Couper

Couper is the family name of several Scotch clergymen:,

1. JAMES, D.D., was licensed to preach in 1780; presented to the living at Baldernock in 1782; ordained in 1783; elected professor of practical astronomy in Glasgow University; resumed his charge in 1803; and died in January, 1836, aged eighty-three years. See Fasti Eccles. Scoticanae, 2:344.

2. JOHN (1), son of the minister at Kinfauns, was appointed to the second charge at Brechin in 1724, and ordained; transferred to the first charge in 1731; retired from public duty in 1746, having his charge supplied till 1764 by unordained assistants; and died January 21, 1774, aged seventy-seven years. See Fasti Eccles. Scoticanae, 3:845.

3. JOHN (2), was licensed to preach in 1737; called to the living at Lochwinnoch in 1750, and ordained. He died December 19, 1787, aged eighty years. He was an excellent scholar, of irreproachable character, and the only minister of his parish of the moderate party in Church politics. See Fasti Eccles. Scoticanae, 2:225.

4. MATTHEW, studied at the Glasgow University; held a bursary in theology there in 1676; became a schoolmaster at Mauchline, and afterwards at Ochiltree; was called to the living at Lilliesleaf in 1691; transferred to Ochiltree in 1695, thence to Kinfauns in 1700; and died Feb. 13,1712, aged sixty years. See Fasti Eccles. Scoticanae, 1:554; 2:134, 646.

5. PATRICK, was born at Scone in 1660; took his degree at the University of St. Andrews in 1678; in 1679 was taken prisoner at Perth as a rebel; imprisoned and fined five or six times for nonconformity and attending field preaching; fled to Scotland; preached at Amsterdam in 1684; after several years of foreign travel, peril, and shipwreck, returned to Scotland; was appointed minister at St. Ninian's, Stirling, in 1688; was member of the assemblies of 1690 and 1692; accepted the living at Pittenweem in 1692, although mulch opposed; and died June 14, 1740. He was a small, thin, spare man, generous and kind; and was the first to propose a fund for ministers' widows, in 1716. He published, On Public Oaths (1704): — Jacobite Loyalty (1724): — a Sermon (1725). See Fasti Eccles. Scoticanae, 2:456, 710.

6. ROBERT (1), took his degree at the University of St. Andrews in 1622; was called to the living at Temple in 1632; and died in 1655. See Fasti Eccles. Scoticanae, 1:307.

7. ROBERT (2), was born at Clanr; presented to-the living at Kirkmaiden, as assistant and successor, in 1800; was only three times in the pulpit, for he died at Clary, July 30, 1801, aged twenty-two years. See Fasti Eccles. Scoticanae, 1:762.

8. SIMON, took his degree at Edinburgh University in 1667; was appointed to the living at Kirkcudbright in 1678; transferred to the Second Church, Dunfermline, in 1682, and to the First Church in 1686; was charged in 1689 with not praying for the king and queen, and other acts of disloyalty, but was acquitted; was deposed in 1693 for contumacy and contempt of the authority of the Presbytery, and ordered to leave the Church in 1696. He died at Edinburgh, Sept. 20,1710, aged about sixty- four years. He published, An Impartial Inquiry into the Order and Government in the Church (Edinb. 1704). See Fasti Eccles. Scoticanae, 1:689; 2:568-571.

9. THOMAS, took his degree at the University of Edinburgh in 1625; was licensed to preach in 1627; admitted to the living at Saline in 1634; transferred to Menmuir in 1639; thence to Montrose, in 1642; and died in 1661, aged about fifty-six years. See Fasti Eccles. Scoticanae, 2:602; 3:841, 844.