Colin Macfarquhar (1744 or 1745? – 2 April 1793 or May 1793, Edinburgh?, Scotland)[1][2] was a Scottish bookseller and printer who is most known for co-founding Encyclopædia Britannica with Andrew Bell, first published in December 1768.[3][4] The dates of his birth and death remain uncertain, even to Britannica itself.[1]
Biography
Macfarquhar was born in Edinburgh to his father James Macfarquhar who was a wigmaker and his mother Margaret.[2][5] His formal education ended when he was apprenticed to a printing firm and achieved the status of a master printer in 1767.[5] On 13 December 1767 Macfarquhar married Jane whose father, James Scruton, was an accountant in Glasgow.[2][5] Macfarquhar and Jane had one son and four daughters.[2]
Macfarquhar opened a printing shop in Edinburgh one or two years after getting married.[5] The first edition of Britannica was sold at his printing office in Nicolson Street.[1] Macfarquhar also contributed heavily to the second and third editions of Britannica.[6]