William McGavin

Almost entirely self-educated, McGavin in 1785 was bound apprentice to a weaver, but in 1790 he entered the service of John Neilson, then a Paisley printer and bookseller.

In January 1799 he was engaged as bookkeeper to David Lamb, an American cotton merchant in Glasgow; to whose two sons he also acted as tutor.

[1] McGavin from 1818 to 1822 he contributed to the Glasgow Chronicle a series of letters on major points of controversy between the Roman and Reformed churches under the general title of "The Protestant".

William Eusebius Andrews countered by starting a weekly paper, The Catholic Vindicator, in reply to "The Protestant", but gave it up after a year.

Statements contained in it relative to the building of a Roman Catholic chapel in Glasgow led to an action for libel on behalf of the officiating priest in April 1821, and damages were awarded against McGavin.

[1] McGavin wrote also in the Glasgow Chronicle against the principles of Robert Owen (1823), and of the views set out by William Cobbett in his History of the Protestant Reformation (1825); both series of letters were then published separately.

In 1826 he published an edition of John Knox's History of the Reformation, and subsequently defended the views expressed then in the Christian Herald (1827-9), under the title of Church Establishments considered, in a Series of Letters to a Covenanter (reissued as a book).