Arbuthnot, John (1667-1735)

Scottish writer and physician. He attended Prince George and then Queen Anne from 1705 to 1714. He was a friend of Alexander Pope, Thomas Gray, and Jonathan Swift and was the chief author of the satiric Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus (1741). He created the English national character of John Bull, a prosperous farmer, in his ‘History of John Bull’ (1712) pamphlets advocating peace with France.

Born at Arbuthnott, Kincardineshire, he studied at Aberdeen, Oxford, and St Andrews universities, where he obtained the first recorded MD degree in 1696. He was an advocate of the Act of Union in 1707 and in 1706 wrote ‘A Sermon Preached to the People at the Mercat Cross Edinburgh’. He also wrote ‘Tables of Ancient Coins’ (1727), ‘An Essay Concerning the Effects of Air on Human Bodies’ (1733), ‘Critical Remarks on Dr Gulliver's Travels’ (1735), and ‘The Art of Political Lying’ (1712), the style of which is modelled on Swift, but without his ferocity.