Alexander Crombie


The Rev Dr Alexander Crombie FRS was a Presbyterian minister, schoolmaster and philosopher.

Biography

He was born in Aberdeen.
He studied Divinity at Marischal College in Aberdeen under James Beattie, gaining a MA in 1778. He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Aberdeen but instead became a teacher. In 1794 his college awarded him an honorary doctorate.
He moved in the early 19th century to London, where he ran an academy in Highgate and 1796 to 1798 officiated at the Presbyterian Meeting House at Southwood Lane.
He then moved to be principal of a school in Greenwich, Kent, living in a large mansion purchased from Sir Walter James.
By 1822, he was resident in the fashionable Regent's Park area of London, but he inherited a substantial property in Scotland from his namesake cousin- Thornton Castle near Phesdo.
He died in York Terrace, London on 11 June 1840 and was buried at St Marylebone Church.

Family

Crombie was married at least twice:
By his first marriage, he had a son:
  1. Alexander Crombie, a barrister-at-law of Lincoln's Inn
He remarried, on 6 March 1798, at Cluny, Aberdeenshire, to Jane Nory ; the couple had children including:
  1. Lewis Crombie, a solicitor
  2. Mary Crombie
  3. Jane Crombie ; married on 1 February 1823 at St George's, Hanover Square to Captain Henry Algernon Eliot
  4. Thomas Crombie, a major in the 60th Regiment of Foot
  5. William Crombie
  6. Peter Crombie

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