Editing Colin Macfarquhar

{{Short description|Scottish bookseller and printer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2020}}
'''Colin Macfarquhar''' (1744/5 – 2 April 1793)<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2">{{cite encyclopedia|year=2004|title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|entry=Macfarquhar, Colin|title-link=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography}}</ref> was a [[Scotland|Scottish]] bookseller and [[printer (publisher)|printer]] who is most known for co-founding ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' with [[Andrew Bell (engraver)|Andrew Bell]], first published in December 1768.<ref>{{Cite EB1911| wstitle=Prefatory Note |volume=1 |page=vi}}</ref><ref>{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Encyclopaedia |volume=9 |page=377}}</ref> The dates of his birth and death remain uncertain, even to Britannica itself.<ref name=":0" />

== Biography ==
Macfarquhar was born in [[Edinburgh]] to his father James Macfarquhar who was a [[wigmaker]] and his mother Margaret.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":1" /> His formal education ended when he was apprenticed to a printing firm and achieved the status of a master printer in 1767.<ref name=":1" /> On 13 December 1767 Macfarquhar married Jane whose father, James Scruton, was an [[accountant]] in [[Glasgow]].<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":1" /> Macfarquhar and Jane had one son and four daughters.<ref name=":2" />

Macfarquhar opened a printing shop in [[Edinburgh]] one or two years after getting married.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Kafker|first=Frank A.|date=2008-10-01|title=The achievement of Andrew Bell and Colin Macfarquhar as the first publishers of the Encyclopaedia Britannica|journal=Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies|language=en|volume=18|issue=2|pages=139–152|doi=10.1111/j.1754-0208.1995.tb00185.x|issn=1754-0194}}</ref> The first edition of Britannica was sold at his printing office in Nicolson Street.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Colin-Macfarquhar|title=Colin Macfarquhar {{!}} Scottish printer|work=Encyclopedia Britannica|access-date=2018-07-13|language=en}}</ref> Macfarquhar also contributed heavily to the second and third editions of Britannica.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia | title = Oxford Dictionary of National Biography | entry = Bell, Andrew | year = 2004 | title-link = Oxford Diionary of National Biography }}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macfarquhar, Colin}}
[[Category:1740s births]]
[[Category:1793 deaths]]
[[Category:Scottish booksellers]]
[[Category:Scottish printers]]
[[Category:Scottish company founders]]
[[Category:Contributors to the Encyclopædia Britannica]]
[[Category:Publishers (people) from Edinburgh]]
[[Category:Scottish encyclopedists]]
[[Category:18th-century Scottish businesspeople]]