Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/354

 'What is Life ?' appeared in the 'Hibbert Journal' (1905). Hutton maintained life to be something immaterial and independent of matter, which, however, it required in order to display itself. He was an original thinker and was often involved in controversy, where he fought strenuously but fairly.

He was elected F.G.S. in 1861, a corresponding member of the Zoological Society of London in 1872, and F.R.S. in 1892. He was also a corresponding member of other European, colonial and American societies, was president of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science in 1901 at the Hobart Town meeting, and was first president of the board of governors of the New Zealand Institute, by which a memorial medal and prize was founded.

In 1863 Hutton married Annie Gouger, daughter of Dr. WiUiam Montgomerie of the Bengal mihtary service, who introduced gutta-percha into practical use in Europe. His wife, three sons (one an officer in the royal engineers) and three daughters survived him.

 HUTTON, GEORGE CLARK (1825-1908), presbyterian divine and advocate of disestablishment, born in Perth on 16 May 1825, was eldest of twelve children, of whom only three outlived childhood. George's surviving brother, James Scott Hutton (d. 1891), was principal of the Deaf and Dumb Institution, Halifax, Nova Scotia. His father, George Hutton, was a staunch supporter of secession principles. He taught a private school in Perth, took an active interest in the deaf and dumb, and invented a sign language. His mother, Ann Scott, came of a Cromarty family. Hutton, who received his early education from his father, was for a time a teacher, and at the age of fifteen had sole charge of a school near Perth. In Oct. 1843 he entered Edinburgh University, where he won prizes for Latin and Greek, the gold medal for moral philosophy under John Wilson ('Christopher North') [q. v.], and three prizes for rhetoric, one for a poem, 'Wallace in the Tower,' which his professor, William Edmondstoune Aytoun [q. v.], caused to be printed.

He entered the divinity hall of the Secession Church in July 1846, was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Edinburgh on 5 Jan. 1851, and on 9 Sept. of the same year was ordained and inducted minister of Canal Street United Presbyterian church. Paisley. There he remained for the rest of his life, celebrating his ministerial jubilee on 21 Oct. 1901.

Hutton was an able evangelical preacher and a capable exponent of traditional theology, but he was mainly known through life as the active advocate of the 'voluntary' movement in Scotland which condemned civil establishments of religion as unscriptural, unjust, and injurious. In 1858 he joined the Liberation Society, and from 1868 until death was a member of its executive. He was the chief spokesman of a branch of the society formed in Scotland in 1871, and in 1886 helped to form the disestablishment council for Scotland. From 1872 to 1890 he was the convener of a disestablishment committee of the synod of the United Presbyterian church. He spoke in support of disestablishment in tours through Scotland, and not merely urged his views in pamphlets and in the press, but from 1880, when Gladstone formed his second administration, he in letters and interviews entreated the prime minister, without avail, to give practical effect to his opinions. On his representations on behalf of his cause the Teinds (Scotland) bill in 1880 was dropped by the government. In 1883 Hutton mainly drafted an abortive bill for the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of Scotland, which John Dick Peddie, M.P. for Kilmarnock burghs, introduced into the House of Commons. To Button's pertinacity may be partly attributed Gladstone's support of a motion for Scottish disestablishment in the House of Commons in 1890. When in January 1893 Gladstone's government announced a measure to prevent the creation of vested interests in the established churches of Wales and Scotland, Hutton wrote urging the substitution of a final measure for the suspensory bill. On 25 Aug. Gladstone gave a somewhat evasive reply to a deputation from the disestablishment council, who pressed the government to accept Sir Charles Cameron's Scottish disestablishment bill. With Gladstone's resignation in March 1894 legislative action was arrested. Gladstone's hesitating attitude to the Scottish disestablishment question disappointed Hutton, but friendly relations continued between them, and in May 1895 he was invited to Hawarden, and was cordially received.

Hutton also promoted temperance and educational legislation. In regard to education, he held strongly that a state system 