Scotch journalist and author, born at Dumfries on the 5th of November 1799, where he was educated and apprenticed to a bookseller and bookbinder. After his apprenticeship he went to Huntingdon, where he was the master of the national school, and published a History of Huntingdon. In 1828 he went to Inverness and conducted the Inverness Courier, one of the leading weekly journals of the north. Here he “discovered” Hugh Miller, many of whose earliest writings appeared in the Courier. Carruthers became associated with Robert Chambers in the publication of the Cyclopædia of English Literature, and contributed numerous articles to this Encyclopædia. He was for several years lecturer at the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh, and received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Edinburgh University. He published a Life of Pope in 1858, and edited that poet’s works. He died on the 26th of May 1878. (See authored article: David Garrick.)
