Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/253

McNeile variably attracted large congregations. In 1834 he was appointed perpetual curate of the district church of St. Jude, Liverpool, and in 1848 his congregation built for him St. Paul's Church, Prince's Park, Liverpool.

McNeile held strongly evangelical opinions, and strenuously opposed the church of Rome. His vigorous public utterances involved him in numerous Quarrels and much newspaper warfare. He defeated the town council of Liverpool in a dispute about the management of the corporation school, and when a handsome subscription was presented to him in honour of his victory, he founded four scholarships with the money in the Liverpool Collegiate Institution and an exhibition at one of the universities. In 1845 the Archbishop of Canterbury conferred upon him a canonry in Chester Cathedral, and in July 1860 he became a canon residentiary. On 9 Sept. 1868 he was transferred to the deanery of Ripon. He resigned the deanery in October 1876, and retired to Bournemouth, where he died on 28 Jan. 1879.

In 1822 he married Anne, daughter of Archbishop Magee; she died 8 Oct. 1881, aged 79. Besides very numerous anniversary and funeral sermons, addresses, lectures, letters, and speeches, McNeile printed: 1. 'Seventeen Sermons,' 1825; 2nd edit. 1828. 2. 'Three Sermons before the Judges at the Assizes,' 1827. 3. 'England's Protest is England's Shield, for the Battle is the Lord's,' 1829. 4. 'Popery Theological. Another Challenge. Reply to !Rev. J. Bidden,' 1829. 5. 'Popular Lectures on the Prophecies relative to the Jewish Nation,' 1830. 6. 'Letters on National Education, addressed to the Town Council of Liverpool,' 1837. 7. 'Lectures on the Church of England,' 1840. 8. 'Lectures on the Sympathies, Sufferings, and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ,' 1843; another edition, 1866. 9. 'The Church and the Churches, or the Church of God in Christ and the Churches of Christ Militant here on Earth,' 1846; 2nd edit. 1847; new edition, 2 vols. 1867. 10. 'Lectures on the Acquittal of the Seven Bishops,' 1847. 11. 'The Adoption and other Sermons preached in the Cathedral, Chester,' 1864. 12. 'Sermons on the Second Advent of Christ,' 1866. 13. 'Lectures on the Prophecies relative to the Jewish Nation,' 1866. 4. 'Letters on the Athanasian Creed,' 1878. 15. 'Scriptural Proportions, illustrated by the place which the Lord's Supper occupies in the New Testament,' 1873. Vol.i. of the 'Collected Works of Dean McNeile' appeared in 1877.

 McNEILL, DUNCAN, (1793–1874), Scottish judge, second, but eldest surviving son of John McNeill of Colonsay and Oronsay, Argyllshire, by his wife Hester, eldest daughter of Duncan McNeill of Diinmore, Argyllshire, was born in the island of Oronsay in August 1793. A portrait by Thomas Duncan of the father, an agriculturist of note and an improver of the breed of highland cattle, is in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. A brother, Sir John McNeill, diplomatist, is noticed separately. Duncan was educated at the universities of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, taking honours in mathematics and graduating M.D. at the former. He read law in Edinburgh in the chambers of Michael Linning, writer to the signet, and in 1816 became a member of the Scottish bar. He at first undertook criminal practice in the courts of justiciary, and he consequently was appointed an advocate-depute in 1820 and sheriff of Perthshire in 1824. In November 1834 he became solicitor-general for Scotland in Sir Robert Peel's first administration, quitting office in April 1835, and he again held this post when Peel returned to office, from September 1841 till October 1842, when he was promoted to be lord advocate, in succession to Sir William Rae. In this capacity he introduced the Scottish Poor Law Bill. He retired from office on the fall of Peel in July 1846. He had been elected dean of the Faculty of Advocates in 1843 and continued to be annually reelected until he was raised to the bench. He was M.P. for Argyllshire from 1843 to 1861 and enjoyed a lucrative legal practice, especially in House of Lords appeals. In May 1861 he became an ordinary lord of session, assuming the title of Lord Colonsay and Oronsay. In 1862, when Lord-justice-general Boyle retired, he was appointed to succeed him as lord justice general and lord president of the court of session, and was sworn of the privy council. After holding that office with distinction for fourteen years, he retired in 1867 upon a pension, was raised to the peerage as Baron Colonsay and Oron- 