Robert Rainy

Theologian, born in Glasgow, W Scotland, UK. He studied at Glasgow and at New College in Edinburgh, and became a Free Church minister in Huntly (1851) and Edinburgh (1854). From 1862 to 1900 he was professor of Church history in the New (Free Church) College in Edinburgh, becoming its principal in 1874. He organized the union of the Free and United Presbyterian Churches in 1900 as the United Free Church of Scotland, and became the first moderator of its General Assembly.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, young Rainy was intended for his father's profession, but he was caught by the evangelical fervour of the Disruption movement, and after studying for the Free Church he became a minister, first in Aberdeenshire and then in Edinburgh, till in 1862 he was elected professor of Church history in the theological seminary, New College, a post he only resigned in 1900.

He had come to the front as a champion of the liberal party in the Union controversy within the Free Church, and in combating Dean Stanley's Broad Church views in the interests of Scotch evangelicism; and about 1875 he became the undisputed leader of the Free Church. He guided it through the controversies as to Robertson Smith's heresies, as to the use of hymns and instrumental music, and as to the Declaratory Act, brought to a successful issue the union of the Free and United Presbyterian Churches, and threw the weight of the united church on the side of freedom of Biblical criticism.

He was the first moderator of the General Assembly of the United Free Church of Scotland, having previously been moderator of the Free General Assembly.