McLEOD, NORMAN (1780-1866) was born at Stoer Point, Assynt, Sutherlandshire, of a family of fishermen-cultivators who had held their land by charter from King David II. After receiving his primary education in the parish school, he went to Aberdeen University, where he had a brilliant career and graduated in arts. During vacations he earned some money by teaching parish schools in Ross and Sutherland. Having decided to study theology, he went to Edinburgh University. There he was awarded the gold medal for moral philosophy. Throughout his course of three years at Divinity Hall he evinced great independence of thought, commented openly on the conduct and characters of his professors, and was critical of the tone of the Established Church of Scotland. In his last term he was rusticated for an offence against discipline. Returning to his native parish (1806), McLeod commenced to preach without being licensed or associated with the Established Church. The congregation disapproved of the regular minister of the parish, and McLeod soon had a strong body of church members attending his ministry. In 1815 he opened the parish school at Ullapool, in the parish of Lochbroom, receiving his salary from the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. But he was soon in conflict with the minister of the parish, and his salary was reduced by half. Denied a living in this way, he turned to the fisheries, spent two years in charge of a herring boat sailing out of Wick, and then returned to his old occupation as crofter and fisherman in Stoer.

McLeod had definitely cut himself off from the Established Church, and was attracted by various schools of thought. Finally after long consideration he accepted Calvinism. He had married Mary McLeod, a friend of his youth, and they had one or two children. Seeing no prospect of earning a livelihood in the ministry in Scotland, McLeod in 1817 joined a large party of 400 who sailed from Sutherlandshire in the Frances Ann (14 Jul) to settle in Pictou, Nova Scotia. He held family prayer for the emigrants every day, and when they reached their destination was their accepted minister, in spite of the fact that he had not been licensed or ordained by any church. He settled in Middle River, between Alma and Gairloch, not far from Pictou. As soon as he had built his own shack he commenced to preach in it, and held services also at small settlements in the neighbourhood. Two years later his family joined him in Nova Scotia. Invitations having been received from a Highland colony in Ohio, the Pictou group in 1819 laid the keel of a ship of 200 tons, the Ark, in which the whole colony embarked with the intention of sailing up the Mississippi river to their new home. Encountering a heavy storm in the bay of Canso, they eventually returned to Cape Breton Island and settled at St Ann's Bay. The ship was shortly afterwards lost at sea. The new settlement built itself a model boat for coastal trading, a school, and the first Presbyterian church established in the island, and enjoyed solid prosperity during the next few years.

In 1825 McLeod spent a year in New York engaged in mission work while he prepared for ordination, and on 29 Aug 1826 he was duly ordained by the presbytery of Genesee. He returned to St Ann's in his old position of preacher, teacher and law-giver, and was appointed government schoolmaster and justice of the peace. All breaches of civil and moral law were tried by him. He established temperance societies and a branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society (1840). In 1846 a large church was opened capable of seating 1,500 people. McLeod's independent views now involved him in a troublesome feud which culminated in litigation, the circumstances in which he was rusticated being alleged against his ecclesiastical character. His supporters were mulct in heavy damages, and a serious defection in the congregation followed. To provide employment for the young men McLeod proposed trading, and a ship of 300 tons was laid down. In this his son Donald sailed to Glasgow with a full cargo of produce but, failing to find a market, was forced to sell the ship, and went farther afield to seek his fortune. In 1847 McLeod received a letter from him in Australia advising the St Ann's colony to move to South Australia. The potato blight which affected their crops this year clinched the matter, and McLeod directed the building of ships for the new migration. Duncan and Murdoch McKenzie, two skilled seamen, together with John Fraser and John McKay, took the lead in organising the migration. In 1851 the Highland Lass and Margaret, each of 300 tons, were launched. Three hundred of the settlers decided to embark, but the Highland Lass was frozen in and they all had to sail in the sister ship (Oct 1851). Calling at Cape Town, a party made a reconnaissance of land for settlement and negotiated with the government. Arriving in Apr 1852 at Adelaide, they found that Donald had gone on to Melbourne. There again inquiries were made for land, and then the Margaret sailed for Melbourne. Donald was not there either, so the Margaret was sold to pay expenses, and the young men took work or went to the goldfields, while a party went up country to prospect for land, and afterwards (in the schooner Gazelle) to Bay of Islands. They negotiated with the New Zealand government for a block of land in the north. Meanwhile the rest of the settlement embarked from St Ann's in the Highland Lass. The negotiations for a block of land were finally concluded in 1856, when 47,600 acres was declared a special settlement. In the following year Mrs McLeod died. The Ellen Lewis brought the main body across from Australia in 1860. The leader himself died on 14 Mar 1866.

McLeod was essentially a nonconformist. Rebelling against the loose discipline and the personal character of many of the ministers of the Established Church, he declined to affiliate himself with it, and in effect established a free church of his own before the disruption of 1843. His religious views were extremely strict. During the whole time he was in Nova Scotia he never administered the sacrament, and he rarely administered baptism, on the ground that few men attained the pitch of holiness that such a service demanded. Nor did he even seek ordination until many years after he first undertook to minister to the spiritual needs of his people. And to the end of his life he never regularly joined the Presbyterian Church. Yet his people followed him unquestioningly, putting implicit faith in the nobility of his character; and the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand recorded his death as that of a high-minded divine of their faith. His book, published in 1843, is a unique, if involved, confession of his faith.

Gordon; Macdonald (p); Dickson (p); N. R. McKenzie (p); N. McLeod, The Present Church of Scotland and Tints of Normanism, 1843.

Reference: Volume 2, page 22

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