The Rev James Alexander Haldane aka Captain James Haldane (14 July 1768 – 8 February 1851) was a Scottish independent church leader following an earlier life as a sea captain.
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Biography
The youngest son of Captain James Haldane of Airthrey Castle (who died two weeks before he was born), (his older brother Robert Haldane was also a clergyman) in Stirlingshire, he was born at Dundee. His mother was sister to Admiral Adam Duncan, 1st Viscount Duncan.
He was educated first at Dundee Grammar School and afterwards at the High School in Edinburgh and University of Edinburgh. At the age of seventeen he joined the Honorable East India Company as a midshipman on board the ship, the Duke of Montrose. After four voyages to India, in the summer of 1793, he was promoted to captain and commander of the Melville Castle. He started a careful study of the Bible during his voyages, and also came under the evangelical influence of David Bogue of Gosport, one of the founders of the London Missionary Society.
He briefly returned to Scotland in 1793, and began preaching on an itinerant basis. He remained in HEICS until 1797, his final action being on home ground in the Spithead mutiny, where he boarded the "Dutton". He left the HEICS in the summer of 1797 and, encouraged by friends, began as a lay preacher in Gilmerton south of Edinburgh.