Malcolm Laing (1762–1818), historian and advocate, was the eldest son of Robert Laing (d. 1805), a merchant and provost of Kirkwall in 1788–92. Laing was born at on the island of Stronsay. Educated at Kirkwall grammar school and Edinburgh University, he was called to the Scottish bar on 9 July 1785. Lord Cockburn highly praised his speech in 1794 defending Joseph Gerrald (1763–1796), a delegate from the London Corresponding Society, charged with sedition. On the death of the historian Robert Henry, at the request of Henry's executors, he completed The History of Great Britain, adding chapters 5 and 7 and the appendix to volume 6 (1793).