Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Symington, Andrew

647335Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 55 — Symington, Andrew1898Edward Irving Carlyle

SYMINGTON, ANDREW (1785–1853), Scottish divine, eldest son of a Paisley merchant, was born in that town on 26 June 1785. After attending the Paisley grammar school for four years he entered Glasgow University, where he carried off the first honours in mathematics, natural philosophy, and divinity, and graduated M.A. in 1803. Being destined for the ministry of the reformed presbyterian church, of which his father was a member, he studied theology under the Rev. John Macmillan. On being licensed to preach he accepted a call from his native town, and was ordained in 1809. In 1820 he was appointed professor of theology in the reformed presbyterian church, as successor to John Macmillan, his old instructor. In 1831 he received the degree of D.D. from the Western University of Pennsylvania, and in 1840 he obtained the same degree from the university of Glasgow. He died at Paisley on 22 Sept. 1853. By his wife, Jane Stevenson, of Crookedholm, Riccarton, Ayrshire, whom he married in 1811, he had fourteen children, of whom three sons and three daughters survived him.

Besides numerous tracts and sermons, Symington wrote:

  1. ‘The Martyr's Monument,’ Paisley, 1847.
  2. ‘Elements of Divine Truth,’ Edinburgh, 1854, 8vo.

He also contributed ‘The Unity of the Heavenly Church’ (1845) to ‘Essays on Christian Union,’ wrote memoirs of Archibald Mason and Thomas Halliday, which are prefixed to the collected editions of their discourses, and supplied an article on the Reformed Presbyterian church to the ‘Cyclopædia of Religious Denominations,’ 1853, 8vo.

[Anderson's Scottish Nation, iii. 548; Funeral Sermon by William Symington; Preface to Symington's Elements of Divine Truth.]

E. I. C.