Malcolm Laing

Who was Malcolm Laing?

Malcolm Laing was a Scottish historian born to Robert Laing and Barbara Blaw at the paternal estate of Strynzia in Orkney, Scotland. On 10 September 1805 he married Margaret Dempster Carnegie, daughter of Thomas Carnegie and Mary Gardyne.

He finished Robert Henry's History of Great Britain, and wrote a History of Scotland from the Union of the Crowns to the Union of the Kingdoms. He was an assailant of the authenticity of the Ossianic poems, and wrote a dissertation on the Participation of Mary, Queen of Scots, in the Murder of Darnley.

He did much to improve the agriculture of Orkney. He was MP for Orkney and Shetland from 1807 to 1812.