neighbour, who had established himself there as a machine-maker. The machinery made at that time was limited to carding-frames, Hargreaves's jennies, and Arkwright's water-frames, all employed in cotton-manufacture. At the end of his apprenticeship in February 1791 he removed to Manchester, as partner with Benjamin and William Sandford and James m'Connel, machine-makers and mule-spinners, and the firm for many years were the sole makers of Crompton's ‘mule.’ Kennedy introduced several ingenious improvements for the spinning of fine yarns, including the ‘jack frame.’ As a spinner he was successful, and realised a considerable fortune. He was a friend of James Watt and many other scientific men of his day, and was a cordial supporter of every improvement in mechanical science. He was an active member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, which he joined in 1803, and contributed four papers to its ‘Memoirs:’ 1. ‘On the Rise and Progress of the Cotton Trade,’ 1815. 2. ‘On the Poor Laws,’ 1819. 3. ‘Observations on the Influence of Machinery on the Working Classes,’ 1826. 4. ‘Memoir of Samuel Crompton,’ 1830. These papers he reprinted for private circulation in 1849, with an appendix containing autobiographical particulars of his early life, and notes of a tour on the continent.
He married Mary, daughter of John Stuart of Manchester, and died at Ardwick Hall, Manchester, on 30 Oct. 1855, aged 86, leaving one son, John Lawson Kennedy, and several daughters, and was buried at Rusholme Road cemetery, Ardwick, Manchester.
[Memoir by Sir W. Fairbairn in Memoirs of Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc. 3rd ser. vol. i. 1862; Kennedy's Early Recollections, 1849; Smiles's Industrial Biography, 1863, p. 317; Burke's Landed Gentry, 6th edit. i. 897; communications from J. L. Kennedy, esq.]
KENNEDY, JOHN (1819–1884), highland divine, fourth son of John Kennedy, minister of Killearnan, Ross-shire, was born at the manse on 15 Aug. 1819. His mother was Jessie, daughter of Kenneth Mackenzie of Assynt, Sutherlandshire. He was educated in the parish school of Killearnan, and about 1836 went to Aberdeen University. He graduated M.A. at King's College in 1840, and in the same year entered the theological hall of the established church. After the death of his father (10 Jan. 1841) he became, while still continuing his studies, tutor in the family of Dr. Henderson of Caskieben, Aberdeenshire. His brother Donald succeeded his father at Killearnan, but joined the free church after the disruption of 1843. Kennedy, who had been licensed by the established church in September 1843, followed this example, and in February 1844 was inducted into a free church newly formed at Dingwall, Ross-shire. He had perfect command of the Gaelic language, and preached in both Gaelic and English to many congregations besides his own. He often delivered, it is said, as many as ten discourses in one week.
Dingwall was his only charge. He declined calls from Dunoon (1853), from Australia (1854), from Greenock and from Tain (1857), from Renfield Church, Glasgow (1863), and from Greenock again in 1872. In 1873 the university of Aberdeen conferred upon him the honorary degree of D.D.
During the winter of 1869–70 Kennedy's health broke down, and he was forced to take rests in 1872, 1873 (when he visited America), and 1881. In the summer of 1883 he took an active interest in the Strome Ferry case, caused by an attempt, with which he sympathised, to forcibly resist the Sunday traffic on the Highland Railway. He died at Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire, on 28 April 1884, and was buried within the grounds of the free church at Dingwall on 1 May. He married at Fodderty, on 25 April 1848, Mary, daughter of Major Forbes Mackenzie, by whom he had several children.
Kennedy was the leader in the highlands of the opposition to the projected union of the free and united presbyterian churches, and supported his friend Dr. James Begg [q. v.], with whose views on church government he completely sympathised, in defeating the movement. He had been one of those appointed to confer on points of agreement in 1865, but retired in 1868, when his church seemed in danger of lapsing into voluntaryism. He was equally firm in opposing the disestablishment of Scottish presbyterianism, and greatly objected to the secularisation of the endowments. His pamphlet, ‘Disestablishment Movement in the Free Church,’ Edinburgh, 1882, had a wide circulation both in Gaelic and English. In 1865 and 1872 he stoutly opposed the introduction of uninspired hymns into public worship. He viewed the hymns as the forerunner of an organ. In 1882 he denounced the use of instrumental music as ‘unscriptural, unconstitutional, and inexpedient’ in his ‘Introduction of Instrumental Music into the Worship of the Free Church,’ Edinburgh, 1883. In 1877 the prosecution of Professor W. Robertson Smith for an article upon the Bible in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ had his warm sympathy; and in 1881 he published in connection with the case ‘A Purtecklur Acoont o' the Last Assembly, by wan o' the Hielan' Host.’ Kennedy was the
