# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Meldrum, George

​MELDRUM, GEORGE (1635?–1709), rector of Marischal College, Aberdeen, and professor of divinity in the university of Edinburgh, was ‘the fourth son of a family in Aberdeenshire of the old house of Meldrum (Wodrow, Analecta, i. 175). At seventeen years of age, and before he had taken the degree of M.A., he was made one of the regents of Marischal College, Aberdeen. On 1 Dec. 1658 he was chosen by the town council to be minister of Aberdeen. After the Restoration he was on 24 Oct. 1662 suspended by the synod till 1 Jan. 1663, for not subscribing canonical obedience (Ecclesiastical Records of Aberdeen, Spalding Club, p. 269). Being cited before the council on 10 Dec. 1662, he agreed to comply with the government of the church as ‘presently established by archbishops and bishops,’ and his case being recommended by the council to the Bishop of St. Andrews, he was restored to his charge (Wodrow, Sufferings of the Kirk of Scotland, i. 315–16). He afterwards explained that he only supported episcopacy so far as it was consistent with presbyteries and synods (ib.) According to Wodrow he ‘showed much zeal against popery, and especially against Dempster the jesuit, and one night was almost assassinated going to see a sick person’ (Analecta, i. 176). He was ten times elected rector of Marischal College.
In 1681 Meldrum was deprived of his charge for refusing to take the test; but after the Toleration Act of James II he was admitted to the charge of Kilwinning, Ayrshire, some time before 2 Oct. 1688. On 11 Feb. 1692 he was admitted to the collegiate or second charge of the Tron Church, Edinburgh. On 11 Jan. 1698 he was chosen moderator of the general assembly. On 24 Dec. 1701 he was chosen professor of divinity in the university, but accepted office very unwillingly, and only on condition that the presbytery should relieve him from nearly all the routine duties of his pastorate, except preaching on Sunday. He was admitted to the chair on 13 Oct. 1702. According to Wodrow, he ‘understood scholastic divinity to a pitch’ (ib. i. 176), and discharged his professorial duties with great efficiency. On 10 March 1703 he was again elected moderator of the general assembly. This assembly, after several sittings, was abruptly dismissed by the lord high commissioner, James, earl of Seafield, without consulting the moderator, who, however, had sufficient tact to avoid collision with the temporal powers, and concluded with prayer. The occurrence led to an agreement between the church and the government as to the manner of dissolving the assembly in future. Meldrum died on 18 Feb. 1709, in his seventy-fifth year.
Meldrum published: 1. ‘Sermon preached in the High Church of Edinburgh, Sunday, 27 April 1690.’ 2. ‘A Letter to a Friend, giving an Account of all the Treatises that have been published with relation to the present Persecution against the Church of Scotland,’ anon. 1692. 3. ‘Letter asserting the Lawfulness of Informing against the Vitious and Profane before the Courts of Immorality,’ anon. 1701. 4. ‘A Letter from a Friend in the City to a Member of Parliament anent Patronage,’ anon. 1703. 5. ‘Sermon preached before the Lord High Commissioner in New Church, Edinburgh, on 16 May 1703,’ 1703. It touched on the evils of patronage and the danger of extending toleration. 6. ‘Defence of Sermon,’ 1703, in reply to the criticism of Bishop Sage. 7. ‘Sermon preached before the Lord High Commissioner, 10 March 1704,’ 1704. 8. ‘The Danger of Popery discovered, with a Dissuasive from it,’ anon. 2nd edit. 1714.
[Wodrow's Analecta and Sufferings of the Kirk of Scotland; Bower's Hist. of the University of Edinburgh; Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen; Fasti Aberd. and Ecclesiastical Records of Aberdeen (both Spalding Club); Anderson's Fasti Academiæ Mariscallanæ (New Spalding Club); Hew Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scot. i. 59, ii. 182, iii. 467.]
T. F. H.