BIOGRAPHY
HENRY DUNCAN was born on the 8th October 1774, at the Manse
of Lochrutton, Kirkcudbrightshire. He was the third son of the Rev. George
Duncan, minister of that parish. His paternal grandfather, a native of
Aberdeen, was also minister of Lochrutton, and was drowned when bathing in the
loch, soon after his son had been licensed to preach the gospel. Perhaps no
minister of the Church of Scotland was ever so closely connected with its
clergy as the subject of this sketch. Before he was past middle life, he used
to say that he was surely of the tribe of Levi, as he could trace his
connection with no less than one hundred and fifty Scottish ministers ; and
before he died, he could have added considerably to that long list.
As a
boy, Henry Duncan manifested those fine talents and amiable dispositions which
afterwards raised him to distinction as a minister, an author, and a
philanthropist. Having finished his Preliminary education at the Grammar School
of Dumfries, he went, in 1788, to prosecute his studies at the University of St
Andrews. Having studied at that University for two sessions, he was sent to
Liverpool, and became a clerk in an eminent banking firm, with a view to the
mercantile profession Under the Patronage of his relative, Dr Currie, the
biographer of Burns, he had the fairest prospects of success in business but
his decided taste for literature and the pursuits of a clencal life induced him
to leave Liverpool, and study for the ministry of the Scottish Church. Yet the
experience he gained in the Liverpool banking house was of great use to him in
his after life: In 1793 he resumed his studies at the university of Edinburgh,
and there he enjoyed the friendship of the professor of Moral Philosophy,
Dugald Stewart. His talents and general character commended him highly to the
kind offices of that eminent philosopher. He also spent two college sessions at
Glasgow, and specially profited by the profound and interesting lectures of Mr
John Millar, Professor of Law. His last two sessions were spent in Edinburgh.
At this period of his academic career he was elected a member of the celebrated
Speculative Society, and became acquainted with many young men of high promise,
among others with Henry Brougham, afterwards so famous in law and politics. He
continued on habits of friendship and correspondence with this distinguished
statesman during the greater part of his life.
In the year 1798 he was
licensed to preach the gospel, and immediately received from the Earl of
Mansfield the choice of two livings in gift, both vacant at the time, Lochmaben
and Ruthwell. He chose the latter, inferior though it was in value, because it
appeared to be a more suitable field for his peculiar pastoral work and
philanthropic periments. And soon, as the minister of Ruthwell, he displayed
that ellectual activity, fertility of resource, and fine benevolent spirit,
which enabled him to do so much, both for the temporal and spiritual welfare
his people. He imported Indian corn from Liverpool for the supply of their
wants during a time of great scarcity. He also effected, amidst not a little
opposition, important social reforms, and in many ways sought to improve the
habits and manners of his flock. During the time the dreaded French invasion,
he raised in his parish a company of volunteers, of which he was appointed
captain. On several occasions put off his military uniform, to assume the
clerical dress, and enter on duties of the pulpit. As his views of divine truth
and the nature of the pastoral office grew deeper and more spiritual, he ceased
to regard with much satisfaction this part of his career; but his loyalty and
patriotism did not suffer from his progress in personal religion.
In 1808
he commenced with a few literary friends the publication of the “Scottish
Cheap Repository Tracts,” which were intended to furnish sound instruction
to the common people. The best of the series were written by himself, and by
far the best of all, “The Cottage Fireside,” was soon published
separately, and attained great popularity. In point of spirit, pathos, and
humour, it has never been surpassed by any composition of its class. Soon after
this period he started the Durnfries and Galloway Courier, of which for seven
years he was editor. Under his management, and the more professional control of
his successor, Mr John MacDiarmid, this paper reached a very high position
among Scottish journals.
As the advocate of the Bible Society, when it was
a new and struggling institution, as an enlightened educational reformer, and
the champion of every cause that appeared to bear upon the real welfare of the
country, the minister of Ruthwell gradually became highly distinguished among
his brethren; and at length, in 1810, his practical philanthropy took a form
which made his name known over the whole country. In that year the first
SAVINGS BANK was instituted at Ruthwell, and by the indefatigable exertions of
its founder, the merits of banks of the kind for popular use were speedily
acknowledged by statesmen and philanthropists of all classes. The first Act of
Parliament to encourage and facilitate the institution of such banks was passed
mainly through Mr Duncan’s personal efforts in London among members of
both branches of the Legislature. By pamphlets, lectures, and other appliances,
he rapidly made known the claims of Savings Banks over the whole island. Before
long, he had the satisfaction of seeing such banks instituted in many places,
and carried on with high success. For his great exertions and large personal
outlay in connection with this new and noble system of Savings Banks, he never
received any public award. His letters and parcels, chiefly on bank business,
one year cost him more than £80; yet he cheerfully bore such a heavy
burden in the prvice of his country.
