John Cay

John Lidell Cay FRSE PRSSA (31 August 1790 – 13 December 1865) was a Scottish advocate, pioneer photographer and antiquarian.

[1] He was an original member of the Edinburgh Calotype Club, one of the world's first photographic clubs (1843), and a keen early photographer alongside his friend Sir David Brewster and the Edinburgh pioneers David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson.

[2] He was born in the family home on George Street in Edinburgh[3] on 31 August 1790, the son of Robert Hodshon Cay LLD (1758–1810) of North Charlton who was Judge Admiral of Scotland, and his wife Elizabeth Liddell[4] (1770–1831) a relatively famous pastellist, and pupil of Archibald Skirving.

Cay was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1821, his proposer being Sir William Arbuthnot.

[6] At this time he lived (with his mother) in a large and opulent Georgian townhouse, 11 Heriot Row in the Second New Town of Edinburgh.