Archibald Clerk

[1] He became Assistant Minister at St Columba’s Kirk in Glasgow under the guidance of The Rev Norman MacLeod (1783-1862) otherwise known as Caraid nan Gaidheal, a leading member of the Gaelic intelligencia.

Clerk inherited a situation where bitterness over the religious arguments was exacerbated by hostility to the heritors, or landlords, over evictions of highland peasants from their landholdings.

An ecclesiastical moderate and a conciliator by nature, Clerk worked hard in the following forty-three years to build bridges and ameliorate ill feelings.

[7] In 1855 he published a "Memoir of Colonel John Cameron of Fassiefern", an important commander in The Duke of Wellington’s army, killed at Quatre Bras on the eve of The Battle of Waterloo.

He did some of this work with Colin Livingstone, head teacher of Fort William Secondary School, who was the lead researcher in the district on this matter.

Portrait of the Rev Archibald Clerk
Memorial window to Archibald Clerk, Kilmallie Parish Church, Corpach.
The old Kilmallie Manse where Archibald Clerk lived
Graves in old Kilmallie cemetery of Dr Archibald Clerk (right) and his wife Jessie