George Thomson (1757–1851), born at Limekilns, Fife, Scotland, was a noted collector of the music of Scotland, a music publisher, and a friend of Robert Burns. He was clerk to the Board of Trustees in Edinburgh for sixty years. His A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the Voice came out in five volumes between 1799 and 1818, and included contributions from Burns, Walter Scott and Thomas Campbell. Thomson published folksong arrangements by Joseph Haydn,Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Nepomuk Hummel.

His father was the schoolmaster at Limekilns, Dunfermline, and he had some legal training. In 1780 he gained a clerical appointment with the Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Art and Manufactures in Scotland on the recommendation of John Home, and spent the rest of his career with this body set up under the Treaty of Union to promote Scottish trade with money given by Parliament in compensation for losses in the Darien Scheme and for taking on a share of England's national debt, eventually becoming Chief Clerk. He joined the Edinburgh Musical Society, playing the violin in the orchestra and singing in the choir. For 59 years he worked for the Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Art and Manufactures in Scotland. His daughter was the wife of editor and music publisher George Hogarth, and his granddaughter married the novelist Charles Dickens.

Thomson played in the orchestra of the St Cecilia Concerts, enjoying performances of Scots songs by Italian castrati visiting Scotland. This gave him the idea of bringing out a collection of Scots songs with new accompaniments and respectable words. In the summer of 1792 he got Andrew Erskine, younger brother of the composer the Earl of Kellie, to take part in the project, but about fifteen months later Erskine, with gambling debts, ended his life by jumping into the Firth of Forth.

...
Wikipedia