Background
James Blair was born in Banffshire, Scotland as one of five children. His parents were Peter Blair, a clergyman, and Mary Hamilton Blair.
James Blair was born in Banffshire, Scotland as one of five children. His parents were Peter Blair, a clergyman, and Mary Hamilton Blair.
James Blair attended Marischal College, Aberdeen, for 2 years. He received a master of arts degree from the University of Edinburgh, where he remained to study divinity.
In 1679 he settled as a minister of the Scottish Episcopal Church near Edinburgh. Two years later, because he scrupled to sign the Scottish Test Act, he was deprived of a living anywhere in Scotland.
He went to London, where he became acquainted with Henry Compton, the bishop of London, who persuaded him to go to Virginia as a missionary. After 5 years in Virginia, Blair was appointed commissary (deputy) to the bishop of London, with authority to supervise the discipline of the Anglican clergy, though without the power to confirm baptisms or ordain American-born ministers. In one of his first acts he convened the clergy to urge them to found a college. They readily complied with a plan for a grammar school, a philosophical college, and a divinity school, which soon won the approval of Governor Francis Nicholson and the General Assembly.
In 1691 Blair went to England to obtain a charter and funds for the college. When he returned to Virginia 2 years later, he was the first president and rector of the board of visitors of the College of William and Mary, founded "to the End that the Church of Virginia may be furnished with a Seminary of Ministers of the Gospel, and that the Youth may be piously educated in good Letters and Manners, and that the Christian Faith may be propagated amongst the Western Indians, to the Glory of Almighty God. "
For its first 36 years the college was no more than a grammar school, without enough funds to hire the six professors contemplated in the charter. Some of the blame must be laid to Blair; he did no teaching yet demanded his annual salary of £150, which cut deeply into the college's funds. And although Blair could have done much for the college from the seat on the governor's council he assumed in 1694, his feuds with a succession of governors eroded his influence and alienated both the clergy and the gentry. When he died on April 18, 1743, he left an estate of £10, 000 to a nephew and only his library and £500 to the college.
Quotes from others about the person
"Probably no other man in the colonial time did so much for the intellectual life of Virginia. "
Moses Coit Tyler, professor of American history, Cornell University.
Sarah Harrison, daughter of Benjamin Harrison Jr. , became his wife on 2 June 1687.