Archibald Maclaine

Archibald Maclaine (1722–1804) was an Irish minister, known as a translator. He spent nearly half a century as pastor at the English church in The Hague. Life From a Scots-Irish background, the son of Lauchlin Maclaine and brother of James Maclaine the highwayman, he was born at Monaghan. He was educated at Glasgow University, where he studied under Francis Hutcheson for the Presbyterian ministry. He matriculated there in 1739, took his M.A. degree in 1746, and was awarded a D.D. in 1767. In 1746 Maclaine became assistant to his maternal uncle, Robert Milling, a pastor of the Church of St John and St Philip at The Hague, and in 1747 was admitted co-pastor. Known in Holland for his learning, he was for a time preceptor to the Prince of Orange. Ill-health, and the disturbances of the fall of the Dutch Republic after the Flanders campaign, led him to resign his charge in 1796. Maclaine settled at Bath, Somerset where he died on 25 November 1804, and was buried in Bath Abbey. The Rev. John Simpson attended his death-bed. A monument was erected to Maclaine's memory by his friend Henry Hope. The epitaph was by Simpson.