Alexander whyte biography

Rev Alexander Whyte D.D.,LL.D.
He was a prolific writer and was widely regarded as the greatest Scottish preacher of his day.
Biography.

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WRIGHT, ALEXANDER WHYTE, militiaman, journalist, labour leader, reformer, office holder, and political organizer; b. 17 Dec. 1845 in Upper Canada, son of George Wright and Helen Whyte; m. 26 Jan. 1876 in Guelph, Ont., Elizabeth Runciman Simpson (d. 1913), and they had a daughter; d. 12 June 1919 in Toronto.

The son of Scottish immigrants, A. W. Wright was probably born near the settlement of Almira in Markham Township, though some sources give his birthplace as Elmira in Waterloo County. He attended public school in New Hamburg in the 1850s and after brief employment as a drugstore clerk he entered the woollen industry, in which his family was engaged. He started in 1863 in Linwood and subsequently worked in Preston (Cambridge), St Jacobs, and Guelph. Active in athletics and lacrosse in his youth, he joined the Orange order and the Waterloo militia. He saw action with the 29th (Waterloo) Battalion of Infantry against the Fenians in 1866 and participated in the Red River expedition of Colonel Garnet Joseph Wolseley in 1870–71 as

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Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Whyte, Alexander

WHYTE, ALEXANDER (1836–1921), divine, was born at Kirriemuir, Forfarshire, 13 January 1836, of parents who never married. Brought up by his mother, Janet Thomson, who earned her living as a weaver and harvester, the boy owed much to her influence as well as to that of two local ministers and several keenly intelligent artisans. Abandoning the shoemaking trade to which he had served his apprenticeship, Whyte taught for four years in village schools. At the age of twenty-two (1858) he matriculated in King's College, Aberdeen, and, supporting himself mainly by teaching evening classes, succeeded in graduating as M.A. with second-class honours in mental philosophy in 1862. (Sir) William Duguid Geddes and Alexander Bain were the professors who made the deepest impression on him. During this period he became acquainted with the writings of Thomas Goodwin, the elder [q.v.], and Goodwin's influence persisted to the end of his life.

Whyte decided to enter the ministry of the Free Church of Scotland, and four y

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Alexander Whyte

Scottish divine

For the British colonial administrator, see Alexander Frederick Whyte

Rev Alexander Whyte D.D.,LL.D. (13 January 1836 – 6 January 1921) was a Scottishdivine. He was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland in 1898.^[1]

Life

He was born in Kirriemuir, Forfarshire to Janet Thomson, an unmarried girl. Janet declined to marry Alexander's father, John Whyte, who thereafter went to America. She did however give Alexander his father's surname. His mother joined the Free Church of Scotland at the Disruption of 1843. In 1848 he began an apprenticeship as a cobbler.^[2] In 1854 he took on a role as schoolteacher at Padanaram in Forfar and the following year moved to teach in Airlie. In Airlie the local minister taught him Latin and Greek, enabling him to apply for university^[3]

He studied divinity at the University of Aberdeen and then at New College, Edinburgh graduating in 1866. This was in part funded by his estranged father. His half-sister, Elizabeth Whyte, came