Black & white photograph of Rev. Duncan MacFarlane (1822-1908), Balemartine, and his family around 1900.
Courtesy of Ms Elsie MacKinnon
Rev. Duncan MacFarlane (1822-1908), Baptist minister at Tobermory and Tiree, his wife Catherine and their children, the Very Rev. Dr. Dugald MacFarlane (1869-1956), former Moderator of the Church of Scotland, and his sister Anne, probably taken around 1900.
John MacFarlane, Duncan’s brother, was the first Tiree-born Baptist pastor. In 1851 John succeeded Rev. Duncan MacDougall, a devoted itinerant evangelist who, along with the Rev. Archibald Farquharson of the Congregational Church, was prominent in the religious awakening of 1839-1846.
Duncan MacFarlane, who had converted through the preaching of Rev. Farquharson, left Tiree to become a merchant in Tobermory. He was accepted as a Baptist missionary in 1856 and proved influential in the revival of 1874 in Tiree. In 1879 he succeeded his brother as pastor of the Tiree Baptist Church, which he served until his death in 1908.