- Henry Duncan
Henry Duncan (8 October 1774 – 12 February 1846) was the minister of
Ruthwell parish church inDumfriesshire ,Scotland , and founded the world's first commercialsavings bank . He was also a keen amateurgeologist , author, publisher, philanthropist and social reformer.As a boy he met the poet
Robert Burns , who visited Dr. Duncan's father at Lochrutton Manse.In 1810 Duncan opened the world's first commercial savings bank, paying interest on its investors' modest savings. The Savings Bank Museum tells the story of early home savings in Britain.
In 1818 Duncan restored the
Ruthwell Cross , one of the finest Anglo-Saxon crosses in Britain, now in Ruthwell church. This late 7th/early 8th century cross is remarkable for its runic inscription, which contains excerpts from "The Dream of the Rood ", an Old English poem.In 1828 Duncan presented a paper to the Royal Society of
Edinburgh describing fossil footprints found inPermian red sandstone at Corncockle Muir, Dumfriesshire. The paper, published in 1831, was the first scientific report of a fossil track. A cast of the tracks of "Chelichnus duncani" can be found in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.In 1839 Duncan became Moderator of the General Assembly of the
Church of Scotland , and at the time of theDisruption of 1843 became one of the founding ministers of the Free Church of Scotland.Henry Duncan was visited by
Robert Murray M'Cheyne during his vacations in Ruthwell.External links
* [http://www.savingsbanksmuseum.co.uk/index.html Savings Banks Museum] in Ruthwell
* Famous Scots at [http://www.rampantscotland.com/famous/blfamduncan.htm RampantScotland]
* S. George Pemberton and Murray Gingras (2003) [http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/gich/2003/00000010/F0030002/art00003 The Reverend Henry Duncan (1774-1846) and the Discovery of the First Fossil Footprints] , Ichnos, Volume 10, Numbers 2-4, pp. 69-75(7).
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