 After starting as an apprentice to a linen draper in Leven, and working as a clerk in Dundee, he entered the Wesleyan theological college at Hoxton, and in 1804 was appointed minister of the first Scottish Congregational chapel in Aberdeen.On 24 September 1809 he married Jane Ross, the daughter of a prosperous Aberdeen engineer; they had seven children.His daughter, Elizabeth (Eliza), married John Fairbairn, the renowned educator, politician and financier, on 24 May 1831.