Name Thomas Lindsay | Died 1914 | |
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Books A history of the Reformation, The History of the Reformati, A History of the Reformati, The History of the Reformati, Luther and the German r |
Rev Dr Thomas Martin Lindsay DD FRSE (1843–1914) was a Scottish historian, professor and principal of the Free Church College, Glasgow. He was a prolific writer of church history and in authorship he is often referred to as Thomas M. Lindsay.
Contents

He wrote chiefly on church history, his major works including Luther and the German Reformation (1900), and A History of the Reformation in Europe (1906–1907).
Life
He was born on 18 October 1843 in Lesmahagow in Lanarkshire, the eldest son of Rev. Alexander Lindsay, and his wife, Susan Irvine Martin. He was educated in Lesmahagow.
Lindsay studied Divinity at the University of Glasgow and then at the University of Edinburgh. In 1869 he entered the ministry of the Free Church of Scotland, and in 1872 was appointed Professor of Church History at the Free Church College, Glasgow. At this time he lived at "Thornliebank" on Ann Street in the Hillhead district. He took up the position of Principal of the College in 1902. He then moved to the mopre affluent address of 37 Westbourne Gardens in Kelvinside, an attractive three-storey and basement Victorian terraced house.
Lindsay unsuccessfully supported William Robertson Smith in a trial for heresy between 1877 and 1881 which resulted in Smith's losing his position at the Aberdeen Free Church College.
He died in Glasgow on 6 December 1912.
Publications
He was a contributor to Encyclopædia Britannica and to the Cambridge Modern History.
Family
Lindsay married Anna Dunlop (1845–1903), and their children included Alexander Lindsay, 1st Baron Lindsay of Birker, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow, Master of Balliol College, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford.