Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/436

 acknowledged successor of Dr. John Macdonald [q. v.] of Ferintosh, and is sometimes designated the second ‘Apostle of the North.’ But he was at the same time a man of great literary culture, and a constant reader and lover of poetry. He was passionately fond of pictures.

His works, which are said to have been much surpassed by his spoken sermons, are: 1. ‘Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire,’ Edinburgh, 1861, 1867 (criticised by some as superstitious and ascetical). 2. ‘The Apostle of the North’ (i.e. Dr. Macdonald of Ferintosh), London, 1866. 3. ‘Man's Relation to God, traced in the Light of the Present Truth,’ Edinburgh, 1869. He supplied memorial notices of the Rev. Dr. Mackintosh McKay of Dunoon and of the Rev. Donald Sage of Resolis for Wylie's ‘Disruption Worthies,’ Edinburgh, 1881.

Photographs are prefixed to Auld's ‘Life of Kennedy’ and to ‘In Memoriam Rev. John Kennedy’ (1884).

[Private information; Auld's Life of Dr. Kennedy, passim; this gives a very full and detailed account of his labours, with extracts from his diary descriptive of his mental history (pp. 10–42, 97–103), and letters to his friends, also, in an Appendix, notes of some sermons and portions of public lectures. In Memoriam Rev. John Kennedy, D.D., Dingwall (Inverness, 1884, pp. 4–5), gives a list of published pamphlets. Scotsman and Edinburgh Courant for 29 April 1884. Cf. Religion in the Highlands, by A. Taylor Innes, in Brit. and For. Evangelical Review, June 1872.] 

KENNEDY, JOHN CLARK (1817–1867), colonel. [See .]

KENNEDY, JOHN PITT (1796–1879), lieutenant-colonel, fourth son of John Pitt Kennedy, rector of Carn Donagh, co. Donegal, and afterwards of Balteagh, co. Londonderry, was born at Donagh on 8 May 1796. He was educated at Foyle College, Londonderry, under the Rev. James Knox. Kennedy entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, on 6 Nov. 1811, and passed out fourth of his year, obtaining a commission as second lieutenant in the corps of royal engineers on 1 Sept. 1815.

He was employed on the ordnance survey in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire for a short time, and afterwards did military duty at Plymouth, Chatham, and Portsmouth, until 1819, when he was sent to Malta, and thence to Corfu. On 6 April 1820 he was given the direction of the public works at Santa Maura. He constructed a small harbour on the eastern side of the island, with a canal from it to the natural harbour on the west, and lengthened the existing mole. He was promoted lieutenant on 19 June 1821, but a reduction in the corps of royal engineers placed him on half-pay on 28 May 1822.

On the appointment of Major (afterwards Sir) Charles Napier [q. v.] to be military resident of Cephalonia in 1822, Kennedy became island secretary and director of public works. He there built the Guardianno and Point Theodore lighthouses, a marine parade, a quay, and a market, and he intersected the island with roads. With Sir Charles Napier he formed a lifelong friendship. Kennedy was brought back to the corps of royal engineers from half-pay on 23 March 1825, returned to England in 1826, and was sent to Woolwich. In order to retain his appointment in Cephalonia he was, at Napier's request, removed from the royal engineers on 20 April 1826 to the 50th foot, as lieutenant. He ceased duty at Woolwich on 14 May, and on 10 June 1826 purchased an unattached company and returned to Cephalonia. On 3 Jan. 1828 he was appointed sub-inspector of militia in the Ionian Islands, an appointment he held until 1 March 1831, when he returned home and settled in Ireland.

Kennedy set to work to remedy the deplorable state of the Irish agriculturist, and to show by practical example on a small scale what might be done for the country generally. He devoted himself to teaching the farmers the principles of agriculture, and to setting the unemployed to cultivate waste lands. He had the management of a property belonging to his nephew at Lough Ash in co. Tyrone, and of an estate at Clogher, the property of Sir Charles Style. Both at Lough Ash and Clogher he established a national school, and arranged for practical lessons in agriculture on a model farm of a few acres. He also divided the waste lands into reclaiming farms, and met with very great success. In 1833 he visited the agricultural schools of Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. On 19 June 1835 he was brought in from half-pay to the 28th foot, and sold out on the 26th of the same month in order to devote the money he received for his commission to the furtherance of his schools.

In November 1837 Kennedy was appointed inspector-general under the Irish national education department, on the understanding that practical instruction in agriculture was to become a prominent feature in national instruction. Inspectors were appointed under Kennedy for each county by public competition, and Kennedy chose sixty acres of land at Glasnevin, on the north of Dublin, with a large house and garden, to form a central model farm and training establishment for teachers from the district schools, who also