Background
He was born at Greenlaw, Berwickshire.
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William Galbraith
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Subsequently he moved to Edinburgh, and graduated Master of Arts at the University of Edinburgh in 1821.
Career
He taught mathematics and nautical astronomy in Edinburgh, and took an interest in surveying work, becoming an advocate of the extension of the work of triangulating Great Britain. Initially he was a schoolmaster. His pupil William Rutherford walked long distances to attend his school at Ecclesiastical
During the 1830s Galbraith became interested in the surveying problems of Scotland.
In 1831 he pointed out that Arthur"s Seat had a strongly magnetic peak. In 1837 he pointed out the impact of anomalies in measurement, work that received recognition.
lieutenant was topical because of the 1836 geological map of Scotland by John MacCulloch, with which critics had found fault on topographical as well as geological grounds. A paper on the locations of places on the River Clyde was recognised in 1837 by a gold medal, from the Society for the Encouragement of the Useful Arts for Scotland.
Galbraith followed with detailed Remarks on the Geographical Position of some Points on the West Coast of Scotland (1838).
Having made some accurate surveys of his own, he lobbied for further attention from the national survey. About 1832 Galbraith was licensed a minister by the presbytery of Dunse.
