James Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd

Renowned Scottish poet James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, is honoured in this special exhibition at Bowhill.

James Hogg was born in 1770, sharing a birth date with that other literary son of South Scotland Robert Burns (25th January).   Hogg lived and worked most of his life in the Scottish Borders.

He attended school only briefly, mainly because when he was seven, his father, tenant farmer Robert Hogg, was declared bankrupt, and the young James took work as a cowherd to supplement his family’s income.

As a young man Hogg worked as a shepherd in Selkirkshire and Dumfriesshire, becoming interested in literature in his early twenties, when he attempted writing songs and poems, some of which were published in The Scots Magazine.

He moved to Edinburgh in 1810 to pursue a career as a full-time man of letters, after having published poetry and non-fiction while maintaining his day-job as a shepherd. However, in 1813 he returned to Selkirkshire, where he lived and worked in the Duke of Buccleuch's Altrive Farm in Yarrow.

Hogg continued to publish regularly while maintaining a contentious relationship with the Edinburgh literati, including his friend and some-time mentor, Walter Scott.

He is probably best known for his novel, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, published in 1824.

Hogg continued to write, publish and farm until his death in 1835. He was buried in Ettrick Churchyard, appropriately next to his grandfather, Will o’ Phaup, who is reputed to have been the last man to converse with the fairies.