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DUNLOP, WILLIAM, principal of the university
of Glasgow, and an eminent public character at the end of the seventeenth
century, was the son of Mr Alexander Dunlop, minister of Paisley, of the
family of Auchenkeith, in Ayrshire, by Elizabeth, daughter of William Mure
of Glanderston. One of his mother’s sisters was married to the Rev. John
Carstairs, and became the mother of the celebrated principal of the
college of Edinburgh; another was the wife, successively of Mr Zachary
Boyd, and Mr James Durham. Being thus intimately connected with the
clergy, William Dunlop early chose the church as his profession. After
completing his studies at the university of Glasgow, he became tutor in
the family of William, lord Cochrane, and superintended the education of
John, second earl of Dundonald, and his brother, William Cochrane of
Kilmarnock. The insurrection of 1679 took place about the time when he
became a licentiate, and he warmly espoused the views of the moderate
party in that unfortunate enterprise. Though he was concerned in drawing
up the Hamilton declaration, which embodied the views of his party, he
appears to have escaped the subsequent vengeance of the government. Tired,
however, like many others, of the hopeless state of things in his own
country, he joined the emigrants who colonized the state of Carolina, and
continued there till after the revolution, partly employed in secular, and
partly in spiritual work. He had previously married his cousin, Sarah
Carstairs. On returning to Scotland in 1690, he was, through the influence
of the Dundonald family, presented to the parish of Ochiltree, and a few
months after, had a call to the church of Paisley. Ere he could enter upon
this charge, a vacancy occurred in the principality of the university of
Glasgow, to which he was preferred by king William, November, 1690. Mr
Dunlop’s celebrity arises from the dignity and zeal with which he
supported the interests of this institution. In 1692, he was an active
member of the general correspondence of the Scottish universities, and in
1694, was one of a deputation sent by the church of Scotland, to
congratulate the king on his return from the continent, and negotiate with
his majesty certain affairs concerning the interest of the church. He
seems to have participated considerably in the power and influence enjoyed
by his distinguished brother-in-law. Carstairs, which, it is well known,
was of a most exalted, though irregular kind. In 1699, he acted as
commissioner for all the five universities, in endeavouring to obtain some
assistance for those institutions. He succeeded in securing a yearly grant
of 1200 pounds sterling, of which 300 pounds was bestowed upon his own
college. While exerting himself for the public, principal Dunlop regarded
little his own immediate profit or advantage; besides his principalship,
the situation of historiographer for Scotland, with a pension of 40 pounds
a year, is stated to have been all that he ever personally experienced of
the royal bounty. He died in middle life, March, 1700, leaving behind him
a most exalted character: "his singular piety," says Wodrow,
with whom he was connected by marriage, "great prudence, public
spirit, universal knowledge, general usefulness, and excellent temper,
were so well known, that his death was as much lamented as perhaps any one
man’s in this church."
Principal Dunlop left two sons, both of
whom were distinguished men. Alexander, who was born in America, and died
in 1742, was an eminent professor of Greek in the Glasgow university, and
author of a Greek Grammar long held in esteem. William was professor of
divinity and church history in the university of Edinburgh, and published
the well known collection of creeds and confessions, which appeared in
1719 and 1722 (two volumes), as a means of correcting a laxity of
religious opinion, beginning at that time to be manifested by some
respectable dissenters. To this work was prefixed an admirable essay on
confessions, which has since been reprinted separately. Professor William
Dunlop, after acquiring great celebrity, both as a teacher of theology and
a preacher, died October 29th, 1720, at the early age of
twenty-eight.
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