His first engagement was as sub-editor of the Inverness Courier (1842) under Robert Carruthers, whom he assisted in the preparation of Chambers's Cyclopædia of English Literature.
In Aberdeen, the establishment of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor was mainly due to him, and he not only sat on the managing committee, but was for six years secretary.
He read a paper to the Social Science Congress in 1877, on 'The Province and Work of Voluntary Charitable Agencies in the Management of the Poor.'
He also took much interest in everything connected with the service, and made suggestions to the war office as to practical gunnery and the use of armed railway carriages in warfare.
'The Piobrach o' Kinreen,’ an old piper's lament for the clearance of Glentannar, first appeared in Punch Forsyth was in politics a liberal-conservative.
This volume reproduces 'The Midnicht Meetin',’ a satire on the promoters of the union of the Aberdeen and Marischal colleges, originally printed for private circulation.