William Greenfield

Who was William Greenfield?

William Greenfield FRSE was a Scottish minister, literary critic, author and mathematician whose career ended in scandal, resulting in him being excommunicated from the Church of Scotland, having his university degrees withdrawn, and his family assuming the name Rutherfurd.

He served as joint-minister of Edinburgh's High Kirk, as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and as Regius Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at Edinburgh University. A friend and correspondent of Robert Burns and a beneficiary of Walter Scott, his lecture course in Rhetoric and Belles Lettres had a huge influence on the development of English Literature as a discipline in universities.

Greenfield was the son of Captain John Greenfield and Grizel Cockburn. He graduated M.A. from Edinburgh University on 7 April 1778 and was almost immediately nominated as a Professor of Mathematics at Marischal College, Aberdeen. He was ordained to Wemyss Parish on 6th Sept. 1781. He then moved to become the first minister of the new St Andrew's Church in the New Town on 25 November 1784, to which he was presented by the Town Council on 21 February, taking up post on 1 April 1787. He held this post as well as the Regius Professorship of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, which he had held in conjunction with Hugh Blair since 1784, and whom he succeeded. He was made Almoner to the King on March 1789. He "radically altered the size and structure of the Edinburgh course" he took over from Blair, according to Martin Moonie's chapter in Crawford's book. Greenfield had wide interest. He was a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and on 12 April 1784 he read a paper and, later in its Transactions he published as an article entitled "On the use of negative quantities in the solution of problems by Algebraic Equations". Greenfield also delivered lectures in Natural Philosophy, the manuscripts of which are still retained Edinburgh University Library.