John Stewart (ii)

John Stewart (b. 18 Jul 1903, Brough, Whalsay, d. 22 Feb 1977, Aberdeen), scholar, was born at Brough in Whalsay. He spent most of his adult life in Aberdeen, where he was a teacher and deputy headmaster at the Skene Square school. A self-taught enthusiast for archaeology, he produced An Outline of Shetland Archaeology in 1956, a very acute introduction (reprinted 2009), and excavated several Neolithic sites in his native island. In 1950 he conceived a massive project to collect the place names of Shetland, so far as they were remembered at that date. He circulated questionnaires to people throughout the islands, and spent the rest of his life sifting the material which came back. His Shetland Place-names appeared posthumously in 1987. Stewart was also an expert on folk life and traditions, and his Folklore from Whalsay and Shetland came out in 2005.

His brother, Henry was a Shetland Islands Councillor.