John Kennedy (1855-1910) was born in Alvie, Scotland, becoming a student of the University of Glasgow and the Free Church College, Glasgow. He became a minister of the Free Church of Scotland and then the United Free Church of Scotland at Lenimore and Pirnmill on the Isle of Arran. He was executor for Alexander Cameron, Celtic scholar, whose papers John held following his death and on whom he published 'Memoir of Dr Cameron' in Reliquiae Celticae: Texts, Papers and Studies in Gaelic Literature and Philology left by the late Rev. Alexander Cameron, LLD in 1892.
Alexander Cameron was born near Kingussie in 1827. After receiving his MA from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1852 he studied at New College, Edinburgh until 1856. He then became a missionary for the Free Church of Scotland, first being sent to Portnahaven, Isle of Islay, before becoming a minster in Renton, West Dunbartonshire, in 1855 and then at the Gaelic Church in Renton from 1859-1874. His final church was the Free Church of Scotland, Kilbride (Brodick), north Ayrshire from 1874-1888.
From 1886, Cameron was a lecturer in Gaelic at the Free Church College, Glasgow, until taking up a lectureship in Gaelic at the University of Glasgow from 1876-1880. A noted Celtic scholar, he was founder and editor of Scottish Celtic Review from 1881-1885, he died in Edinburgh in October 1888.
Sources: William Ewing, Annals of the Free Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1914); J A Lamb, The Fasti of the United Free Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1956)
