Dougall, Neil

Composer

b Greenock, Renfrewshire 1776, d Greenock 1862. Left fatherless at 4 years old, he left school at 15 to go to sea. As a junior apprentice sailor on the government privateer ‘Britannia’ he was completely blinded and his right arm tragically blown off as a salute was being fired to celebrate Lord Howe’s naval victory over the French, 1794–95. Three years later he attended Robert Duncan’s singing class, and moved by this he began a highly successful one of his own in Greenock, which lasted from 1799 to 1844. Between 1800 and (apparently) 1860, by which time he was 84, he organised the town’s annual concert. As well as a small book of verse published in 1854 he composed some 100 tunes for hymns and metrical Psalms. No.375.