At the solicitation of his friend Andrew Thomson, M‘Crie became a contributor to The Edinburgh Christian Instructor, and in 1817 he subjected some of Sir W. Scott’s works to a criticism which took the form of a vindication of the Covenanters. Preserving the continuity of his historical studies, he followed up his first work with The Life of Andrew Melville (1819). In 1827 he published a History of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in Italy, and in 1829 a History of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in Spain.
His latest literary undertaking was a life of John Calvin. Only three chapters were completed when the writer died on the 5th of August 1835, leaving four sons and one daughter.
See Thomas M‘Crie (1797–1875), Life of T. M‘Crie (1840), and Hugh Miller, My Schools and Schoolmasters (1869).
MACCULLAGH, JAMES (1809–1847), Irish mathematician
and physicist, was born in 1809, near Strabane, Ireland. After
a brilliant career at Trinity College, Dublin, he was elected
fellow in 1832. From 1832 to 1843 he held the chair of mathematics;
and during his tenure of this post he improved in a
most marked manner the position of his university as a mathematical
centre. In 1843 he was transferred to the chair of
natural philosophy. Overwork, mainly on subjects beyond
the natural range of his powers, induced mental disease; and
he died by his own hand in October 1847.
His Works were published in 1880. Their distinguishing feature is the geometry—which has rarely been applied either to pure space problems or to known physical questions such as the rotation of a rigid solid or the properties of Fresnel’s wave-surface with such singular elegance; in this respect his work takes rank with that of Louis Poinsot. One specially remarkable geometrical discovery of MacCullagh’s is that of the “modular generation of surfaces of the second degree”; and a noteworthy contribution to physical optics is his “theorem of the polar plane.” But his methods, which, in less known subjects, were almost entirely tentative, were altogether inadequate to the solution of the more profound physical problems to which his attention was mainly devoted, such as the theory of double refraction, &c. See G. G. Stokes’s “Report on Double Refraction” (B. A. Report, 1862).
MACCULLOCH, HORATIO (1805–1867), Scottish landscape painter, was born in Glasgow. He studied for a year under John Knox, a Glasgow landscapist of some repute, was then engaged at Cumnock, painting the ornamental lids of snuff-boxes, and afterwards employed in Edinburgh by Lizars, the engraver, to colour the illustrations in Selby’s British Birds and similar works. Meanwhile he was working unweariedly from nature, greatly influenced in his early practice by the water-colours of H. W. Williams. Returning to Glasgow in some four or five years, he was employed on several large pictures for the decoration of a public hall in St George’s Place, and he did a little as a theatrical scene-painter. About this time he was greatly impressed with a picture by Thomson of Duddingston. Gradually MacCulloch asserted his individuality, and formed his own style on a close study of nature; his works form an interesting link between the old world of Scottish landscape and the new. In 1829 MacCulloch first figured in the Royal Scottish Academy’s exhibition, and year by year, till his death on the 24th of June 1867, he was a regular exhibitor. In 1838 he was elected a member of the Scottish Academy. The subjects of his numerous landscapes were taken almost exclusively from Scottish scenery.
Several works by MacCulloch were engraved by William Miller and William Forrest, and a volume of photographs from his landscapes, with an excellent biographical notice of the artist by Alexander Fraser, R.S.A., was published in Edinburgh in 1872.
McCULLOCH, HUGH (1808–1895), American financier, was born at Kennebunk, Maine, on the 7th of December 1808. He was educated at Bowdoin College, studied law in Boston, and in 1833 began practice at Fort Wayne, Indiana. He was cashier and manager of the Fort Wayne branch of the old state bank of Indiana from 1835 to 1857, and president of the new state bank from 1857 to 1863. Notwithstanding his opposition to the National Banking Act of 1862, he was selected by Secretary Chase as comptroller of the currency in 1863 to put the new system into operation. His work was so successful that he was appointed secretary of the treasury by President Lincoln in 1865, and was continued in office by President Johnson until the close of his administration in 1869. In his first annual report, issued on the 4th of December 1865, he strongly urged the retirement of the legal tenders or greenbacks as a preliminary to the resumption of specie payments. In accordance with this suggestion an act was passed, on the 12th of March 1866, authorizing the retirement of not more than $10,000,000 in six months and not more than $4,000,000 per month thereafter, but it met with strong opposition and was repealed on the 4th of February 1868, after only $48,000,000 had been retired. He was much disappointed by the decision of the United States Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of the legal tenders (12 Wallace 457). Soon after the close of his term of office McCulloch went to England, and spent six years (1870–1876) as a member of the banking firm of Jay Cooke, McCulloch & Co. From October 1884 until the close of President Arthur’s term of office in March 1885 he was again secretary of the treasury. He died at his home near Washington, D.C., on the 24th of May 1895.
The chief authority for the life of McCulloch is his own book, Men and Measures of Half a Century (New York, 1888).
M‘CULLOCH, SIR JAMES (1819–1893), Australian statesman, was born in Glasgow. He entered the house of Dennistoun Brothers, became a partner, and went to Melbourne to open a branch. In 1854, shortly after his arrival in Victoria, he was appointed a nominee member of the Legislative Council, and in the first Legislative Assembly under the new constitution was returned for the electorate of the Wimmera. In 1857 he was appointed minister of trade and customs in the second ministry of Haines, which lasted till 1858, and subsequently he became treasurer in the Nicholson administration, which held office from October 1859 to November 1860. In June 1862 the third O’Shanassy ministry was defeated by a combination between a section of its supporters led by M‘Culloch and the opposition proper under Heales, and M‘Culloch became premier and chief secretary. Hitherto he had been regarded as a supporter of the landed, squatting and importing interests, but the coalition ministry introduced a number of measures which at the time were regarded by the propertied classes in the colony as revolutionary. In addition to passing a Land Bill, which extended the principle of free selection and deferred payments, the ministry announced their intention of reducing the duties on the export of gold and the import duties upon tea and sugar, and of supplying the deficiency by the imposition of duties ranging from 5 to 10% upon a number of articles which entered into competition with the local industries, thus introducing protection. The mercantile community took alarm at the proposal, and at the general election of 1864 the ministerial policy was warmly opposed. But a majority was returned in its favour, and a new tariff was carried through the popular branch of the legislature. There was no probability of its being assented to by the Council, which, under the constitution, had the power of rejecting, although it could not amend, any money Bill. The government therefore decided upon tacking the tariff to the Appropriation Bill, and compelling the Council either to agree to the new fiscal proposals or to refuse to pay the public creditors and the civil servants. The Council accepted the challenge, and rejected the Appropriation Bill. But M‘Culloch and his colleagues would not give way. They continued to collect the new duties under the authority of the Assembly, and took advantage of a clause in the Audit Act which directed the governor to sign the necessary warrants for the payment of any sum awarded by verdicts in the supreme court in favour of persons who had sued the government. M‘Culloch borrowed £40,000 from the London Chartered Bank, of which he was a director, to meet pressing payments, and the bank at his instigation sued the government for the amount of the advance. The attorney-general at once accepted judgment, and the governor, who had placed himself unreservedly in the hands of his ministers, signed the necessary warrant, and the Treasury repaid to the bank the amount of its advance, plus interest and costs. In the next session the tariff was again sent up to the Council, which promptly rejected it,
