Chambers, William, 1800–1883, and Robert Chambers, 1802–71, Scottish authors and publishers. Their firm of W. and R. Chambers is best known for Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, which William started in 1832 and for which both brothers wrote, and Chambers's Encyclopaedia (10 vol., 1859–68), which has gone through several editions. Robert published several books on history and in geology, including the anonymous Vestiges … of Creation (1844), a forerunner of Darwin's Origin of Species. William, always interested in public improvement, was lord provost of Edinburgh, 1865–69.
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