Ramsay was born in Edinburgh on 6 February 1806,[1] the third son of Agnata Frances, daughter of Vincent Biscoe of Hookwood, Surrey and Sir William Ramsay, seventh baronet of Bamff.
[2] Due to failing health, Ramsay resigned his professorship in May 1863.
He spent the following winter in Rome, collating the most important manuscripts of Plautus.
[2] His principal publications are:[2] Ramsay also wrote a Manual of Roman Antiquities in the third division of the Encyclopædia Metropolitana (1848, etc.
), and contributed to William Smith's dictionaries of Classical ‘Antiquities,’ ‘Geography,’ and ‘Biography,’ including the article on Cicero.