Ebenezer Scroggie
A dandy, a party animal, a kind and jovial fellow, and a notorious philanderer.
Namesake of the fictional character Ebenezer Scrooge. Scroggie was a vintner and corn merchant in Edinburgh who won the first whiskey supply contract for the Royal Navy and the catering contract for the visit of George IV to Edninburgh in 1822, the first British monarch to visit the city since the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Through his mother, Scroggie was the great-nephew of the 18th century political economist and philosopher Adam Smith.
In his diaries, Charles Dickens states that the Scrooge character of his 1843 novel “A Christmas Carol” stemmed from Scroggie’s grave marker which he saw on an evening walk in the Canongate Churchyard in 1841. Dickens, however mistook the inscription of “meal man” (corn merchant) for “mean man” and centered his story around the miserly character.
Dickens is my favorite author.
Thanks for the info.