This small oil portrait was probably painted in 1843 when David Octavius Hill started work on his huge painting of the Disruption of the Church of Scotland. The immense labour involved in recording the several hundred ministers and elders involved in the Disruption prompted the scientist Sir David Brewster to suggest to Hill that he should use photography rather than the pen or brush to capture the likenesses of the men before they left Edinburgh to return to their parishes. While Hill initially was sceptical, he quickly came to realise the potential of photography, not just as an aid to painting, but as an art form in its own right.