William Hamilton Drummond, D.D. (August 1778 – 16 October 1865) was an Irish

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...

writer and

controversialist Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topic ...

Life

Drummond, eldest son of William Drummond, surgeon, R.N., by his wife Rose Hare, was born at

Larne Larne (, , the name of a Gaelic Ireland, Gaelic territory) is a town on the east coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland, with a population of 18,755 at the United Kingdom census, 2011, 2011 Census. It is a major passenger and freight Roll-on/ro ...

, co. Antrim, in August 1778. His father, paid off in 1783, died of fever soon after entering on a practice at

Ballyclare Ballyclare () is a small town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 9,953 according to the 2011 census, and is located within the Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council area. It sits on the river Six Mile Water. The town ...

, co. Antrim. His mother, left without resources, removed to

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

with her three children, and went into business. Drummond, after receiving an education at the

Belfast Academy The Belfast Royal Academy (commonly shortened to ) is the oldest school in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is a co-educational, non-denominational voluntary grammar school in north Belfast. The Academy is one of 8 schools in Northern ...

, under James Crombie, D.D., and William Bruce, was placed in a manufacturing house in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Harsh usage turned his thoughts from the prospects of commercial life, and at the age of sixteen he entered Glasgow College (November 1794) to study for the ministry. Straitened means interrupted Drummond's course, and left him without a degree, but he acquired considerable classical culture, and as a very young student began to publish poetry, in which the influence of the revolutionary ideas of the period culminating in 1798 is apparent. Leaving Glasgow in 1798 he became tutor in a family at Ravensdale,

co. Louth County Louth ( ; ga, An Lú) is a coastal county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. Louth is bordered by the counties of Meath to the south, Monaghan to the west, Armagh to the north and Down to the ...

, pursuing his studies under the direction of the

Armagh Armagh ( ; ga, Ard Mhacha, , "Macha's height") is the county town of County Armagh and a city in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the Pri ...

presbytery, with which he connected himself on the ground of its exacting a high standard of proficiency from candidates for the ministry. In 1799, returning to Belfast, he was transferred to the Presbytery of Antrim, and licensed on 9 April 1800. He at once received calls from First Holywood and Second Belfast, and accepting the latter was ordained on 26 August 1800, the presiding minister being William Bryson . v.He became popular, especially as a preacher of charity sermons, and dealt little in topics of controversy. On his marriage he opened a boarding-school at Mount Collyer, and lectured on natural philosophy, having among his pupils

Thomas Romney Robinson John Thomas Romney Robinson FRS FRSE (23 April 1792 – 28 February 1882), usually referred to as Thomas Romney Robinson, was a 19th-century Irish astronomer and physicist. He was the longtime director of the Armagh Astronomical Observatory, ...

, the astronomer. He was one of the first members of the Belfast Literary Society (founded 23 Oct. 1801), and contributed to its transactions several of his poems. Bishop Percy of Dromore sought his acquaintance, and obtained for him the degree of D.D. from

Marischal College Marischal College ( ) is a large granite building on Broad Street in the centre of Aberdeen in north-east Scotland, and since 2011 has acted as the headquarters of Aberdeen City Council. However, the building was constructed for and is on long- ...

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

(29 January 1810). In 1815 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the chair of logic and belles-lettres in the Belfast Academical Institution, and on 15 October that year he was called to Strand Street,

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

, as colleague to James Armstrong, D.D. Installed on 25 December, he entered on the chief charge of his long life. He was soon elected a member of the

Royal Irish Academy The Royal Irish Academy (RIA; ga, Acadamh Ríoga na hÉireann), based in Dublin, is an academic body that promotes study in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. It is Ireland's premier List of Irish learned societies, learned socie ...

, contributed frequently to its Transactions, held for many years the office of its librarian, and took a scholarly interest in

Celtic literature Celtic literature is the body of literature written in one of the Celtic languages, or else it may popularly refer to literature written in other languages which is based on the traditional narratives found in early Celtic literature. Backgrou ...

. His poetical pieces, versified from ancient Irish sources, are graceful paraphrases rather than close translations. Most of his writings show traces of very wide reading. His house was crammed with the heterogeneous results of an insatiable habit of book-collecting. Some years after his settlement in Dublin Drummond came out as a

polemic Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...

, exhibiting in this capacity a degree of sharpness and vivacity which seemed a rather remarkable outcome of his gentle and genial temperament. In two instances (in 1827 and 1828) he took advantage of discussions between disputants of the Roman Catholic and established churches as occasions for bringing forward arguments for unitarian views; and in the controversies thus provoked he was always ready with a reply. His essay on ''The Doctrine of the Trinity'' is the best specimen of his polemics. His ''Life of Servetus'' is a continuous onslaught on

Calvinism Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Cal ...

. In old age Drummond suffered from attacks of

apoplexy Apoplexy () is rupture of an internal organ and the accompanying symptoms. The term formerly referred to what is now called a stroke. Nowadays, health care professionals do not use the term, but instead specify the anatomic location of the bleedi ...

