Ralph Wardlaw

Who was Ralph Wardlaw?

The Reverend Ralph Wardlaw, D.D. was a Scottish Presbyterian clergyman and writer. He was born in Dalkeith, before his family moved to Glasgow when he was six months old. His father was a prosperous merchant and civic magistrate, while his mother was the daughter of the Rev. James Fisher and the granddaughter of Ebenezer Erskine, two of the founding ministers of the United Secession Church. At the age of eight he was enrolled at the High School of Glasgow for four years, before being accepted as a student of theology at the University of Glasgow, aged twelve.

Despite his strong familial connections to the Secession Church, shortly after his University studies were complete he turned to Independent Congregationalism, as introduced from England by James and Robert Haldane. He was ordained in 1803 by Rev. Greville Ewing, the popular minister of Lady Glenorchy's church, shortly after a chapel had been erected for him by his friends and family in Albion Street. Although his first congregation numbered only 61, his success as a preacher was sufficient that by 1811 he and Ewing founded Glasgow's first academy for congregationalist theology students.