James Stout Angus

James Stout Angus was a poet from Shetland, who wrote poetry in the Shetlandic dialect. Born in Catfirth Haa, the son of a local merchant, he trained as a housewright and joiner, and worked for a number of years as a ship’s carpenter. After marrying Margaret Gifford Blance, he settled in Lerwick and worked as a housewright. He first began to publish poetry in the 1870s, and was lauded for his Shetlandic poem Eels, written in 1877 and first published in The Shetland Times.

James Stout Angus compiled a guide to Shetlandic place names, and in 1914 he wrote a Glossary of the Shetland Dialect. He had a son, named Hercules after his father, born in 1871. James Stout Angus died in Lerwick in 1923.