Author: MCRAE, John
Biography:
MCRAE, John (1815-1892: ancestry.co.uk)
His surname is variously spelled as MacRae, M’Rae, and McRae. The son of James McRae and his wife Margaret (Saunders), he was born on 25 Jan. 1815 at Glasgow and studied at the university there, attending the classes in logic where his poem, Farewell to Day, won a prize. (The poem’s headnote states that it concerns “one born blind” who briefly experienced sight following a surgical operation; there is no evidence that this refers to McRae himself.) In 1843 he was ordained minister of the church at Hawick, Roxburghshire, where he married Margaret MacLachlan on 24 Jan. 1844. They had no children. The 1881 census lists him as being DD. His preaching is described by Walker as animated, original, and lively. He died on 8 Jan. 1892 leaving an estate of £1239. (ancestry.co.uk 8 Apr. 2020, 25 Aug. 2025; David Walker, The Border Pulpit [1877]) SR