Peter Hume Brown

For the rest of his life, Hume Brown's interest in French and German culture flourished alongside his dedication to the history of Scotland; the biographies he wrote of George Buchanan and John Knox gave full attention to the influence of continental Europe in their lives.

In the year the first volume was published, 1898, Hume Brown was asked to succeed David Masson, his old teacher, as editor of the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, which brought him financial security, and access to historically crucial 17th century documents.

[2] Lord Haldane, his mother and his sister Elizabeth were a lifelong support and regularly invited Hume Brown to their estate at Cloan in Perthshire, a change from the suburban home where he lived alone except for his dog.

In 1913 Hume Brown brought out the first half of a biography of Goethe; the other volume would appear posthumously, nearly complete in 1918, but edited by Richard and Elizabeth Haldane who also published a collection of his lectures.

[7][12] He died suddenly on 1 December 1918, leaving behind him a substantial body of published work, and a new sense of Scottish history as a major academic subject.

His will gave the University of Edinburgh not only a death mask of Goethe he had received from the Masson family, but money to fund a prize connected with his own field.

The Hume Brown prize is now awarded biennially to a previously unpublished writer who makes an "original contribution to Scottish History".