Joseph Laing Waugh (1868–1928) was a Scottish businessman and writer.
Life
Waugh was born in Thornhill, Dumfries and Galloway on 17 April 1868. He moved to Edinburgh around 1890 where he ran a successful wallpaper business.[1] He lived at 3 Comiston Drive in the south-west of the city.[2] His great love however was writing. His work is sentimental in nature and largely consists of humorous biographies of characters from Dumfries and Galloway.[3]
He died in Edinburgh on 22 November 1928. He is buried in Dean Cemetery in western Edinburgh.[4] The grave lies under a tree in the south-east section behind the grave of Samuel Bough. It has a portrait medallion by the sculptor William Birnie Rhind. Waugh is also memorialised at 19 East Morton Street, Thornhill, with a bust by Henry Snell Gamley completed after Gamley’s death by Rhind.[5]
Publications
Thornhill and Its Worthies (1905 plus several later editions)
Robbie Doo (1912) (Robbie Doo was a stone-mason in Thornhill)
Robert Burns: A Poem (1912)
Cracks Wi' Robbie Doo (1914)
Betty Grier (1915)
Cute McCheyne and Other Stories (1917)
Heroes in Homespun (1921)
And A Little Child Shall Lead Them
Family
He was married to Isabelle Goldie (1876-1949).
Artistic recognition
A bust of Waugh is placed on a building in his home town of Thornhill.[6] A portrait also exists in the Dumfries Museum.[7]
In August 2010 a lecture on Waugh was presented to the Thornhill branch of Rotary International.[8]