At this period he published another
excellent tale of humble Scottish life,—” The Young South-Country
Weaver,” a fit sequel to “The Cottage Fireside.” A number of
years later (1826) he published, anonymously, a work of fiction in three
volumes, “William Douglas; or, The Scottish Exiles,” intended to
counteract Sir Walter Scott’s aspersions on the covenanters in “Old.
Mortality.” This was hailed as a work of real genius, and was remarkably
well received by the Scottish public.
In 1823 Mr Duncan received the
degree of D.D. from the University of St Andrews, in recognition of his
philanthropic labours and literary merit. It was not till 1836 that the first
volume of his chief literary work, “The Sacred Philosophy of the
Seasons,” made its appearance. t was rapidly succeeded by the three
others; for a volume, containing papers for every day, was devoted to each
Season. The work, written a popular and devout, yet truly philosophic spirit,
rapidly ran through several editions, and was long a great favourite with the
public. The philosophy is by no means yet out of date, and most of the papers
are fresh and useful as when they first appeared. No better work of its class
than “The Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons” is to be found in British
literature.
Dr Duncan rendered a service of the highest kind to the
antiquarian world by his discovery and restoration of the famous Runic cross,
which, erected and repaired by him, now stands in the garden of Ruthwell manse.
(Now to be seen in the Church) He made several beautiful models and drawings of
this remarkle relic of antiquity, and wrote a learned description of it, which
was ublished in the “Transactions of the Scottish Antiquarian
Society.” No professed and experienced antiquary could have done greater
justice to a monument about which volumes have been written since he first
brought it to light, and the mystery of whose Runic inscriptions has only of
late been solved. To the same accomplished observer belongs the credit of
having intelligently brought before the geologists of Great Britain the
footmarks of quadrupeds on the new red sandstone of Corncockle Muir, near
Lochmaben. This discovery constituted a new era in geology, and gave Dr Duncan
an honourable place among the geologists of his day.
During the early part
of his ministerial career, Henry Duncan was claimed by the “Moderate”
party in the Church; but he gradually grew more decided in his evangelical
sentiments, aud cast in his lot entirely with the party of Dr John Erskine, Sir
Henry Moncreiff, Dr Andrew Thomson, and
Dr Chalmers. With the latter
two eminent men he lived on terms of the warmest friendship. He contributed to
the “Christian Instructor,” when edited by Dr Thomson, and
corresponded with Dr Chalmers on various subjects of Christian philanthropy. So
early as 1827, he addressed a long and admirable letter to his old friend Mr
Brougham, on reform in the Church of Scotland, especially in regard to
Patronage. Afterwards, in 1831, he published in the “Christian
Instructor” another letter on the subject, addressed to Lord Melbourne,
the Home Secretary. In these letters, as well as in a third which he wrote by
request to Lord Lansdowne, another of his college friends, he advocated that
check on the exercise of Patronage which was in 1834 embodied in the famous
Veto Act. If any man in Scotland was the real parent of that measure, which had
such memorable consequences, it was the minister of Ruthwell; and in all the
controversies to which it gave rise, up to the time of the Disruption, the same
minister took a prominent part. Dr Duncan, though at times a graceful speaker,
had no great talent for debate; but he wielded a powerful and practised pen on
the popular side, and contributed not a little to the triumph of the
Evangelical party in the Church. In 1839, when the “Ten Years’
Conflict” was almost at its height, he was chosen Moderator of the General
Assembly. This mark of distinction was amply merited by his varied services to
the Church, of which he was an ornament, and by his eminent achievements as a
patriotic philanthropist.
When the great conflict between the Church and
the Civil Power ded in the Disruption of 1843, Dr Duncan unhesitatingly joined
the Free Church, of which he became one of the fathers and founders. He was
acompanied in his retirement from the Establishment by his two sons, George
John Duncan, minister of Kirkpatrick-Durham, and W. Wallace Duncan, minister of
Cleish; also by his two sons-in-law, Dr Horatius Bonar, minister of the North
Church, Kelso, and the Rev. James Dodds, minister of Humbie.
