Although Shetland has produced no names of worldwide celebrity, yet many sons of the “Old Rock” have risen to distinction both at home and abroad.

The first place must be given to Arthur Anderson, (1792-1868), who, commencing life as a humble fish-worker at Gremista, near Lerwick, was in 1840 one of the founders of the P. and O. Steamship Company, and ultimately its chairman. Much of his wealth he spent on Shetland. He established the first newspaper in the islands—The Shetland Journal; he started the Shetland Fishing Company, which largely helped to emancipate the crofter-fishermen from their bondage to the landlords; he introduced Shetland hosiery to the outside world; he was influential in securing steam communication between the islands and Scotland; and, not to mention more of his benefactions, he founded the Anderson Educational Institute, which is now administered by the Education Authority as a Higher Grade School and Junior Student Centre for the county. Another benefactor was R. P. Gilbertson, a colonial merchant, who presented the Gilbertston Park to Lerwick and founded the Gilbertson Trust for the benefit of Shetlanders.

The islands boast a goodly array of writers, and among these the Edmonston family stands conspicuous. Dr Arthur Edmonston (1775-1841) wrote A View of the Ancient and Present State of the Zetland Islands; his brother Laurence (1795-1879) was a distinguished Scandinavian scholar and the author of many papers on natural history; Laurence’s son, Thomas, born in 1825, was the discoverer of the Shetland plant arenaria Norvegica, and the author of a Flora of Shetland. At the age of twenty he was elected Professor of Botany and Natural History in Anderson’s College at Glasgow; but next year he was accidentally shot dead in Peru, while on a scientific expedition to the Pacific; Thomas’s brother, Biot (1827-1906) was joint-author with his sister Mrs Saxby, of The Home of a Naturalist. Dr Saxby wrote The Birds of Shetland. Thomas Gifford of Busta, who died in 1760, was the author of Historical Description of the Zetland Isles; Dr Robert Cowie, of Shetland: Descriptive and Historical; Dr Copeland, of A Dictionary of Medicine; Miss Spence, of Earl Rognvald and his Forebears, and a Memoir of Arthur Laurenson, a scholar deeply versed in Scandinavian lore; Gilbert Goudie, of Antiquities of Shetland, and other works; and John Spence, of Shetland Folk Lore. Of minor poets and vernacular writers we may name Basil R. Anderson; Laurence J. Nicolson, “The Bard of Thule”; George Stewart; T. P. Ollason; and J. B. Laurence.

Of men who have risen to distinction in the Government service, the best known is Sir Robert G. C. Hamilton (1836-1895), a son of Dr Hamilton of Bressay. He was at various times Accountant-General of the Navy, Under-Secretary for Ireland, Governor of Tasmania, and Chairman of the Board of Customs.