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James Calder MacPhail, was a native Gaelic speaker born in Lochbroom, Wester Ross in 1821. He studied at Aberdeen University and at Divinity Hall and New College Edinburgh. He participated in the Disruption in the Church of Scotland and the subsequent founding of the Free Church in May 1843. He was ordained a Free Church minister in Aberdeen East in 1849 and in 1868 was appointed minister at Pilrig, Edinburgh. He was appointed a senior minister in 1898. He married, in 1857, Annie Badenach Nicolson and the couple had six children: James Robert Nicolson MacPhail, b.1858 (known as 'Nic'); Earle Monteith MacPhail, b.1861 (originally named George Norman, his name was changed before he was a year old, he was known as 'Montie'); Annie Catherine Phoebe MacPhail, b.1863 (known as 'Phebe'); George Washington MacPhail, b.1865; Quintin Stuart MacPhail, b.1867; Sybella Mary MacPhail, b.1869.
Dr MacPhail was an authority on all matters pertaining to Gaelic literature, and rendered valuable service to the Free Church in connection with the training of Highland students for the ministry. He was responsible for the creation of a bursary scheme for the Free Church of Scotland, instituted in 1869, to send Gaelic-speaking boys from areas of the Highlands and Islands, many desiring to study for the ministry of the Church but then without schools able to take them to a level to enable them to enter university. The object of this bursary was to send these individuals 'to a Grammar School in a University town, that they might there obtain ? a preparation for college'.
This collection also contains papers relating to Dr MacPhail's two eldest sons, James Robert Nicolson MacPhail and Earle Monteith MacPhail.
James Robert Nicolson MacPhail was educated at the Edinburgh Academy (1868?75), where he was dux, and at Edinburgh University. After taking his degree he trained for the law in the office of Tods, Murray, and Jamieson, writers to the signet, where experience in preparing the Lauderdale peerage case encouraged his antiquarian interests. He entered the Faculty of Advocates in 1886, became KC in 1910, and was appointed sheriff of Stirling, Dumbarton, and Clackmannan in 1917. He jointly wrote with J. P. Wood 'The Law of Arbitration in Scotland' (1900), but his chief intellectual interests were always Scottish history, genealogy, and heraldry; he was considered a high authority on peerage law. In 1900 James married Nora Helen, younger daughter of General Sir Hugh Gough and his wife, Annie Margaret; they had two sons and a daughter. Although known as a tory, he supported home rule, admired Parnell, and was a founder of the Scottish National Party. He died in Edinburgh on 15 October 1933.
Earle Monteith MacPhail was educated at Edinburgh University (M A 1883, B D 1890) where he was one of the founders of Edinburgh University Students' Representative Council and he was Cunningham Fellow at New College in 1889. He also attended universities in Jena, Tübingen and Berlin. From 1886-1887 he had been an acting professor at Madras Christian College and, after being ordained as a United Free Church of Scotland missionary in 1890, he returned to Madras as a professor of History and Economics. In 1899 Earle became a fellow of Madras University and later its principal (1921) and vice-chancellor (1923-5). He sat on the Legislative Council between 1919 and 1922 and was a member of the Council of State in 1924. Between 1925 and 1927 Earle represented the European constituency of Madras in the Legislative Assembly of India of which he was deputy chairman in 1927. He retired in 1927 and was made CBE in 1919 and CIE in 1924. He was awarded an honorary D D from Edinburgh in 1922 and LL D from Madras in 1932. In 1892 Earle married Mary (known as 'Daisy'), elder daughter of late James Meliss Stuart, of Eriska, Argyllshire; they had one son and one daughter. He died on 19 January 1937 in Edinburgh. |