where, with great care, the whole movement was traced from its beginning, and ample extracts given from all the authoritative documents in the case. 3. His presiding over the ‘Union’ committee, and guiding the long-continued negotiations and discussions as to a proposed union of the Free church, the United Presbyterian, the Reformed Presbyterian, and the Presbyterian church of England. In this case his efforts proved unsuccessful, owing to the opposition of Dr. Begg and others. In the business of the general assembly Buchanan always took a leading part. While thus active in the affairs of his church, he was a useful citizen of Glasgow, and was deeply interested in all that concerned its prosperity. He was elected a member of the first school board, and laboured unweariedly to the last day of his residence in Glasgow in that and other undertakings for the good of the city.
Buchanan promptly received from time to time whatever honours were suitable to a man in his position. In 1840 the university of Glasgow conferred on him the degree of D.D. In 1860 he was appointed moderator of the general assembly. In 1864 a presentation of four thousand guineas was made to him by his friends, in token of their appreciation of his services. And in 1875, if death had not intervened, he would have been appointed by acclamation principal of the Free Church College of Glasgow.
Though not much of a literary man, Buchanan published several volumes besides his ‘History of the Ten Years' Conflict.’ Among those may be mentioned his ‘Clerical Furlough,’ being an account of a holiday trip to the Holy Land and other countries of the East; and a commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes.
He had been appointed to conduct the services in the Scotch Free church in Rome in the spring of 1875, and with his family reached that city on 4 Feb. He was greatly interested in all the wonderful sights in Rome, and entered very cordially into the work which he had been requested to undertake. A slight but not alarming illness confined him to the house for a few days in the end of March; on the morning of the 31st it was found that during the night he had quietly expired. The body was taken to Glasgow, and a great public funeral testified to the esteem in which he was universally held.
[Robert Buchanan, D.D., an ecclesiastical biography, by Rev. N. L. Walker, 1877; Disruption Worthies; Records of the General Assembly of the Free Church, 1875; Scott's Fasti.]
BUCHANAN, ROBERTSON (1770–1816), civil engineer of Glasgow, was the author of ‘Essays on the Economy of Fuel and Management of Heat,’ 8vo, 1810; ‘A Practical Treatise on Propelling Vessels by Steam,’ 8vo, Glasgow, 1816; and of ‘Practical Essays on Millwork and other Machinery, Mechanical and Descriptive,’ 3 vols. 8vo, published in 1814; edition by Tredgold, roy. 8vo, with atlas in folio, 1841; supplement to third edition by Rennie, roy. 8vo, 1842. He also contributed various papers to the ‘Philosophical Magazine’ and to the ‘Edinburgh Encyclopædia.’ He died, 22 July 1816, at the house of his uncle, Dr. Innes, of Creech St. Michael, near Taunton, in his forty-sixth year.
[Gent. Mag. vol. lxxxvi. pt. ii. p. 188.]
BUCHANAN, WILLIAM (1781–1863), Scotch advocate, born in 1781 at Montrose, was the son of David Buchanan, printer and publisher (1745–1812) [q. v.], and brother of David Buchanan, editor of the ‘Edinburgh Courant’ (1779–1848) [q. v.], and of George Buchanan, civil engineer (1790?–1852) [q. v.] He was educated at Edinburgh University; he studied law and was called to the bar in 1806. At the outset of his career he showed a strong leaning to whig principles but he never made politics a profession, and devoted himself simply to the bar. In 1813 he published ‘Reports of certain Remarkable Cases in the Court of Session and Trials in the High Court of Justiciary.’ These reports are marked by purity of diction and methodical arrangement. In 1856 he was appointed queen's advocate and solicitor of teinds, or tithes, on the death of Sir William Hamilton. He was now the oldest member of the Scottish bar, and peculiarly fitted for his office by his antiquarian bent. He published in November 1862 a ‘Treatise on the Law of Scotland on the subject of Teinds,’ immediately recognised by the whole profession as the standard authority on the subject. Towards the end of his career his infirmity compelled him to withdraw in a great measure from active work. In the autumn of 1863 his health began to give way, and he expired after a lingering illness on 18 Dec.
For the last forty years of his life he was one of the elders of the Glasite church. He married Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. James Gregory, minister of the parish of Banchory, by whom he had numerous children.
[Gent. Mag. new ser. 1864, xvi. 392; Edinburgh Courant; Buchanan's Remarkable Cases in the Court of Session; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
