Archibald Hamilton Charteris

Who was Archibald Hamilton Charteris?

Archibald Hamilton Charteris was a Church of Scotland theologian, Professor of Biblical Criticism at the University of Edinburgh and a leading voice in Church reforms. He is credited as being the father of the Woman's Guild.

A native of Dumfriesshire, Charteris studied at the University of Edinburgh. He was a parish minister in Galloway and then Glasgow. In 1868 he became Professor of Biblical Criticism at the University of Edinburgh, until his retirement due to ill health in 1898. He was Moderator of the General Assembly in 1892.

He was appointed a Chaplain-in-Ordinary in Scotland to King Edward VII in October 1901.

Charteris was a conservative Biblical scholar, and a mild Calvinist. In April 1875, he was accused of writing an anonymous review in the Edinburgh Evening Courant of William Robertson Smith's article on the Bible in the Encyclopædia Britannica. His criticism led indirectly to Robertson Smith's trial for heresy in the Free Church of Scotland.

However, it was perhaps as a Churchman that Charteris exercised his greatest influence. He was instrumental in initiating the Church's Committee of Christian Life and Work in 1869. He founded the magazine Life and Work in 1879, and began the Young Men's Guild and the Woman's Guild. He also was a leading proponent of the restoration of the office of Deaconess within the Church.