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Back to article: ROBERT WODROW (1679-1734)

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WODROW, ROBERT (1679-1734), Scottish historian, was born at Glasgow, being a son of James Wodrow, professor of divinity. He was educated at the university and was librarian from 1691 to 1 7oi. From 1703 till his death, on the 21st of March 1734, he was parish minister at Eastwood, near Glasgow. He had sixteen children, his son Patrick being the " auld Wodrow " of Burns's poem Twa Herds." His great work, The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the Revolution, was published in two volumes in 1721-1722 (new ed. with a life of Wodrow by Robert Burns, D.D., 1807-1808). Wodrow also wrote a Life (1828) of his father. He left two other works in MS.—Memoirs of Reformers and Ministers of the Church of Scotland, and Analecta: or Materials for a History of Remarkable Providences, mostly relating to Scotch Ministers and Christians. Of the former, two volumes were published by the Maitland Club in 1834-1845 and one volume by the New Spalding Club in 189o; the latter was published in four volumes by the Maitland Club in 1842-1843.
Wodrow left a great mass of correspondence, three volumes of which, edited by T. M'Crie, appeared in 1843–1844. The Wodrow Society, founded in Edinburgh to perpetuate his memory, was in existence from 1841 to 1847, several works being published under its auspices.