James Wallace (minister)
Encyclopedia
Life
He studied at the University of AberdeenUniversity of Aberdeen
The University of Aberdeen, an ancient university founded in 1495, in Aberdeen, Scotland, is a British university. It is the third oldest university in Scotland, and the fifth oldest in the United Kingdom and wider English-speaking world...
, where he graduated M.A. on 27 April 1659. He was shortly afterwards appointed minister of Ladykirk in Orkney. From there he was translated to Kirkwall
Kirkwall
Kirkwall is the biggest town and capital of Orkney, off the coast of northern mainland Scotland. The town is first mentioned in Orkneyinga saga in the year 1046 when it is recorded as the residence of Rögnvald Brusason the Earl of Orkney, who was killed by his uncle Thorfinn the Mighty...
in 1672. On 16 October 1678 he was also collated by Bishop Mackenzie to the prebend of St. John in St Magnus Cathedral.
Wallace died of fever in September 1688.
Works
Wallace is known for his work A Description of the Isles of Orkney (1693), dedicated to Sir Robert Sibbald. Wallace had originally undertaken his ‘Description’ at the request of Sibbald, who was planning a general atlas of Scotland. ‘An Account from Orkney,’ by James Wallace, was sent to Sibbald, who was collecting statistical information regarding the counties of Scotland.In 1700 Wallace's botanist son James
James Wallace (botanist)
-Life:He was the eldest son of James Wallace, a minister in Orkney. He qualified M.D., and took part in the Darien scheme. He passed some plants from what is now Panama to James Petiver, and Hans Sloane. He became Fellow of the Royal Society, and had some employment with the East India Company...
published under his own name ‘An Account of the Islands of Orkney,’ (London, Jacob Tonson
Jacob Tonson
Jacob Tonson, sometimes referred to as Jacob Tonson the elder was an 18th-century English bookseller and publisher....
). This work, which makes no mention of his father's works, consists of the ‘Description’ of 1693, with some omissions and additions, but including a chapter on the plants and shells of the Orkneys. The younger Wallace substituted a dedication from himself to Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset
Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset
Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset and 1st Earl of Middlesex was an English poet and courtier.-Early Life:He was son of Richard Sackville, 5th Earl of Dorset...
.
The original work, with illustrative notes, edited by John Small
John Small (librarian)
-Life:The son of John Small and Margaret Brown his wife, he was born at Edinburgh in 1828. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and the university, where he graduated M.A. in 1847. In the same year, on the death of his father, who was acting librarian of the university library, he succeeded to...
, was reprinted at Edinburgh in 1883. Wallace left in manuscript, besides sermons and miscellaneous pieces, “A Harmony of the Evangelists,” “Commonplaces,” a treatise of the ancient and modern church discipline, and anti-Catholic writings.