Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Davidson, Alexander Dyce
DAVIDSON, ALEXANDER DYCE, D.D. (1807–1872), divine, was born in Aberdeen in 1807, and spent his life there. After a course of study in the university he was ordained minister of the South church in 1832, and was transferred to the West church in 1836. He married Elizabeth Blaikie 11 Aug. 1840. His popularity as a preacher was very great, and his influence among the students of the university and the more cultured classes was paramount. To him more than to any other was due the transformation of religious opinion in Aberdeen from ‘moderatism’ to ‘evangelicalism,’ which led to the exodus of the city ministers and congregations at the disruption of 1843. Davidson led the most influential congregation of the city into the Free church, and continued to minister to it with undiminished success, first in Belmont Street, then in a new church in Union Street, till his death in 1872. He devoted himself wholly to pulpit work, taking no part in public affairs. He left some two thousand sermons fully written out, a selection from which, with a preface by Dr. F. Edmond, was published after his death. A course of sermons on the Book of Esther was published in 1859. Davidson had the degree of doctor of divinity from his own university in 1854.
[Funeral Sermons by Drs. Smeaton and Lumsden; Disruption Worthies; Edmond's Preface to Lectures and Sermons; Hew Scott's Fasti, iii. 465, 479.]