Biography
The younger son of Captain James Haldane of Airthrey House, (his older brother Robert Haldane was also a clergyman) in Stirlingshire, he was born at Dundee. Educated first at Dundee Grammar School and afterwards at the Royal High School and University of Edinburgh, at the age of seventeen he joined the Duke of Montrose East Indiaman as a midshipman. After four voyages to India he was nominated to the command of the Melville Castle in the summer of 1793; but having begun a careful study of the Bible during his voyages, and also come under the evangelical influence of David Bogue of Gosport, one of the founders of the London Missionary Society, he abruptly decided to leave the navy for a religious life, and returned to Scotland.
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