Alexander Maclaren was born in 1826 at Glasgow, Scotland, the son of David Maclaren, who was a merchant and Baptist lay preacher. Maclaren was converted and publicly baptized at the age of twelve. He was educated at Glasgow High School and Glasgow University. In 1842, at the age of sixteen, Maclaren entered Stepney College, a Baptist institution in London. He took his BA degree at the University of London before he was twenty. The following year he began his ministry at Portland Chapel, Southampton. He worked there for twelve years and developed a reputation as a powerful preacher. He then accepted an invitation to become pastor at Union Chapel, Fallowfield, Manchester, where he remained until his retirement in 1903.