Born in Ayr on 18 January 1799, McClelland moved to Glasgow in 1815, working initially in the accountancy office of James Kerr. In March 1824 he began business on his own and came to be regarded as the city's leading accountant. In 1853, when the Institute of Professional Accountants was formed, McClelland was elected president.
He was interested in education, jointly establishing (in 1849) the Glasgow Sunday Educational Association and then the Glasgow Secular School Society. He was also a believer in phrenology.
In 1872 he sailed to the United States, his second trip across the Atlantic, and in 1875, aged 76, he visited his daughter in India. He had retired to London, and died there on 24 October 1879.
JAMES McCLELLAND was born at Ayr on 18th January, 1799, and was educated at the Academy there. He came to Glasgow in 1815, and after serving nine years in the office of Mr. James Kerr, accountant, he began business on his own account in March, 1824. For nearly fifty years thereafter Mr. McClelland was a very considerable force in the city of Glasgow.
As a professional accountant, Mr. McClelland brought quite an unusual amount of energy to bear on everything he undertook. In those days there was no "Accountant of the Court" whose duty it was to see to the expeditious winding-up of bankrupt estates, and there is no doubt that considerable laxity then prevailed in the profession in this respect. Mr. McClelland prided himself on the rapidity with which he completed the business in hand, and for many years he was facile princeps, the head of his profession. When the professional accountants formed themselves into an Institute in 1853, to be incorporated by Royal Charter two years later, Mr. McClelland was elected first President, an office which he continued to hold for several years. A large amount of important business passed through his hands, and his office was the school in which many gentlemen, now occupying important positions in Glasgow and elsewhere, received their commercial training.
But it was not alone in his profession that Mr. McClelland's force of character displayed itself. He was an enthusiast in other directions as well, and particularly in the direction of education. He had formed in early life an intimate friendship with George Combe, and often joined the coterie in Edinburgh which gathered round that able and original philosopher. This led, among other things, to the study of the new science of phrenology, in which he became a confident believer, and it was his practice before receiving a youth as an apprentice to make a careful examination of his cranium. In the autumn of 1840, when the British Association visited Glasgow, he, along with the other phrenologists of the day, made a great but ineffectual attempt to have their favourite science recognized by the more orthodox scientists of the Association.
Of more lasting benefit was his effort, jointly with the late Mr. R. S. Cunliff, to establish the Glasgow Sunday Educational Association. This was in 1849, and a few years later there was started the Glasgow Secular School Society, which received a considerable measure of support from many of the leading citizens. It would be easy, in these days of School Boards throughout the land, to make light of such comparatively puny attempts to grapple with the ignorance of the masses, but it is a more grateful task to recognize the good work done by these energetic pioneers, performed as it often was without the sympathy and in defiance of the denunciations of the "unco guid."
Mr. McClelland having thus maintained an active interest in the intellectual advancement of his fellow-citizens, had no difficulty in finding new fields for his irrepressible energy when the time came for surrendering into younger hands his large professional business. In 1872 he, for a second time, made a voyage to the United States, and three years later, when entering his seventy-eighth year, he paid a visit to his daughter in India. His experiences in the East were duly recorded in letters and diaries, and on his return home these were published for the entertainment of his wide circle of private friends.
Mr. McClelland's name will be remembered with respect and affection by all who knew him, even by those who may have had frequent occasion to dissent from his opinions. He was often "too rash, too unadvised, too sudden," but he was always able, honourable, and courageous, and he had absolutely no fear of "Mrs. Grundy" - the last a quality not without its value in our city even yet, greatly though we have outgrown the village stage. His death took place on 24th October, 1879, in London, where he had made his home after retiring from professional business. He was survived by his widow, and by a daughter and three sons.
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