Robert Haldane

Robert Haldane (28 February 1764 – 12 December 1842) was a religious writer and Scottish theologian. Author of Commentaire sur l'Épître aux Romains, On the Inspiration of Scripture and Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans.

Early life

Robert Haldane 3rd of Airthrey was the son of James Haldane 2nd of Airthrey, and his wife, Katherine Duncan. Robert was born on 28 February 1764 in Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square in London. Robert and his younger brother James Alexander Haldane were raised by their grandmother Lady Lundie and uncles.

Airthrey Estate

Soon after leaving the Navy, he settled on his family estate Airthrey, near Stirling where he contacted the Whites of Durham to landscape the grounds. These estate improvements included the creation of a man-made loch, rolling lawns, several wooded plantations, a hermitage and a boundary wall which is nearly four miles in length. In 1790 he commissioned the neoclassical architect Robert Adam to make a draft for the building of Airthrey Castle of which Adam created two designs. Robert became one of the first members of the London Missionary Society in 1795, the same year that he was converted. He offered the British Government and the East India Company to sell Airthrey Estate in order to set up a vast mission in Bengal but was turned down by the East India Company, and the mission was abandoned. for congregations, in supporting missionaries, and in maintaining institutions for the education of young men to carry on the work of evangelization. In 1798 he sold the Airthrey Estate to Robert Abercromby to obtain funding for his mission work and with the funds raised to set up the Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home in Edinburgh.

Over the next twelve years (1798–1810) he gave over £70,000; this was used to further the cause of the Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home by building chapels for congregations, supporting missionaries and helping to maintain institutions for young men to be educated to carry on the work of evangelization. and partly in Edinburgh at 10 Duke Street (later renamed Dublin Street). Like his brother James, he took part in many of the religious controversies of the time, mainly through correspondence in the newspapers. as well as a treatise On the Inspiration of Scripture which was published in 1828 and a later Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans published in 1835, which has been translated into French and German. Letters to Mr. Ewing, respecting the Tabernacle at Glasgow, 1809

Attribution