James Macphail

His friend Cosmo Innes encouraged him to take an interest in photography and he joined the Edinburgh Calotype Club in 1843 aged only 22.

[7][8] In 1868 he moved to the newly completed Pilrig Church on Leith Walk designed by Peddie & Kinnear.

In 1869 he founded a bursary to Gaelic-speaking boys to fund their university education for the Free Church of Scotland.

He died on 12 February 1908 and is buried in the first northern extension of Dean Cemetery in western Edinburgh.

His elder son James Robert Nicolson Macphail (1858-1933) was an antiquary,[13] while his younger son Earle Monteith Macphail (1861-1937) was a missionary to India who became principal (1921) and vice-chancellor (1923-5) of Madras University and rose to a senior position in colonial politics, rising to become deputy chairman of the Legislative Assembly of India in 1927.