Gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

DUNDEE.
285
ters and elders form tut one kirk-session.
There are meeting-houses in the town, be-
longing to Independents, Presbyterian Dissen-
ters, Baptists, Methodists, Glassites, Bereans,
Unitarians, and Quakers. There is also a
Roman Catholic Chapel, and two Episcopal
Chapels. It may be worth mentioning, that
a curious and beautifully ornamented pulpit
from the Old Parish Church of Dundee, is
preserved in the Episcopal Chapel, Castle
Street. Dundee is the seat of a Presbytery,
in the Synod of Angus and Mearns. The
town has had several ministers noted for their
literary and theological acquirements, among
whom none were so conspicuous as the Rev.
Dr. John Willison and the late Rev. Dr. Ro-
bert Small. The fame of Dr. Willison is
widely spread in Scotland, from the many re-
ligious tracts he published, none of which seem
to have been so popular as the Mother's Cate-
chism and a small work entitled " The Afflict-
ed Man's Companion." Dr. Robert Small
was an excellent scholar, an eminent divine,
and highly interesting preacher ; besides being
versed in mathematics, natural philosophy, and
astronomy. Many of his papers are to be
found in the Transactions of the Royal So-
ciety of Edinburgh ; and he published an ela-
borate and luminous account of the Astrono-
mical Discoveries of Kepler. He was also the
author of the Statistical Account of the Parish
of Dundee, which is among the best in the
compilation of Sir John Sinclair. Numerous
as are the places of worship in the present day
in Dundee, they are not more so than what
existed prior to the Reformation, although the
population is about seven times greater. There
were then ten churches or chapels in or near
the town, with four monasteries, and a number
of chaplainries. Of these there are now no
remains, unless we are to reckon the turret of
the head church, and their sites are only known
faintly by tradition, or by the names they have
bestowed on the streets or lanes in their vici-
nage. Those of the monasteries were of the
order of Grey, Black, and Red Friars, the
fourth was a nunnery dedicated to St. Clair. The
church of St. Clement, the tutelar saint of the
town, which existed before the erection of the
present large church, contained a chantry of
seven priests, founded by David Earl of Craw-
ford, in honour of St. George, on whose sa-
cred day the Earl had been conqueror in a fa-
mous tournament, held at the end of the four-
teenth century, upon London Bridge. In
Educational Institutions, Dundee possesses an
excellent Parochial Elementary School, e.
Grammar School on the ordinary plan of such
establishments, and an Academy. The latter
has been in existence upwards of forty years,
and was renovated in its constitution and ar-
rangements in 1800, when it was assisted by an
endowment of the Messrs. Webster of Lon-
don, natives of the town, who bequeathed
L.6000 to be appropriated to the instruction
of youth. It has a rector, a mathema-
tical teacher, a master for writing and draw-
ing, and a teacher of modern languages.
The institution has been fortunate in having
a succession of talented masters. Dundee
occupies an eminent station in the list of
places which have produced and educated men
famed in the history of their country. Ac-
cording to Blind Harry, so far back as 1290,
Sir William Wallace here received the first
rudiments of his education, most probably, we
should suppose, at some of the monastic in-
stitutions, and not at a public school, as has
been generally supposed, and it was here he
gave an early indication of his high spirit, ar-
dent love of liberty, and abhorrence of oppres-
sion, in slaying Selby, the son of the English
governor, who had wantonly insulted him.
At the same time were educated Sir Neil
Campbell of Lochawe, ancestor of the Ar-
gyle family, and John Blair, who after-
wards celebrated the enterprises of Wallace in
a Latin poem. Hector Boethius, the histo-
rian and poet, and for sometime Principal
of King's College in Aberdeen, was born in
the parish of Barrie, near Dundee, and re-
ceived in that town the first part of his
education, which he afterwards completed in
Paris, agreeably to the usage of the period.
In the sixteenth century, Dr. Kinloch, physi-
cian to James VI., and Mr. Goldman, whose
poems appear in a small collection of early
Scots poetry, and both eminent for their ac-
quirements in belles lettres, were natives of
the town and students at the schools. The
Earl of Mar, who was greatly distinguished
by the same monarch, and was the friend and
fellow-labourer of Napier of Merchiston, the
inventor of the Logarithms, spent his first
and early days in the seminaries of Dundee.
Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, a man
who was noted as the first lawyer of the age
in which he lived, and a person of extensive