Background
Finlayson was born in Scotland in 1770. His descendants make him the second son of Colonel John Hamilton M"Finlay, who married, about 1765, Lady Elizabeth Mary Alexander, eldest sister of the last Earl of Stirling.
Finlayson was born in Scotland in 1770. His descendants make him the second son of Colonel John Hamilton M"Finlay, who married, about 1765, Lady Elizabeth Mary Alexander, eldest sister of the last Earl of Stirling.
He was originally a writer at Cupar, Fife, and removed thence to Edinburgh. His relations with Brothers, which began in 1797, are detailed in the article on that enthusiast. He printed at Edinburgh a couple of pamphlets before repairing to London.
In London he was "in considerable practice as a house agent." Brothers led him to change the spelling of his name, by telling him his ancestors had some "fine leys" of land granted them for deeds of valour.
Brothers, who died (1824) in Finlayson"s house at Marylebone, made it his dying charge to his friend that he should write against a rival genius, Bartholomew Prescot of Liverpool. This Finlayson did, describing Prescot"s "System of the Universe," very correctly, as a "misapprehended mistaken elaborate performance, or book"
Finlayson was reduced in extreme and widowed age to a parish allowance of 3s.
6d. weekly, supplemented by 5s. from Busby, in whose house Brothers had lived from 1806 to 1815. Prescot and John Mason (a brush-maker), though a disciple of Brothers, refused to assist him.
He died on 19 September 1854, and was buried in the same grave as Brothers at Street John"s Wood.