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 Church of Scotland Ministers A
| Date transcribed | 2011-00-00 | | Transcribed by | Jane Britcliffe, Peter Schofield, Penny Tipper | | Comment | List of Ministers of the Church of Scotland who served in India or South Asia, extracted from Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae |
| | Section | India  | | | Volume No. | 7 | | | Page No. | 690 | | | Surname | Duff | | | Christian Name(s) | Alexander | | | Wife 1 Surname | Drysdale | | | Wife 1 Christian name(s) | Anne Scott | | | Children to 1st Wife Christian name(s) | Rebecca Jane; James Murray; Alexander Groves; Ann Jemima; William Pirie | | | Body of text | DUFF, ALEXANDER, born Auchnahyle, Moulin, Perthshire, 25th April 1806, but brought up at Balnakeilly (same parish), where his father was gardener; son of James D and Jean Rattray; educated at Moulin and Kirkmichael Schools, Perth Academy (dux), and University of St Andrews (where he was greatly influenced by the teaching, missionary fervour, and personality of Thomas Chalmers, then Professor of Moral Philosophy); MA (Honorary 1824); licensed by Presbytery of St Andrews April 1829; ordained (by Presbytery of Edinburgh) 12th August following as first (official) missionary of the Church of Scotland to India; left Edinburgh on 19th September and sailed 14th October. He was twice shipwrecked on his eight months' voyage, off Dassen Island, near the Cape, losing in the Lady Holland all his library to the number of over eight hundred volumes, his presentation Bible and Psalm Book alone being recovered [the latter is in the Mission Museum at 22 Queen Street, Edinburgh], and again in the Lady Moira, off Saugar Island at the mouth of the Hoogly. At Calcutta (arrived 27th May 1830) he announced his policy to afford, by means of the English language, education inseparably allied with the Christian faith as its animating spirit, believing that English was destined to become the chief medium of upper education in India. He espoused the ideal of a native ministry as the surest method of Christianising the vast heathen masses of that country. His school, opened 13th July 1830 with five young men, became an immediate success, attracting within a few weeks upwards of three hundred applicants with whom he removed to a commodious building. He received considerable encouragement from Sir Charles Trevelyan, Foreign Under-Secretary, and from the Governor-General, Lord William Bentinck, by whose efforts a Minute of Council (7th March 1835) decided in favour of the promotion of European science and literature through English alone. From 1834 to 1840 he was in Scotland, his health much broken by the climate and his ceaseless activities. He addressed the General Assembly in a three hours' speech of impassioned eloquence and earnestness, and travelled up and down the country collecting funds, creating interest in missions generally and his own in particular; DD (Marischal College, Aberdeen, 22nd October 1835). In 1840 he returned to India. Joined the Free Church in 1843; declined Chair of Divinity, New College, 1846; elected Moderator of Free Church Assembly 22nd May 1851; visited USA in 1854, where he was received with such enthusiasm as to call forth the statement: ""No such man has visited us since the days of George Whitefield""; LLD (New York 1854). That same year his evidence on the subject of education before Indian Committees of Parliament resulted in the famous Despatch of Lord Halifax to the Governor-General, in which Duff's early views were officially homologated. He was in India again from 1856 to 1863; condemned the policy of the Government in the Mutiny, and was a chief instrument in establishing the University of Calcutta in 1857. In 1864 he finally left India, his health having become so impaired as to necessitate a permanent change of occupation and scene. Numerous memorials were devised in his honour, amongst others the erection of a marble hall in the educational buildings at Calcutta, the founding of four Duff Scholarships, the painting of his portrait, and the placing of a bust in one of the colleges. A gift of £11,000 from Scotsmen in India he handed over as a fund