Gilbert Laing Meason

Gilbert Laing Meason of Lindertis FRSE FSA (3 July 1769 – 14 August 1832)[1] was a Scottish merchant and agricultural improver, best remembered as the originator of the term landscape architecture.

He was interested in art history, and in 1828 published a book called On The Landscape Architecture of the Great Painters of Italy (London, 1828).

Loudoun thought that the term had a wider application outside art theory, and explained this view in an article in the contemporary Gardener's Magazine.

The term was picked up by Loudon's American admirer Andrew Jackson Downing, from whom Frederick Law Olmsted presumably first heard it.

[4] Gilbert Laing Meason (1769 - 1832) was a friend of Sir Walter Scott and the man who invented the term 'landscape architecture', as used in the title of this volume.

Born in Kirkwall St Ola, Orkney, he later lived at Lindertis House near Forfar, in Fife, Scotland and was married to Mary Whitelaw Wemyss (1792-1858).