David Patrick was born to Rev. Joseph Patrick in Lochwinnoch, Ayrshire in 1849. He was educated at the Ayr Academy and then, planning to enter the Church, attended the New College receiving the Cunningham Fellowship at the close of his four-year course. Patrick subsequently studied theology at Tubingen, Berlin, Leipzig and Gottingen before eventually deciding on a literary career.

It was while working under Dr. JM Ross of the Edinburgh High School, then producing the Globe Encyclopaedia series, that he was introduced encyclopaedical work. Within a few years, he had attained a position with the publishing house of William & Robert Chambers. He first worked as an assistant to Dr. Andrew Findlater in the Literary Department, and ultimately became head of the literary staff. Between 1888 and 1892, he edited a revised version of Chambers's Encyclopaedia. He also edited Chambers's Biographical Dictionary in 1897 and Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature with F.H. Groome from 1901 to 1903. He wrote the introduction to the later 1914 edition of Chambers's Encyclopaedia shortly before his death on March 22, 1914.