, under which his powers of recollection were gradually extinguished. He died at Lower Gardiner Street, Dublin, on 16 October 1865 and was buried at

Harold's Cross Harold's Cross () is an affluent urban village and inner suburb on the south side of Dublin, Ireland in the postal district D6W. The River Poddle runs through it, though largely in an underground culvert, and it holds a major cemetery, Mount ...

cemetery, near Dublin, on 20 October.

Animal rights

Drummond has been described as a "staunch advocate of animal rights". He authored ''An Essay on the Rights of Animals'', which won an essay competition.Gray, Jenny. (2017). ''Zoo Ethics: The Challenges of Compassionate Conservation''. CSIRO Publishing. p. 42. This work was later published as ''The Rights of Animals: And Man's Obligation to Treat Them With Humanity'', in 1838. It was written at the behest of the

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals A Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) is a common name for non-profit animal welfare organizations around the world. The oldest SPCA organization is the RSPCA, which was founded in England in 1824. SPCA organizations operate i ...

. In 2005,

Edwin Mellen Press The Edwin Mellen Press or Mellen Press is an international Independent business, independent company and Academic publisher, academic publishing house with editorial offices in Lewiston (town), New York, Lewiston, New York, and Lampeter, Lampete ...

republished the book with editorial notes from Rod Preece and Chien-Hui Li.Drummond, William H. (2005, Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Rod Preece and Chien-Hui Li). ''Rights of Animals and Man's Obligation to Treat Them with Humanity (1838)''.

Works

The following is a list of Drummond's poems: * ''Juvenile Poems: By a Student of the University of Glasgow''

795 __NOTOC__ Year 795 ( DCCXCV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 795 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar er ...

* ''Hibernia. A Poem. Part the First'', Belfast, 1797 (apparently all that was published). * ''The Man of Age'', Belfast, 1797 ("of age" here means "aged"); 2nd edition, in which "some things are suppressed", Glasgow, 1798 (with an ode on the death of

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...

). * '' The Battle of Trafalgar: A Heroic Poem'', 1806, (contributed to the Belfast Literary Society, 3 March). * ''The First Book of T. Lucretius Carus on the Nature of Things. Translated into English verse'', Edinb., 1808 (Belfast Literary Society, 7 March). * ''The Giant's Causeway'', Belfast, 1811, (three books, with two maps and five plates; Belfast Literary Society, 2 March 1807). * ''An Elegiac Ballad on the Funeral of the Princess Charlotte'', Dublin, 1817, (anon.). * ''Who are the Happy'', Dublin, 1818, (appended are other poems and 33 hymns). * '' Clontarf'', Dublin, 1822 (anon.). * ''Bruce's Invasion of Ireland'', Dublin, 1826. * '' The Pleasures of Benevolence'', 1835. * ''Ancient Irish Minstrelsy'', Dublin, 1852 (eight of the pieces in this volume had already appeared in vol. ii. of

James Hardiman James Hardiman (1782–1855), also known as Séamus Ó hArgadáin, was a librarian at Queen's College, Galway. Hardiman is best remembered for his '' History of the Town and County of Galway'' (1820) and '' Irish Minstrelsy'' (1831), one of the f ...

's ''Irish Minstrelsy'', 1831). Among his controversial works were: * '' The Doctrine of the Trinity'', 1827; 2nd edition, 1827; 3rd edition, 1831, (reprinted also in America). * ''Unitarian Christianity the Religion of the Gospel'', 1828. * ''Unitarianism no feeble and conceited Heresy'', 1829, (addressed to William Magee, in reply to a publication by a layman,

Philip Dixon Hardy Philip Dixon Hardy (1794–1875) was an Irish poet, bookseller, printer, and publisher. He introduced the use of steam-powered printing presses in Ireland in 1833. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He edited the ''Dublin Penny Journal'' ...

, commended by Magee). * ''Original Sin'', 1832. * ''An Explanation and Defence of the Principles of Protestant Dissent'', 1842 (in reference to proceedings taken against unitarian trustees by Duncan Chisholm, alias George Matthews). His works on

: * ''Humanity to Animals'', 1830. * ''An Essay on the Rights of Animals'', 1838. *'' The Rights of Animals: And Man's Obligation to Treat Them With Humanity'', 1838. His biographical publications were: * ''Funeral Sermon for James Armstrong, D.D.'', Dublin, 1840. * ''Autobiography of Archibald Hamilton Rowan, with additions'', Dublin, 1840. * '' The Life of Michael Servetus'', 1848. With papers in the ''Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy'', Drummond wrote a prize essay ''The Poems of Ossian'', Dublin, 1830, defending

James Macpherson James Macpherson (Gaelic: ''Seumas MacMhuirich'' or ''Seumas Mac a' Phearsain''; 27 October 1736 – 17 February 1796) was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of epic poem ...

's authorship. Posthumous was ''Sermons'', 1867, with memoir and two portraits.

Family

Drummond married, first, Barbara, daughter of David Tomb of Belfast, and had several children, of whom William Bruce Drummond and two daughters survived him; and secondly, Catherine (d. 22 April 1879), daughter of Robert Blackley of Dublin, by whom he left children Robert Blackley Drummond, minister of St. Mark's, Edinburgh; James Drummond, LL.D., principal of Manchester New College, London, and a daughter; another daughter by the second marriage died before him.

Life

Animal rights

Works

Family

References

Further reading