Harry Spens

Harry Spens FRSE (c.1714–1787) was a Scottish minister who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1780.[1]

Life

He was possibly the son of James Spens of Alves, Moray and was living in St Andrews in 1730.[2] He is presumed to have studied divinity at St Andrews University.

He was ordained as a minister in November 1744 and became minister of Wemyss, his patron almost certainly being the Earl of Wemyss.[3] He is recorded as having sown 9 “lippies” of linseed on the church glebe (the land allocated to his manse). [4]

In 1770 he became involved in a curious case in the Scottish courts. A local Scot, Dr. David Dalrymple, had returned from the West Indies with a negro slave, “Black Tom”, around 1767/8. The slave came to Spens in the middle of the night to be baptized a Christian, which would legally exempt him from chattel slavery. Spens assented, and baptized Tom under the name “David Spens". David left his master and went to work on a Wemyss farm. Dalrymple brought the case to court in January 1770. Upon Dalrymple's death in the following month, the case was abandoned and David remained free.[5]

In 1778 he was minister of East Wemyss and nearby Buckhaven, both in Fife.[6]

In October 1780 he was made Professor of Divinity at St Andrews University.[7] When his wife died in 1781 he is recorded as living at Lathallan in St Andrews.[8]

In 1783 he was a joint founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He died in St Andrews in on 27 November 1787.[9]

Spens produced the first English translation of Plato's Republic in 1763.[10]

References
  1. "Moderators of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland genealogy project". geni_family_tree. Retrieved 14 May 2018.
  2. "Reverend Mr Harry GORDON Minister of Ardersier".
  4. Statistical Account of Scotland vol 16, Sir John Sinclair
  5. Black Personalities in the Era of the Slave Trade, P Edwards and J Walvin
  6. "Fife Place-name Data :: Buckhaven". fife-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk.
  7. A History of the County of Fife, vol.3
  8. The Scots Magazine vol 43, p.55
  9. Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783 – 2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X.
  10. Harry Spens and the First English Translation of Plato’s Republic
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