17 Facts About Malcolm MacColl

Malcolm MacColl was a Scottish cleric and publicist, noted for his views on Islam and the Eastern Question.

Malcolm MacColl's father died when he was still a boy.

Malcolm MacColl claimed Jacobite descent, and seems early to have adopted High Church Anglican views.

Malcolm MacColl won a place at Trinity College, Glenalmond, for the Scottish Episcopal ministry, and was ordained a priest of the Episcopal Church in 1857.

In May 1858 Malcolm MacColl approached William Ewart Gladstone in a letter warning him about measures against High Church bishops in the Scottish Episcopal Church, alluding to his own financial circumstances.

Malcolm MacColl tenaciously continued the correspondence, and eventually managed to meet Gladstone.

Gladstone secured preferment for his protege, but Malcolm MacColl never rose high in the Anglican Church.

Malcolm MacColl was received as a priest of the Church of England in 1859, and then entered on a succession of curacies, in London and at Addington, Bucks.

Malcolm MacColl served between 1864 and 1867 as the Chaplain of the British Embassy in St Petersburg, Russia, and Naples.

Malcolm MacColl acted as a discreet intermediary between them and Gladstone.

From 1876 onwards, Malcolm MacColl was an active defender of the Christian inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire, writing a series of vitriolic attacks on the Ottoman Empire and its friends in Britain in letters to newspapers, articles in reviews, and publishing several books.

Malcolm MacColl maintained a large house at Kirby Overblow, south of Harrogate, and continued to devote himself to political pamphleteering and newspaper correspondence, the result of extensive European travel, a wide acquaintance with the leading personages of the day, strong views on ecclesiastical subjects from a high-church standpoint, and particularly on the politics of the Eastern Question, the uprising in Crete, then still an Ottoman province, the cause of the Armenians and Islam.

Malcolm MacColl was on close terms with George I of Greece, and leaders of the Armenian movement.

Malcolm MacColl admonished them, arguing for instance that the Ottoman Sultan was not the Caliph of all Muslims.

In 1904 Malcolm MacColl married Consuelo Albinia Crompton-Stansfield, daughter of Major-General William Henry Crompton-Stansfield of Esholt Hall.

Malcolm MacColl had a younger brother, Hugh Malcolm MacColl, who became known as a logician.

Malcolm MacColl had tried to persuade Gladstone to pay for Hugh to be educated at the University of Oxford; but Hugh had refused to become an Anglican priest as Gladstone insisted.