HENRY HUNTER: (1741-1802), divine, born at Culross, Perthshire on Aug. 25, 1741, was the fifth child of David and Agnes Hunter. In 1754 he was sent to the University of Edin burgh, and became tutor first to Alexander Boswell, afterwards Lord Balmuto, and subsequently, in 1758, in the family of the Earl of Dundonald at Culross, Abbey. On 2 May 1764, he received license to preach from the presbytery of Dunfermline, and was ordained minister of South Leith on 9 Jan. 1766. He died at Bristol on 27 Oct. 1802 and was buried on 6 Nov. in Bunhill Fields. In May 1766 he married Margaret daughter of Thomas Charters, minister of Inverkeithing, and by her, who died on 25 July, 1803, he left two sons and one daughter. Hunter wrote: 1. “Sacred Biography,” a course of lectures on the lives of Bible characters (vol. i. 1783, vol. vi. and last, 1792); 5th edition, 1802 (5 vols. 8vo); 8th edition 1820 2. “Sermons…. To which are subjoined Memoirs, Anecdotes, and Illustrations,” 1795, 2 vols. 3. “Sermons and other Miscellaneous Pieces,” London, 1804 (2 vols. 8vo. ), posthumous, with memoir and portrait engraved by Thomas Holloway (q.v. ), after a portrait by Stevenson. In 1797 Hunter began the publication in parts of a careless “History of London and Its Environs,” which he did not live to complete. The publisher, John Stockdale, with the assistance of other hacks, issued the discreditable compilation as a complete work in two quarto volumes in 1811. At the request of his congregation Hunter completed and published John Fell’s “Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity.” 8vo., London, 1798 (another edition 1799).
