1758 my father married Anne Rutherford, eldest daughter of Dr. John Rutherford, professor of medicine in the university of Edinburgh. He was one of those pupils of Boerhaave to whom the school of medicine in our northern metropolis owes its rise, and a man distinguished for professional talent, for lively wit, and for literary acquirement. Dr. Rutherford was twice married. His first wife, of whom my mother is the sole surviving child, was a daughter of Sir John Swinton of Swinton. … My grandfather's second wife was Miss [Anne] Mackay,’ a descendant of the family of Lord Rae, an ancient peer of Scotland. His son by this marriage was Dr. Daniel Rutherford [q. v.]
A three-quarter length, in oils, unsigned, represents Rutherford with powdered hair, and holding a copy of Boerhaave's ‘Aphorisms’ in his left hand, at about the age of forty-five. This painting is in the possession of Mrs. Rutherford-Haldane, the wife of his great-grandson, and a copy of it hangs in the hall of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. A second portrait is in existence, of which there is a replica at Abbotsford, and a reduced watercolour copy in the possession of Mrs. Rutherford-Haldane. It represents Rutherford at least twenty years later than the previous one.
[Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary; Stewart's History of the Royal Infirmary, in the Edinb. Hospital Reports, 1893, vol. i.; Obituary Notice of Dr. Daniel Rutherford, in the Annual Biography and Obituary for 1821; information kindly given by Mr. James Haldane and Mrs. Rutherford-Haldane.]
RUTHERFORD, SAMUEL (1600?–1661), principal of St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, was born about 1600 in the parish of Nisbet, now part of Crailing, Roxburghshire. His secretary says that ‘he was a gentleman by extraction,’ and he used the arms of the Rutherford family. He had two brothers, one an officer in the Dutch army, the other, schoolmaster of Kirkcudbright. It is believed that he received his early education at Jedburgh. He entered the university of Edinburgh in 1617, graduated in 1621, and in 1623 was appointed regent of humanity, having been recommended by the professors for ‘his eminent abilities of mind and virtuous disposition.’ The records of the town council of Edinburgh under 3 Feb. 1626 contain the following: ‘Forasmuch as it being declared by the principal of the college that Mr. Samuel Rutherford, regent of humanity, has fallen in fornication with Eupham Hamilton, and has committed a great scandal in the college and … has since demitted his charge therein, therefore elects and nominates … commissioners … with power … to insist for depriving of the said Mr. Samuel, and being deprived for filling of the said place with a sufficient person.’ Rutherford married the said Eupham, and his whole subsequent life was a reparation for the wrong he had done. According to his own statement, he had ‘suffered the sun to be high in heaven’ before he became seriously religious. After this change he began to study theology under Andrew Ramsay, and in 1627 Gordon of Kenmure chose him for the pastorate of Anwoth in Galloway. He was no doubt ordained by Lamb, bishop of that diocese, who lived chiefly in Edinburgh or Leith, and was very tolerant towards those of his clergy who did not observe the five articles of Perth. Rutherford's secretary says that he entered ‘without giving any engagement to the bishop,’ which probably means that he took only the oath of obedience to the bishop prescribed by law in 1612, and not the later engagements imposed by the bishops on their own authority.
At Anwoth he rose at 3 A.M., spent the forenoon in devotion and study, and the afternoon in visiting the sick and in catechising his flock. Multitudes flocked to his church, and he became the spiritual director of the principal families in that part of Galloway. In 1630 he was summoned by ‘a profligate parishioner’ before the high commission at Edinburgh for nonconformity to the Perth articles, but the proceedings were stopped as the primate was unavoidably absent, and one of the judges befriended him. In 1636 he published ‘Exercitationes Apologeticæ pro Divina Gratia,’ a treatise against Arminianism, which attracted much attention. There is a tradition (which has a certain probability in its favour) that Archbishop Ussher paid him a visit in disguise at Anwoth, but was discovered and officiated for him on the following Sunday. Thomas Sydserf [q. v.], appointed bishop of Galloway in 1634, had frequent interviews with Rutherford to induce him to conform, but without effect. Upon the appearance of the ‘Exercitationes’ Sydserf took proceedings against him, and, after a preliminary trial at Wigton, summoned him before the high commission at Edinburgh in July 1636, when he was forbidden to exercise his ministry, and was ordered to reside at Aberdeen during the king's pleasure. Baillie, in his ‘Letters,’ gives in detail the causes of his being silenced. Great efforts were made by Argyll and other notables and by his own flock to have the sentence modified, but to no purpose, and in August 1636, ‘convoyed’ by a number
