vote of 60,000l. for foundling hospitals. After this he practised some time at Sheffield, but returned to Edinburgh about 1766, and practised for some years with success. Ferguson, the well-known popular lecturer on natural philosophy, at his death left Buchan his valuable apparatus. Buchan thereupon began to lecture on the subject, and drew large classes for some years. In 1769 appeared, at the low price of six shillings, the first edition of his 'Domestic Medicine; or the Family Physician,' the first work of its kind in this country. Its success was immediate and great. Nineteen large editions, amounting to at least eighty thousand copies, were sold in Great Britain in the author’s lifetime; and the book continues to be re-edited, as well as largely copied in similar works. It was translated into all the principal European languages, including Russian, and was more universally popular on the continent and in America than even in England. The Empress of Russia sent Buchan a gold medal and a commendatory letter. It is said that Buchan sold the copyright for 700l., and that the publishers made as much profit yearly by it. Having unsuccessfully sought to succeed the elder Gregory on his death, Buchan in 1778 removed to London, where he gained a considerable practice; less, however, than his fame might have brought him but for his convivial and social habits. He regularly practised at the Chapter Coffee-house, near St. Paul’s, to which literary men were then wont to resort. Full of anecdote, of agreeable manners, benevolent and compassionate, he was unsuited to make or keep a fortune: a tale of woe always drew tears from his eyes and money from his pocket. About a year before his death his excellent constitution began to give way, and he died at his son’s house in Percy Street, Rathbone Place, on 25 Feb. 1805, in his seventy-sixth year. He was buried in the cloisters at Westminster Abbey.
Among his minor works are ‘Cautions concerning Cold Bathing and Drinking Mineral Waters,’ 1786; ‘Observations concerning the Prevention and Cure of the Venereal Disease,’ 1796; ‘Observations concerning the Diet of the Common People,’ 1797; ‘On the Offices and Duties of a Mother,’ 1800.
[New Catalogue of Living English Authors (1799), i. 352; Gent. Mag. lxxv. pt. i. 286-8, 378-80; European Mag. xlvii. 167.]
BUCHANAN, ANDREW (1690–1759), of Drumpellier, lord provost of Glasgow, was descended from a branch of the old family of Buchanan of Buchanan and Leny. He was the second of four sons of George Buchanan, maltster, Glasgow, one of the covenanters who fought at Bothwell Bridge, and Mary, daughter of Gabriel Maxwell, merchant, and was born in 1690. His name appears in M‘Ure's list of the ‘First Merchant Adventurers at Sea’ (View of the City of Glasgow, p. 209), and by his trade with Virginia, where he had a tobacco plantation, he became one of the wealthiest citizens of his day. In 1735 he purchased the estate of Drumpellier, Lanarkshire, and the older portion of Drumpellier house was built by him in 1736. Adjoining Glasgow he purchased three small properties in what was then known as the ‘Long Croft,’ the first purchase being made in 1719, the second in 1732, and the third in 1740 (Glasgow, Past and Present, ii. 196). Through his grounds he opened an avenue for gentlemen’s houses, which he named Virginia Street, and he planned a town house for himself called Virginia Mansion, which he did not live to complete. Along with his three brothers he founded in 1725 the Buchanan Society for the assistance of apprentices and the support of widows of the name of Buchanan. He was also one of the original partners of the Ship Bank, founded in 1750. He was elected dean of guild in 1728, and lord provost in 1740. When after the battle of Prestonpans John Hay, quarter-master of the Pretender, arrived at Glasgow with a letter demanding a loan of 15,000l., Buchanan and five others were chosen commissioners to treat with him, and succeeded in obtaining a reduction to 5,500l. (Memorabilia of Glasgow, p. 361). On account of his zeal in raising new levies on behalf of the government, Buchanan made himself so obnoxious to the rebels that in December 1745 a special levy of 500l. was made on him under threats of plundering his house, to which he replied ‘they might plunder his house if they pleased, but he would not pay one farthing’ (Scots Mag. viii. 30). He died 20 Dec. 1759. By his wife, Marion Montgomery, he left two sons and four daughters.
[Old Country Houses of the Old Glasgow Gentry, 2nd ed. pp. 186-8; Cochrane Correspondence, pp. 107, 114, 132; Glasgow, Past and Present, ii. 196; Scots Mag. viii. 30, xxi. 663.]
BUCHANAN, Sir ANDREW (1807–1882), diplomatist, only son of James Buchanan of Blairvadoch, Ardinconnal, Dumbartonshire, and Janet, eldest daughter of James Sinclair, twelfth earl of Caithness, was born 7 May 1807, entered the diplomatic service 10 Oct. 1825, and was attached to the embassy at Constantinople. On 13 Nov. 1830
