Colin Maclaurin, who was born in Kilmodan in Argyllshire in February 1698, and died at York on June 14; 1746, was educated at the university of Glasgow; in 1717 he was elected, at the early age of nineteen, professor of mathematics at Aberdeen; and in 1725 he was appointed the deputy of the mathematical professor at Edinburgh, and ultimately succeeded him. There was some difficulty in securing a stipend for a deputy, and Newton privately wrote offering to bear the cost so as to enable the university to secure the services of Maclaurin. Maclaurin took an active part in opposing the advance of the Young Pretender in 1745; on the approach of the Highlanders he fled to York, but the exposure in the trenches at Edinburgh and the privations he endured in his escape proved fatal to him.

His chief works are his Geometria Organica, London, 1720; his De Linearum Geometricarum Proprietatibus, London, 1720; his Treatise on Fluxions, Edinburgh, 1742; his Algebra, London, 1748; and his Account of Newton's Discoveries, London, 1748.