Peter Neilson (poet)

On his return to Scotland, Neilson published Six Years' Residence in America, 1828.^[1] It includes his visits to New York City in the 1822 outbreak of yellow fever,^[2][3] and to Harlem,^[4] and details, now considered exaggerated, of the Lavinia Fisher murders in Charleston, where he claimed to have been in 1820.^[5] He visited also Philadelphia, and New Orleans where he attended religious services.^[6]

Neilson wrote poetry, and The Millennium and Scripture Gems were published in 1834. His collected Poems, edited with memoir by Dr. William Whitelaw, appeared in 1870.^[1]

Neilson edited, or wrote, The Life and Adventures of Zamba, an African King; and his Experiences of Slavery in South Carolina (1846). Ostensibly this was a slave narrative by Zamba Zembola only edited by Neilson. He also contributed to the Glasgow Herald a series of articles on Cotton Supply for Britain.^[1]

In 1846 Neilson proposed improvements on the life-buoy to the Admiralty. On 8 January 1848 he wrote to Lord John Russell, suggesting iron-plated ships, and 1855 he corresponded further on the subject with Lord Panmure and Admiral Earl Hardwicke. After the building of HMS Warrior and HMS Black Prince, Neilson summed up his views in Remarks on Iron-built Ships of War and Iron-plated Ships of War, 1861. Shortly afterwards he published another pamphlet, on the defence of unfortified cities such as London.^[1]

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1894). "Neilson, Peter". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 40. London: Smith, Elder & Co.