Thomas Tod Stoddart

He was born on 14 February 1810 in Argyle Square, Edinburgh, the eldest son of Frances (née Sprot), daughter of James Sprot, and Captain (later Admiral) Pringle Stoddart RN.

One of his university teachers was John Wilson, in whose house Stoddart met Thomas De Quincey, Hartley Coleridge, James Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd, William Edmonstoune Aytoun, James Frederick Ferrier, Henry Glassford Bell, and other men of letters.

[3] With expertise in fly fishing, Stoddart published books, poems and articles on angling.

In 1836 Stoddart married Bessie Macgregor, daughter of a farmer at Contin in Ross-shire, whom he met while on a fishing tour, and they settled at Kelso.

They had two sons and a daughter Anna Stoddart, who became the biographer of her father and also of John Stuart Blackie.