Hugh Meiklejohn


The Very Rev Prof Hugh Meiklejohn DD was a Scottish minister who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1810.

Life

He was born on 12 June 1764, the only son of Mary Cree, daughter of Hugh Cree, of Saline, Fife, and Rev George Meiklejohn, who was later a minister in the Carolinas in America. He studied divinity at the University of Glasgow. He was licensed to preach by the Church of Scotland around 1786 and ordained as minister of Dunfermline in 1788. In 1791 he was translated to Abercorn in West Lothian and remained there until 1799, after which he was Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Edinburgh.
He was appointed Moderator of the Church of Scotland in 1810.
From around 1810 he lived with his family at Merchant Street opposite Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh's Old Town.
Curiously, in 1825, he writes to support John Somerville, inventor of a safety catch for firearms.
He died on 11 June 1831, and is buried with his family in Abercorn churchyard. The grave lies to the east side of the church.

Family

In 1792 he married Anne Liston, eldest daughter of Very Rev Robert Liston, Moderator in 1787/8. They had nine children including Cpt James Hope Johnston Meiklejohn of the Gordon Highlanders, Hugh Cree Meiklejohn, Rev Robert Meiklejohn minister of Strathdon, and Rev William Hope Meiklejohn a missionary in Calcutta.

Publications