Few of his
brethren made such sacrifices at the Disruption as Dr Henry Duncan. His manse,
surrounded with gardens and grounds which he had laid out with exquisite taste,
was one of the best residences of the kind in Scotland. Everything around it
had a history, or was endeared to him and his family by many hallowed
associations. But he cheerfully left the charming spot, and took up his burden
in a humble cottage by the highway side. He also met with most unworthy
hostility from various classes of people in the parish and district, many of
whom should have been specially forward to do him honour. He could procure no
site for a church in the parish of Ruthwell, and was forced to accept of a site
in the neighbouring parish Mousewald, kindly offered by the late Dr James
Buchanan and Mrs Buchanan.
By his energetic efforts a new church, manse;
and school were erected free of debt; and at this day, along with an obelisk
reared is memory, they form a worthy monument of noble devotedness to his
principle. Built on what has been called by the people, “Mount ar,”
they are conspicuous from various points of the railway between Dumfries and
Annan.
This amiable and admirable man, on the appointment of Rev. Alexander
Brown as his colleague, removed, in 1845, with his family, to Edinburgh; but
returning early in the following year to visit his much-loved people of
ruthwell, he was struck down by a deadly paralytic attack while holding an
evening prayer-meeting in the house of one of his old elders who still adhered
to the Establishment.
He was immediately conveyed to Comlongon Castle, the
residence of his brother-in-law, - Mr Walter Philips, factor of the Earl of
Mansfield; but consciousness only slightly returned at intervals, and in two
days he calmly expired. The grief of his old parishioners knew no bounds at his
death; and all classes of the people in the whole district lamented him as an
eminent servant of the Lord, suddenly taken away from the scene of his
lengthened and devoted ministry. He died on Thursday, the 12th February 1846,
and was interred on the Tuesday following in Ruthwell Churchyard. Dr Duncan
thus died among his people, in the place he loved so well, and which will long
be associated with his name.
The cause of Evangelical religion, the
principles of the Scottish Reformation, and the privileges of the Scottish
Church, always found in him a faithful advocate; and when the time of trial
came in his old age, he gloried in the name and position of a Free Church
minister. He was, in lifting up his testimony for preciçus principles,
more severely tried than most of the brethren who left the Established Church
along with him; but, with characteristic cheerfulness and serenity, he bore
hardship in the service of his Divine Master.
Dr Duncan was twice married,
first to Miss Agnes Craig, daughter of the Rev. John Craig, his predecessor in
the parish of Ruthwell, by whom he had two sons and one daughter; and,
secondly, to Mrs Lundie, widow of his early friend, the Rev. Robert Lundie,
minister of Kelso. His son, the Rev. Wallace Duncan, died in 1864, as minister
of the Free Church, Peebles; his elder son, Dr George Duncan, who, on leaving
Kirkpatrick-Durham, had been successively minister of the English Presbyterian
Church at North Shields and Greenwich, and was for many years clerk of the
Synod of that Church, died at Dumfries towards the close of 1868. His widow,
the mother and biographer of Mary Lundie Duncan, and the author of many
excellent works, a woman distinguished for her high talent and her consistent
Christian usefulness, still survives in her honoured retirement. She belongs to
a noble band of Christian workers who rendered great service to Evangelical
religion during the past generation, all of whom but herself have been summoned
to their blessed rest.
Dr Duncan was remarkable for the variety of his
accomplishments. There was scarcely a literary or scientific subject that was
strange to him, and he had an excellent knowledge of art in its various forms.
His manual dexterity was something quite extraordinary, and was far above what
is often connected with “a mechanical turn.”He excelled in drawing
and modelling, was a first-rate landscape gardener, and on different occasions
proved himself an excellent architect. He had a great genius for sculpture, and
delighted at times in producing specimens of that noble art. But in domestic
life, and in all the refinements of a cultivated social circle, he eminently
shone. His piety and his benevolence, his literary culture, and manifold social
accomplishments, never failed to impress all who visited Ruthwell Manse in
those days when, under his sway, it was a model of a refined and happy
Christian home.
(From Disruption Worthies,
article by Rev. James Dodds, Dunbar, collection by James A. Wylie)
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