for invalided missionaries of the Free Church. On his homeward journey he visited South Africa and its mission stations, and on arrival in Edinburgh was appointed Convener of the Free Church Foreign Mission Committee. He raised a sum of £10,000 for a Chair of Missions in the New College, and became its first occupant as Professor of Evangelistic Theology. He carried through the arrangements for the inauguration of the Free Church Mission in Nyasaland; travelled in Syria, and collaborated in the establishment of the Gordon Memorial Mission, Natal [founded to commemorate the sixth Earl of Aberdeen, who was lost at sea, and his brother the Honourable James Henry Hamilton Gordon]. On 22nd May 1873 he was elected a second time Moderator of the Free Church, and was one of the inspirers of the Alliance of Reformed Churches holding the Presbyterian System; died at Sidmouth, Devonshire, 12th February 1878 and buried in Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh. His personal property he left to found the Duff Missionary Lectureship. Portrait in New College, Edinburgh; Memorial (Iona Cross with portrait bust) at Pitlochry Church. He married 30th July 1829, Anne Scott Drysdale, Edinburgh (died 22nd February 1865), and had issue - Rebecca Jane, born 24th June 1830 (married 5th May 1852, John Watson, East India merchant), died at London, 7th November 1896; James Murray, born 26th September 1831, died 5th June 1832; Alexander Groves, physician, born 19th July 1834; Ann Jemima, born 5th August 1836, died 26th May 1841; William Pirie, merchant, Calcutta, born 9th November 1838, died at Edinburgh, 31st January 1899. Publications - Extract of a Letter respecting the Wreck of the ""Lady Holland,"" East Indiaman (Edinburgh, 1830); The Church of Scotland's India Mission (Edinburgh, 1835); The Church of Scotland's Foreign Missions (Edinburgh, 1836); Vindication of the Church of Scotland's India Missions (Edinburgh, 1837); The Mutual Duties and Responsibilities of Pastor and People (Edinburgh, 1837); New Era of English Language and Literature in India (Edinburgh, 1837); Missions, the Chief End of the Christian Church (Edinburgh, 1839); Female Education in India (Edinburgh, 1839); Farewell Address (Edinburgh, 1839); India and India Missions (Edinburgh, 1839); Bombay in April 1840 (Edinburgh, 1840); Missionary Sympathy with the Free Church (Edinburgh, 1843); The Cause of Christ and the Cause of Satan (Edinburgh, 1843); The Headship of the Lord Jesus Christ (Edinburgh, 1844); Lectures on the Church of Scotland [delivered at Calcutta] (Edinburgh, 1844); India Mission previous to Disruption (Edinburgh, 1844); The Jesuits, their Origin and Order, etc. (Edinburgh, 1845); Missionary Addresses (Edinburgh, 1850); Home Organisation for Foreign Missions (Edin burgh, 1850); Speech at Exeter Hall (London, 1851); Foreign Missions and America (Edinburgh, 1854); Farewell Address to the Free Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1855); The Indian Rebellion, its Causes and Results (Edinburgh, 1858); Extension of Foreign Missionary Operations (Edinburgh, 1865); Evangelistic Theology [Inaugural Address] (Edinburgh, 1868); The True Nobility [Sketches of Lord Haddo and his son] (Edinburgh, 1868); Foreign Missions [Assembly Address] (Edinburgh, 1869); Liberality, a Means of Sanctification (Edinburgh, 1872); Foreign Missions (Edinburgh, 1872); The Worldwide Crisis (Edinburgh, 1873); a founder and editor of the Calcutta Review, 1845-9. [In Memoriam, Alexander Duff (1878) ; Life by George Smith, CIE, LLD, 2 vols (portrait) (London, 1879, abridged edition, 1899); Alexander Duff by Thomas Smith, DD (London, 1883); Recollections of A.D by Lál Behári Day (London, 1879); Maratt's Two Standard-Bearers in the East (London, 1882); JN Ogilvie's The Apostles of India, 380-431 (London, 1915); Memorials, by W Pirie Duff (1890); Duff Watson's, [grandson] Self Lost in Service (portraits) (London, 1926); Dict Nat Biog] |
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List of Ministers of the Church of Scotland who served in India or South Asia extracted from Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae
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