Life

He was born in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 in 1797, and in 1809 was apprenticed to the publisher Adam Black

Adam Black

Adam Black was a Scottish publisher, and founded the A & C Black publishing company.Black was born in Edinburgh, the son of a builder, and educated at the Royal High School. After serving as an apprentice to a bookseller in Edinburgh and London, he began business for himself in Edinburgh in 1808...

. Having completed his term he came to London in 1818 and entered the establishment of Ogle, Duncan, & Cochran, 295 High Holborn, who carried on a trade in theological books. He remained with them until 1825, when he started in business on his own account at Little Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields.

For many years he was a member of the Scottish presbyterian church, and was one of the friends of the Rev. Edward Irving

Edward Irving

*For Edward Irving, the Canadian geologist, see Edward A. Irving.Edward Irving was a Scottish clergyman, generally regarded as the main figure behind the foundation of the Catholic Apostolic Church.-Youth:...

; subsequently he joined the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

. Acting on a suggestion of several clergymen, he in 1839 began a library for the use of theological students. It was at first named the Clerical Library and afterwards the Metropolitan Library. Every subscriber of one guinea was to have the privilege of borrowing from the library any volume he pleased, and subscribers were also entitled to make use of the reading-room as a kind of club, with papers, reviews, and magazines being supplied. The Clerical Library was not successful as a business, and Darling returned to work as a bookseller.

Darling died at his residence, Fortess Terrace West, Kentish Town

Kentish Town

Kentish Town is an area of north west London, England in the London Borough of Camden.-History:The most widely accepted explanation of the name of Kentish Town is that it derived from 'Ken-ditch' meaning the 'bed of a waterway'...

, London, on 2 March 1862.

Works

Darling compiled in 1843 the ‘Bibliotheca Clericalis, or the Catalogue of the Books in the Clerical Library and Reading Rooms, 21, 22, and 23 Little Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields,’ a volume of 316 pages, giving an abstract of the contents of all the major works. In 1851 he brought out the first part of the ‘Cyclopædia Bibliographica, or Library Manual of Theological and General Literature: Authors,’ a rival to the works of Robert Watt

Robert Watt (bibliographer)

Dr Robert Watt was a Scottish physician and bibliographer.-Early life:The son of a small farmer in Bonnyton near Stewarton in Ayrshire, Watt attended school from the age of six to twelve. After working as a ploughman, aged seventeen he went to learn cabinetmaking with his brother...

 and William Thomas Lowndes

William Thomas Lowndes

William Thomas Lowndes , English bibliographer, was born about 1798, the son of a London bookseller.His principal work, The Bibliographer’s Manual of English Literature—the first systematic work of the kind—was published in four volumes in 1834...

. The first part, ‘Authors,’ was completed in 1854. It contains the names of notable theological authors, gives a short biographical or descriptive notice of their writings, and then an analysis of each volume. The second volume appeared in 1859. It contained ‘Subjects,’ and gave an account of works bearing on the scriptures, a list of commentators on every book, and a list of all the sermons on every verse of the Bible. Darling had then an assistant in his son. A promised third volume of ‘General Subjects in Theology’ was never published. Another work bearing his name is ‘Catalogue of Books belonging to Sir William Heathcote at Hursley Park, 1834,’ lithographed in imitation of manuscript.