Daniel Rutherford
The son of Professor John Rutherford (1695–1779) and his wife, Anne Mackay, Daniel Rutherford was born in Edinburgh on 3 November 1749. He began college at the age of 16 at Mundell's School on the West Bow close to his family home, and then studied medicine under William Cullen and Joseph Black at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with a doctorate (MD) in 1772. From 1775 to 1786 he practiced as a physician in Edinburgh.
Samuel Rutherford
Samuel Rutherford was born in the village of Nisbet, Roxburghshire, in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland. Rutherford was educated at Jedburgh Grammar School and the University of Edinburgh, where he became Regent of Humanity (Professor of Latin) in 1623. In 1627 he was settled as minister of Anwoth in Kirkcudbrightshire, Galloway, where it was said of him 'he was always praying, always preaching, always visiting the sick, always catechising, always writing and studying', and from where he was banished to Aberdeen for nonconformity, 'being very powerful on the side of the Reformed faith and of God living', there in Aberdeen; 'his writing desk' was said to be 'perhaps the most effective and widely resounding pulpit then in Christendom'. His patron in Galloway was John Gordon, 1st Viscount of Kenmure. On the re-establishment of Presbyterianism in 1638, he was made Professor of Divinity at the University of St Andrews.