| Notes |
- Posted 30 Sep 2010 by glenbee A Biographical Note on Adam Dickey Glasgow (1814-1863)
Adam Dickey Glasgow was born near Clough, County Antrim, Northern Ireland in 1814. He attended the Ballymena Grammar School, and then, at the age of fourteen in 1828, he entered the Royal Belfast Academical Institute, attending the collegiate classes as a private student in his first year. He advanced his studies with distinction in Mathematics, Natural Philosophy (Science), Latin, Greek, Logic, Moral Philosophy and Elocution. In doing so he topped all his Mathematics classes, was awarded honours in Logic, Moral Philosophy and Elocution, and the Institute’s medals for Science and Philosophy in 1837. He gained his General Certificate, the equivalent of an English University Degree.
At first his mathematics teacher was Dr. James Thomson, later to become eminent at Glasgow University. Thomson’s successor at the Royal Belfast Institute, the Rev. Isaiah Steen, appointed Adam, in 1834, to follow his brother James Glasgow, as first assistant in the mathematical department. Later he described Adam’s education as “very extensive and complete, excelling in all branches to which he gave attention. It always appeared to me that mathematics were his favourite subject.”
Dr. James Thomson, LL.D., Professor of Mathematics in the University of Glasgow, published a book, Euclid’s Elements. An extract from page 329 of the 12th Edition reads:
“Proposition XXVI. This curious proposition I have not met with except in The Dublin Problems, published in 1823, where it is inserted without demonstration. The following is an outline of a very easy and neat proof of it by Mr. Adam D. Glasgow of Belfast, a former student of mine, of great taste and talent for Mathematical pursuits.”
Adam Glasgow went on to Edinburgh University to study Hebrew and Theology under the Rev. Thomas Chalmers DD, LL.D., Professor of Theology, and the Rev. David Welsh, DD., Professor of Church History. In his first year at Edinburgh he obtained a rare honour of being chosen an honorary member of one of the Literary Student’s Societies.
In 1839 he was licensed by the Magherafelt Presbytery. But shortly after this, and upon the recommendation of Dr. James Thomson, he was offered the Chair of Mathematics in the Lancashire College. Nevertheless he felt a strong sense of Divine calling to the Ministry and was ordained to the pastorate of the Berry Street Presbyterian Church in Belfast (no longer extant).
On 30 December 1841 he married Jane Thompson at the Fisherwick Presbyterian Church in Belfast. Jane was the daughter of Dr. Francis Thompson, a surgeon of Lisburn.
Prior to this, Adam had travelled to Liverpool, on 29th August 1840 to bid farewell to his brother and sister-in-law, The Rev. James and Mary (nee Wightman) Glasgow, who were due to sail with the Rev. and Mrs. Alexander Kerr, as pioneer missionaries of the Irish Presbyterian Mission in India. These missionaries sailed from Liverpool on the Wave, via the Cape, on 4th September 1840. Less than a year later, however, Alex Kerr died of sickness in India, and his wife returned home. The Mission Board asked Adam and Jane Glasgow to take their place beside his brother in India. This they were willing to do, and with another missionary couple, the Rev. and Mrs. Montgomery, they sailed from Southampton on the 1st February 1842. They travelled via Egypt, crossing in a camel caravan, where the Suez Canal was later to link the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. They were met in Bombay by James Glasgow and proceeded up the coast, and then inland, to Rajkot, in Kathiawar State. They had arrived in Bombay on 14 March 1842.
Their firstborn child was William Thompson Glasgow. Jane had a very difficult labour for four days with a breach birth on 24 November 1842. She would not permit the Indian midwife to turn the baby before birth because she believed her unsterile condition would almost certainly have resulted in septicaemia. No doubt with her father and brothers in the medical profession she was well educated in these matters.
The next three children she bore were all to die in infancy. They were Eliza Corbett Glasgow, who was born 25 Oct 1844 and died at Rajkot 9 months and 2 days later on 27 July 1845; Thomas Glasgow, born 19 August 1846 who died at Cogha 11 months and 6 days later on 25 July 1847; and Dora Glasgow, born 29 May 1848 at Rajkot who died 1 year, 6 months and 19 days later on 18 December 1849 at a hill station called Mahabhulashwan, south of Bombay. Three other children were born to survive as adults: James and Frances in India, and Jane in Ireland after her parents had returned home.
In India Adam was fully engaged, first in learning the Gujarati language, and superintending various building works, in teaching and preaching, at Rajkot, Janaghad, and Porbandar. He translated two books of Scripture and published various literary works.
But for most of his fourteen years in India he was in very indifferent health. His nervous system was permanently impaired. His descendants believed that he suffered from tape worm, for which there was no adequate treatment, and that the alcohol prescribed for him merely compounded his problems. In consequence of his enfeebled health, Adam and Jane and their family returned to Ireland in 1855 at the invitation of the Mission Directors. There his health improved and he took steps to return to teaching mathematics, securing a large number of testimonials of his outstanding competence, both as a mathematician, and as a teacher. There is little doubt that he was well-qualified to occupy a University Chair in Mathematics.
But his doctors recommended a better climate for his health and he came close to emigrating to Canada. He also enquired about prospects in Melbourne from his brother Robert who was apparently in Australia, but in the event he came to New Zealand. In a letter dated 10th December 1857, the Mission Directors reluctantly accepted his resignation from the Mission and warmly commended him for the Ministry of the Gospel and fellowship of the Presbyterian Church wherever he might reside in future.
He came with his wife and family to Dunedin in 1861, where he was received by the Presbytery as an ordained minister on the 18th December 1861. He was the first minister of a new congregation at St. Andrews, in Stafford Street, which prospered under his ministry though meeting for worship under canvas. The Dunedin Presbytery had accepted responsibility for establishing this new parish in South Dunedin, initially under the oversight of a combined Session of representatives of First Church and Knox Church. This body had agreed to secure Adam Glasgow’s services, and to erect a permanent place of worship for 400-500 people, many of whom were miners and their families.
His ministry at St. Andrews was of short duration. For some months he suffered recurrent spasms, especially after the stress of Sunday preaching, and a few days before his death he lapsed into a stupor and was unable to communicate with those who attended him. He died at his home in Maitland Street, Dunedin, on Sunday morning, 16th March 1863.
Adam Glasgow was a man of gentle and courtly bearing and impeccable integrity. Where other more self-regarding or assertive personalities might have presumed upon an outstanding measure in intellectual ability such as he possessed, he often appeared diffident to a fault, in his assiduous evasion of any pretence or sham. He was a steadfast man of faith, and though erudite and eloquent in his spoken ministry, it was his meek and quiet spirit of humility which friends and family remembered as a strong feature of his character.
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1815 - 1863 (48 years)
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