Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lorimer, Peter

by Gordon Goodwin ‎

LORIMER, PETER (1812–1879), presbyterian divine, born in Edinburgh in 1812, was the eldest son of John Lorimer, builder. He was educated at the high school and George Heriot's Hospital in that city, whence he proceeded with a bursary to the university of Edinburgh in 1827. In 1836 he was ordained minister of the presbyterian church, River Terrace, London, which was then in connection with the church of Scotland. After the secession of 1843 he, with his congregation, joined the synod at Berwick in 1844. On the establishment of the English Presbyterian College, London, in 1844, he was appointed professor of theology, and was made its first principal in 1878. The college of New Jersey conferred on him in June 1857 the degree of D.D. He died on 29 July 1879 at Whitehaven, Cumberland, and was buried in the Grange cemetery at Edinburgh. By his marriage in 1840 to Miss Hannah Fox (1817–1884) of Whitehaven he had a son, John Archibald, surgeon, of Farnham, Surrey, and a daughter, Annie, the wife of James Austin, barrister.

Lorimer's most important work was ‘John Knox and the Church of England,’ 8vo, London, 1875, a monograph founded upon the Knox papers preserved among the Morrice MSS. in Dr. Williams's Library. Appended is ‘The Life and Death of Mr. William Whittingham, Deane of Durham,’ printed from Anthony à Wood's MSS. in the Bodleian Library.

His other works are:

1. ‘Healthy Religion exemplified in the Life of … Andrew Jack of Edinburgh,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1852.
2. ‘Precursors of Knox; or, Memoirs of Patrick Hamilton … Alexander Alane or Alesius … and Sir David Lindsay of the Mount,’ &c., 8vo, Edinburgh, 1857 (embodied in J. A. Wylie's ‘Ter-Centenary of the Scottish Reformation,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1860, as ‘The Precursors of Knox—On the Learning and Enlightened Views of the Scottish Reformers’).
3. ‘The Scottish Reformation: a Historical Sketch,’ 8vo, London and Glasgow, 1860.
4. ‘The Function of the Four Gospels viewed in connection with Recent Criticism,’ 8vo, London, 1869.
5. ‘A Good and Faithful Servant. Memoir of the Rev. Archibald Jack of South Shields,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1871.
6. ‘The Evidential Value of the Early Epistles of St. Paul viewed as Historical Documents,’ 8vo, London, 1874 (also in series v. of lectures published by the Christian Evidence Society).
7. ‘The Evidence to Christianity arising from its Adaptation to all the Deeper Wants of the Human Heart,’ 8vo, London, 1875 (also in series iii. of the Christian Evidence Society's lectures, 1880).

He also translated from the German, with additional notes, G. V. Lechler's ‘John Wiclif and his English Precursors,’ 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1878; other editions in one vol. 1881 and 1884. He edited, with notes, M. Stuart's ‘Critical History of the Old Testament Canon,’ 8vo, 1849, and wrote an introduction, under the signature of ‘P. L.,’ to the reprint of Thomas Cartwright's ‘Directory of Church Government,’ 4to, 1872.

[Notes kindly supplied by Mrs. Austin (née Lorimer); Edinburgh Daily Review; Edinburgh Weekly Review; Times, 31 July 1879, p. 5, col. 6; Edinburgh Courant, 1 Aug. 1879, p. 5; Brit. Mus. Cat.]

G. G.