Gilbert Goudie

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Gilbert Goudie, F.S.A

Braefield House, built by Gilbert Goudie the elder

Gilbert Goudie, F.S.A

Gilbert Goudie, Shetland author and antiquarian, was born on the 23rd of April, 1843, at Clumlie in Dunrossness, the tenth child of local landowner Gilbert Goudie and his wife Jean Black. Gilbert inherited the Braefield estate under the terms of his father's settlement and rose to become the Inspector of Branches for the National Bank of Scotland, retiring in 1909. He was based in Edinburgh.

Goudie was married on the 8th September 1881 to Anna Anderson (daughter of John Anderson of Horselaw, and widow of William Ross of Greenside in Fife), and they had two children: Gilbert John (born 31st December, 1884, died 26th April 1899), and Mary Matilda Goudie (born 20th June 1886, died in infancy). The family lived at 39 Northumberland Street, in Edinburgh's New Town.

Goudie wed a second time on 18th November, 1916, to Anna Margarita Jean Young, daughter of James Young, M.D., 14 Ainslie Place, Edinburgh.

Goudie traveled widely, visiting most of the countries on the Continent and Iceland. In 1872 he received a semi-private audience with Pope Pius IX at the Vatican. He was presented to the King of Denmark in the Amalienburg Palace, Copenhagen, in 1912.

Goudie was well known as an antiquary, as an authority on Shetland history, and as a Scandinavian scholar, shared interests with his friend Arthur Laurenson. With Jon Hjaltalin he produced the first translation into English of Orkneyinga Saga. He became treasurer of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and contributed numerous papers to their proceedings. Most of them were collected in his Celtic and Scandinavian Antiquities of Shetland in 1904.

Goudie died on the 8th of January 1918 in Edinburgh. His correspondence with the Faroese philologist Jakob Jakobsen was edited by E. S. Reid Tait and published in Two Translations from the Dano-Norwegian in 1953.

Works by Gilbert Goudie

The Orkneyinga Saga, Translated from the Icelandic by Jon A. Hjaltalin and Gilbert Goudie. Edited with Notes and Introduction by Joseph Anderson, LL.D., Edmonson and Douglas, Edinburgh, 1873.

The Ancient Local Government of the Shetland Islands, Universitets Isbileets Danckle & Saamfund, Copenhagen, 1886.

Glossary of Shetland terms (in Broken Lights, Poems and Reminiscences of Basil Ramsey Anderson), R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh, 1888.

The Diary of the Reverend John Mill, Minister of Dunrossness, Sandwick, and Cunningsburgh, Shetland, 1740-1823. with selections from local records and original documents relating to the District, edited with Introduction and Notes by Gilbert Goudie, F. S. A. Scot., Printed by F. & A. Constable for the Scottish History Society, Edinburgh, 1889.

The Ancient Church in Shetland, The Scots Magazine, March, 1891.

The Norsemen in Shetland, Saga Book of the Viking Club, London, 1895-96.

The Celtic and Scandinavian Antiquities of Shetland, William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1904.

Ecclesiastical Antiquities of the Southern parishes of Shetland, reprinted from the Society of Antiquaries's Transactions for private circulation, 1912.

David Laing, LL.D. Memoir of His Life and Literary Works with introduction by Lord Guthrie, printed for private circulation by F. & A. Constable, Edinburgh, 1913.

Numerous papers contributed, during more than forty years from 1871, to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and printed in their "Proceedings."

Notices in the "Scottish Historical Review," from time to time, of Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic books, when issued.