Author: Magill, Robert
Biography:
MAGILL, Robert (1788-1839: ODNB)
He was born on 7 Sept. 1788 at Broughshane, near Ballymena, Antrim, to George Frederick Magill and Sarah (Boyd) Magill who had married on 12 Nov. 1786. As a boy, he witnessed the 1798 United Irish rising and recorded what he saw in his diary (unpublished). He attended local schools and became a teacher but, on deciding to study for the church, he was tutored in Carrickfergus before entering the University of Glasgow in 1813. His first book of verse, The Race, A Prize Poem, was published in Glasgow in 1815. He attained his MA in 1817, was licensed by the presbytery in Ballymena in 1818, and ordained to a church in Antrim in 1820. He was known as a gifted preacher and the congregation increased under his ministry. He was twice married: to Ann Jane Skelton (1803-32) on 11 Dec. 1823; they had a son and a daughter but the son, William died on 9 Apr. 1832. Ann died of cholera in Sept. of the same year. On 11 June 1838 he married Ellen Liggat; there were no children. During the Arian controversy he sided with the orthodox side; his anonymously-published The Thinking Few, his best-known work, is a satirical poem against the Arians. He died at Antrim on 19 Feb. 1839 and was buried in the Presbyterian churchyard at Broughshane. (ODNB 11 Nov 2019; ancestry.co.uk 25 Mar. 2025) SR
Other Names:
- R. Magill