Ure was born in Glasgow and baptised there on 30 March 1749; he was the eldest of nine children of Patrick Ure, a weaver, and his wife Isabell Malcolm. His father died while he was still young, but it is understood that this did not occur until sometime after Ure had entered his twenties. His father's death induced Ure to work as a weaver to support his mother. He resolved to enter the ministry, and obtained an education at
Glasgow Grammar School, and afterwards at the
University of Glasgow (while still a weaver), where he graduated M.A. in 1776; at the university the Greek professor,
James Moor, turned his attention to the undeveloped science of geology. While a student in divinity he was for some time assistant schoolmaster at
Stewarton, and afterwards he taught a
subscription school in the neighbourhood of Dumbarton. In 1783 he was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Glasgow, and became assistant to David Connell, minister of
East Kilbride in Lanarkshire. During his residence in the parish he made researches into its history, and devoted himself particularly to the study of its mineral strata. In 1793 he published the results in
The History of Rutherglen and East-Kilbride. On the death of Connell in 1790, Ure had some expectation of being appointed his successor, but, finding the parish not unanimous, he set off for Newcastle-upon-Tyne on foot, and acted for some time as assistant in the presbyterian church there. He remained there until in Scotland he attracted the attention of
Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet, who employed him in preparing the first sketches of the agricultural surveys of the counties of
Roxburgh,
Dumbarton and
Kinross for his
Statistical Account of Scotland. Ure's treatises were published separately by the
Board of Agriculture, the first two in 1794 and the last in 1797. He oversaw the publication of several of the later volumes of the
Statistical Account, and drew up the general indices. In appreciation of his work in December 1795 he was presented by
David Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan to the parish of
Uphall in
Linlithgow. He was ordained in July 1796. On 28 March 1798 he died of
dropsy at Uphall; he was buried in the Erskine family vault, at St Nicholas Kirk in the village. ==References==