2^2 B. P. j. ^r ARCH AND. 



and was awarded the institution's g^old medal in 1874. At tliat 

 time the High School associated with the College had just been 

 established, and Air. Marchand, for a short while after his 

 graduation, occupied the post of assistant master. During a 

 series of services, conducted by the late Rev. Dr. Andrew 

 Murray, Mr. Marchand decided to enter the Church, and, re- 

 linquishing his studies for the M.A. degree of the Cape Univer- 

 sity, he proceeded to New College, Edinburgh, where he was in 

 due course licensed as a minister of the Free Church of Scot- 

 land. Those were the days when the proceedings before the 

 ecclesiastical courts against the late Prof. Robertson Smith 

 aroused considerable interest, and Mr. Marchand's own pro- 

 fessor and friend, A. B. Davidson, was summoned before the 

 Presbytery. Marchand was prominent amongst the students 

 who accorded him an o\ation on his reappearance in the class- 

 room after his acquittal. 



Marchand's interests, while in Juiinburg'h, were not con- 

 fined to theology and theological controversy, but he also took 

 the B.Sc. course, working under the well-known Prof. Crum 

 Brown, and continuing the chemical studies which he had com- 

 menced under the late Prof. Roderick Noble, when at the 

 South x\frican College. He used to recount with satisfaction 

 the share that he had in the isolation of the alkaloid betaine. 

 These chemical studies were subsef[uently rotmded off in the 

 University of Berlin. Before returning to South Africa in 1882 

 Mr. Marchand married Miss Lockhart, of Edinburgh, and there 

 were two children of this marriage, one of whom. Dr. B. de 

 Coligny Marchand, now occupies the post of chemist in the 

 Department of Agriculture at Pretoria. 



Shortly after his return to this country Mr. Marchand 

 transferred to the ministry of the Dutch Reformed Church. 

 After two years spent as assistant minister of Mossel Bay, he 

 was ordained to his first indejjendent charge at Knysna in 1884, 

 and remained there seven years. It was there that he first gave 

 evidence of his deep interest in educational matters, and the fruits 

 of his untiring labours in that district in the cause of education still 

 remain in several district schools, established, through his instrti- 

 mentality, amongst the poorer sections of his congregation. 



In 1891 the Dutch Reformed congregation at Rondebosch 

 was established, and Mr. Marchand invited to undertake pastoral 

 charge thereof. The position was accepted, and held during 

 five years, at the close of which period the responsible post of 

 Commissioner of the Church for the Cape Province was oft'ered 

 Mr. Marchand by the Synod. 



Into the building up of the congre^jation at Rondebosch 

 Mr. Marchand entered with great enthusiasm, and here again 

 the cause of education was strongly pressed, resulting in the 

 establishment of a flourishing High School for Girls. 



After relinquishing pastoral work in i8g6, and not content 

 with the weighty responsibilities of his new post, Mr. Marchand 

 undertook the editorship of the official organ of the Dutch 

 Church, and discharged these added duties for several years. 



