David Ramsay (died c. 1653), was a Scottish clockmaker who worked for James VI and I and Charles I of England.
1660) wrote that when King James succeeded to the crown of England in 1603, "he sent into France for my father, who was then there, and made him page of the bedchamber and groom of the privy chamber, and keeper of all his majesties' clocks and watches.
Various other warrants were passed for payments for his services, and in one which bears date 17 March 1627 he is described as "David Ramsay, esq., our clockmaker and page of our bedchamber".
Walter Scott introduces the character David Ramsay, without any strict regard for historical accuracy, in the opening chapter of The Fortunes of Nigel as the keeper of a shop "a few yards to the eastward of Temple Bar".
In William Lilly's Life and Times (1715), an amusing account is given of an attempt made in 1634 by Ramsay and others to discover hidden treasure in Westminster Abbey by means of the divining rod, when the operations were interrupted by fierce blasts of wind, attributed by the terrified spectators to demons, who were, however, promptly exorcised.
[2] Sir Edward Coke, writing to Secretary Windebanke, on 9 May 1639, about a demand for money which it was inconvenient to meet, says: "If, now, David Ramsay can co-operate with his philosopher's stone, he would do a good service".
There are also entries in the Calendars of State Papers, dated 28 July 1628 and 13 August 1635, relating to hidden treasure which Ramsay proposed to discover.
They relate to ploughing land, fertilising barren ground, raising water by fire, propelling ships and boats, manufacture of saltpetre, making tapestry without a loom, refining copper, bleaching wax, separating gold and silver from the base metals, dyeing fabrics, heating boilers, kilns for drying and burning bricks and tiles, and smelting and refining iron by means of coal.
His son William, in the dedication to his father of his Vox Stellarum (1652), refers to the latter's pecuniary difficulties, which gave "occasion to some inferior-spirited people not to value you according to what you both are by nature and in yourself".