THAT great Scottish phrase, lad or lass o’pairts, is one we use admiringly of people who are successful in various different fields or who have numerous talents that they display. Such a description accords with our long-held Scottish view that people should have a comprehensive education producing rounded individuals.

It was in this week 345 years ago that one of the greatest of all lads o’pairts was born in what is now Dumfries and Galloway, and though he has been dead since 1846, Henry Duncan is still acclaimed in the local area, and in my far from humble opinion his story should be much better known across Scotland.

If he is known for one achievement then that is his foundation of the world’s first savings bank. Yet Duncan was much more than a successful entrepreneur – he was a Kirk minister who rose to become Moderator of the General Assembly, he helped found the Free Church of Scotland, he wrote and published books, newspapers and scientific papers, he was a talented geologist, he was a social reformer and anti-slavery campaigner, and into the bargain he was a successful farmer and gardener as well as being a talented artist who also led the restoration of one of Scotland’s most revered ancient monuments, the Ruthwell Cross. Some lad, some pairts.

Henry Duncan was born in the manse at Lochrutton west of Dumfries on October 8, 1774. His father George was the parish minister and his grandfather was also a minister.

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When Duncan was still a teenager, Duncan’s father once invited a local farmer turned exciseman to the manse – none other than Robert Burns, who he introduced to his sons by saying: “Look well, boys, at Mr Burns, for you’ll never see so great a genius.”

The Burns connection would continue, for after being educated at Dumfries Academy and St Andrews University, Duncan was encouraged and sponsored by Dr James Currie, the biographer of Burns, to join Heywood’s Bank in Liverpool where his two brothers already worked.

Learning just enough about banking to know that his heart was not really in it, Duncan returned to Scotland, declaring his intention to study for the ministry, and he duly graduated after periods of study at Glasgow and Edinburgh universities.

Now he made a fateful decision – after a spell as a tutor in the Highlands, Duncan had a choice of three parishes, and he plumped for Ruthwell as it was near his home village.

He preached a sermon on the text “Let No Man Despise Thy Youth” and was duly called to the ministry of Ruthwell Kirk. He would spend the rest of his life there and in some quarters is known as Duncan of Ruthwell to this day.

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The area was poverty stricken having suffered successive poor harvests, and the vigorous 24-year-old minister immediately addressed the problem with the help of his brothers in Liverpool, arranging for a shipment of grain from the Mersey docks to be brought to Ruthwell.

He also reconstituted the local Friendly Society – a form of insurance group – and then introduced the cultivation of flax into the area. That idea provided work for women to spin the flax and for their men to grow and cut it.

He also persuaded the Earl of Mansfield to give Ruthwell a “society room” where the villagers met for social evenings and discussions.

In the opening decade of the 1800s, there was considerable agitation for social reform, and Duncan was an enthusiastic contributor with powerful essays and pamphlets explaining his thoughts. They would later be gathered under the name The Cottage Fireside.

His talents as a writer were obvious and he duly founded the Dumfries and Galloway Courier in 1809 – it lives on today as the Dumfries Courier, part of the DNG group.

The following year he turned the society room into a savings bank for one night a week. His aim was simply described: “The erection of an economical bank for the savings of the industrious.”

Local people were able to safely bank any savings they had – often just pennies – and within a year the Ruthwell savings bank had £151 in assets. It was a commercial undertaking with no state backing, and it flourished.

There followed an extraordinary period in which Duncan was prevailed upon to spread the word of his invention of the savings bank.

He always said that other people had conceived of such a bank before him – the author Daniel Defoe for one – but Duncan put his ideas into practice and then preached the cause nationally, and fought all the way to Parliament in London for them to be given statutory recognition.

There are now more than 2700 savings banks in almost 100 countries, and Ruthwell was later incorporated into the Trustee Savings Bank which has its head office at 120 George Street in Edinburgh – it’s called Henry Duncan House, while the original building in Ruthwell is now the Savings Bank Museum.

Duncan then stunned the scientific community. Always a student of geology, he discovered the fossilised footsteps of an ancient animal, the first to be found and described in Britain.

It was not the only “fossil” he worked on – Duncan was responsible for finding and restoring the 8th-century Anglo-Saxon monument the Ruthwell Cross, which can be seen in the village and which is generally reckoned to be the finest example of its kind.

Nor was his church career neglected, so much so that he was elected Moderator of the General Assembly in 1839.

Four years later he walked out during the Great Disruption and helped found the Free Church.

It was while preaching a sermon to his congregation at Cockpool near Ruthwell in early February, 1846, that he suffered a massive stroke from which he never recovered.

Henry Duncan died on February 12, 1846, mourned by all who knew him and countless thousands who did not but who had benefited from his savings bank creation.