Rev Alexander Duff

Rev Alexander Duff (1806-1878), Scottish missionary. He was born at Moulin in Perthshire, and educated at Perth Academy and then St Andrews University where he came under the influence of Thomas Chalmers, then professor of moral philosophy. He was ordained in 1829 as the first official Church of Scotland missionary to India. Shipwrecked twice on the 8 month voyage out, he worked in India until 1864, with trips home to regain his health and to fund-raise for his mission. He set up a Christian school which taught only in English, seeing this as the best language for education in India. It was a great success; he also saw a native ministry as the best way to convert the country to Christianity. His views on education were confirmed at the Indian Committees of Parliament in 1854.When the Free Church was formed in 1843, he joined it, acting as moderator in 1851 and 1873. He was instrumental in the foundation of Calcutta University in 1857. He had to return home for good in 1864 for the sake of his health; he was appointed convenor of the Free Church Foreign Mission Committee in Edinburgh, and raised money for a chair of Missions at New College, Edinburgh, becoming the first professor of evangelistic theology. He was involved in missionary activities in Southern Africa and Syria, and inspired the Alliance of Reformed Churches. He published widely on missions, church history, the disruption, the Indian Mutiny, education and theology.

Dr Mackintosh Mackay (1793-1873), Gaelic scholar and preacher, was born in Eddrachillis, Sutherland, and educated at St Andrews and Glasgow Universities. He was licensed by the presbytery of Skye, and after working as a schoolmaster in Portree, he was ordained to Laggan in 1825. Here he taught Gaelic to the young William Forbes Skene, who went on to be Historiographer Royal for Scotland. He moved to Dunoon, Argyllshire in 1832, and joined the Free Church at the disruption in 1843, organising Free Churches in the Highlands and acting as moderator in 1849. He then felt called to work in Australia, as minister of the Gaelic Church in Melbourne from 1854, then in Sydney. He returned home in 1862 to take up a charge in Tarbet, on the Isle of Harris. He compiled the Gaelic collections of the Highland Society into the Dictionarium Scoto-Celticum: a Dictionary of the Gaelic Language, published in 1828, corresponded with Walter Scott, and published sermons, biography, local church history, and edited the Free Church Gaelic periodical An fhianuis ('The witness').