Quite Remarkable Man, John Evans

Born near Berwick-on-Tweed in the Scottish Borders, and the son of a Church of Scotland minister, Patrick Brydone served as a second lieutenant in the Seven Years' War, returning from Portugal in 1763. Hearing that other ex-soldiers were becoming guides to those wishing to explore Europe, he established a business as a travelling preceptor in Lausanne on Lake Geneva, showing both the intellectual rigour of what today we would call a scientist or polymath, and an ability to inspire curiosity and the continual search for knowledge in his charges. Publication of a book he wrote in the early 1770s about his travels in Sicily and Malta, when tutor to two sons of the gentry, was a huge success, being published in France, Germany and the USA in various editions.