Andrew Jervise

Born 28 July 1820 at Brechin, Forfarshire, he was the son of Jean Chalmers, a nurseryman's daughter, and with her he lived all his life.

Finishing his apprenticeship in 1837, he oscillated till 1841 between Brechin and Edinburgh, nominally a compositor, but taking up poetry and painting.

After lessons in design and colour under Sir William Allan and Thomas Duncan from 1842 to 1845, he settled in Brechin as teacher of drawing.

[1] In 1856 two patrons—Lord Panmure, whose birthday he had celebrated in verse (1847), and John Inglis Chalmers of Aldbar, Forfarshire, whose library he had catalogued—secured for Jervise the examinership of register created by the Registration Act of 1854.

His duties involved travel through Fife, Forfar, Perth, Kincardine, and Aberdeen, and for a time also through Banff, Elgin, and Nairn.