Topic: Robert Chambers

Robert Chambers (10 July 1802 – 17 March 1871) was a Scottish author, journal editor and publisher who, like his elder brother William Chambers of Glenormiston the publisher and politician, was highly influential in the mid-19th century in both scientific and political circles. He was the anonymous author of the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, which was so controversial in that religion-dominated era that his authorship was not acknowledged until after his death.

Robert and his elder brother William were both born in the rural country town of Peebles in the Scottish Borders at the turn of the 19th century. The town had changed little in centuries. There was an old part of town and a new part of town, each consisting of little more than a single street. Peebles was mainly inhabited by weavers and labourers living in thatched cottages. His father, James Chambers, made his living as a cotton manufacturer. Their slate-roofed house was built by James Chambers' father as a wedding gift for his son, and the ground floor served as the family workshop.

A small circulating library in the town, run by Alexander Elder, introduced Robert to books and developed his literary interests when he was young. Occasionally his father would buy books for the family library, and one day Robert found a complete set of the fourth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica hidden away in a chest in the attic. He eagerly read this for many years. Near the end of his life, Chambers remembered feeling "a profound thankfulness that such a convenient collection of human knowledge existed, and that here it was spread out like a well-plenished table before me." William later recalled that for Robert, "the acquisition of knowledge was with him the highest of earthly enjoyments."