Duncan Stewart MCEACHRAN

MCEACHRAN, DUNCAN STEWART (b. Campbeltown, Argyllshire, Scotland, 27 April 1826; d. Melbourne, Vic, 15 July 1913). Presbyterian minister.

McEachran grew up in the stirring years which led to the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843. His decisive spiritual experience occurred in 1841. Adhering to the Free Church, he studied at the University of Glasgow then at New College 1845-9, and was ordained and inducted to Portree/Raasay in December 1849, after a period of supply in which he learned Gaelic. His interest in home and overseas missions was marked. He removed to Cromarty two years later, and from there was called to St Andrew's, Carlton, then a premier Melbourne suburb, where he was inducted 15 Dec 1868. Within a short time the congregation rose from 120 to the capacity of the 800 seat building and it was enlarged in 1873. His became the most influential Presbyterian congregation in Victoria, and was very much in the Bonar and McCheyne tradition. McEachran was an eloquent, fervent preacher and an assiduous visitor. Prayer and Bible study meetings were a marked feature of life in his parish. At least nine men connected with the congregation (including John McNeil, the evangelist) entered the ministry. He retired on 31 Dec 1902.

Beyond his own parish McEachran organised the Sustentation Fund of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria in the 1870s, while he also successfully gathered a £60 000 Jubilee Fund in 1888. He had little time for the newer scientific and higher critical theories, but tolerated some broadening in the church's theology while strongly opposing the anti-trinitarian views of Charles Strong in 1880-83 and Hector Ferguson in 1899. He was Victorian Assembly Moderator 1885-6.

W A Sanderson, History of St Andrew's Church (Melbourne, 1905); The Messenger (Presbyterian Church of Victoria) 30 Mar 1900; R S Ward, The Bush Still Burns (Melbourne 1989)

ROWLAND S WARD