Samuel Neil was a Scottish schoolteacher, journalist and author
Education
Neil was educated at Glasgow grammar school, and then entered Glasgow University. As an undergraduate he assisted the English master in the high school and worked for the Glasgow Argus where Charles Mackay was editor, and other newspapers.
Career
After the death of the father from cholera in 1832, the family went to live in Glasgow. Foreign a time Neil was a private tutor and then master successively of Falkirk charity school in 1850, of Southern Collegiate School, Glasgow, in 1852, and of Saint Andrew"s School, Glasgow, in 1853. Hee was rector of Moffat Academy from 1855 to 1873.
At the same Neil worked at journalism.
He promoted in 1857, and edited during its existence, the Moffat Register and Annandale Observer, the first newspaper published in Moffat, and wrote regularly for other Scottish periodicals and educational journals. In 1850 Neil launched the British Controversialist (40 vols in all, edited by Neil to 1873).
lieutenant was a monthly magazine, published in London, for the discussion of literary, social, and philosophical questions. On resigning his rectorship of Moffat Academy in 1873 Neil settled in Edinburgh, devoting himself to English literature, and especially to Shakespeare.
He founded and was president of the Edinburgh Shakespeare Society, and gave the annual lecture from 1874 till his death.
Neil was well known in educational, academic and philanthropic circles in Edinburgh, and helped to found the Educational Institute of Scotland. In 1900 his health failed. He died on 28 August 1901, while on a visit at Sullom Manse, Shetland, and was buried in Sullom churchyard.
Neil married on 7 April 1848 Christina, youngest daughter of Archibald Gibson of the Royal Navy.
She predeceased him on 26 January 1901.