He practised as an architect but is best remembered for his theoretical work on the skew arch (he never actually constructed one himself), his invention of draughtsman's instruments, including a centrolinead and a cyclograph, and his prolific writing on numerous practical subjects.

[3] However, finding stonemasonry not to his liking, he expressed the desire to be a cabinet-maker and so served a four-year apprenticeship at Linton, the principal village in the parish, then worked as a journeyman in Edinburgh before leaving for London in 1789 at the age of 24.

[2] Whilst living in London, Nicholson published three more books, The Student's Instructor (1795), The Carpenter and Joiner's Assistant (1797), and a three-volume work entitled Principles of Architecture, which he began in 1794 but did not complete until 1798.

[4] The town's harbour was built under the direction of fellow Scot and celebrated engineer, Thomas Telford who was sufficiently impressed by Nicholson's work that he recommended him for the post of Surveyor to the county of Cumberland, on the death of the incumbent, John Chisholme in 1808.

[2] In Morpeth, Nicholson started work on a book entitled A Treatise on Dialing in which he described how to prepare and erect sundials, as well as applying trigonometry to the problem of finding the length of the hip of a roof and its rafters from the angle of inclination of its eaves.

[2] On 10 August 1832, Nicholson's wife, Jane died, aged 48, and he erected a neat memorial to her in the grounds of the High Church before leaving Morpeth and taking up residence in Carliol Street, Newcastle upon Tyne.

[8] During the nine years he lived in Newcastle, Nicholson published three more books, his Treatise on Projection (1837) containing his portrait, drawn from life by Edward Train, originally in pen and ink.

[2] Leaving Newcastle for Carlisle on 10 October 1841, aged 76, Nicholson was supported for the remainder of his life by the generosity of Thomas Jamieson, a relative by marriage, of Newton, Northumberland.

Sir,—The Academy has received with a lively degree of interest, the Essay that you obligingly addressed to it on Involution and Evolution, or a Method of determining the Numerical Value of any Function of an unknown Quantity.

Kielder Viaduct, a seven arch skew railway bridge built to his pattern, now disused but preserved by the Northumberland and Newcastle Society,[12] carries an information plaque commemorating Nicholson's pioneering work in this field.

[19] Unfortunately this exchange escalated into a paper war that became increasingly acrimonious,[20][21] culminating in 1840 in a very personal attack by Buck's assistant, the 28-year-old William Henry Barlow, and causing Nicholson considerable distress.

[…] Is he ignorant of the fact that Mr. Buck has surmounted this difficulty by the simple expedient of adjusting the angle of the intrado—or is it that, rather than acknowledge his inferiority, he persists in what he knows to be wrong, and addresses his book to the working classes in the hope of escaping detection?

For this time I have, as he observes, "done with him" and I hope enough has been said to show Mr. Nicholson that his ideas have got a twist in their beds by no means adapted to skew-bridges, and that no species of brow-beating or invective on his part will be of the slightest use to him, while his book [The Guide to Railway Masonry, containing a Complete Treatise on the Oblique Arch, published on 1 January 1839] remains so very imperfect.A measure of the high esteem in which Nicholson was held by the residents of Newcastle and their sense of injustice at his financial plight can be gauged from the petition sent to the king in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a pension on his behalf.

The works of Peter Nicholson, while they have contributed to the advancement of knowledge, have tended to raise the English mechanic to that pre-eminence he has attained over the other artificers of Europe; and while they have been honoured with the proudest marks of distinction by the various learned societies of this kingdom, have yet failed to produce to their author those benefits which are necessary for his existence; and it must ever be a source of regret that an individual who, having devoted his best energies to the advancement of science, should be left at the close of a long and laborious life, and in his seventy-third year, to struggle in penury and want.Nicholson was a prolific writer, contributing practical information on a wide range of technical subjects in 27 works.