Forthcoming Event: Episcopacy and Scottish Identity from 1689

The St Aiden's Lectures 2014 

Dr Alasdair Raffe, University of Edinburgh 

 and

Eleanor Harris, University of Stirling

Monday evenings, 27 January to 17 February 2014, 7.00 for 7.30 pm

St Aidan's Scottish Episcopal Church (SC-012292)
Mearns Road, Clarkston G76 7ER

www.staidansclarkston.org.uk

The Diaries of Dean Charles Fyvie, 1829 and 1839-1841

Edited by Robert Preece (Diocese of Moray, Ross and Caithness, Inverness, 2013)

 

 

 

 

Dean Charles Fyvie was the minister of St John’s Episcopal Church in Church Street, Inverness, from 1819 until his death in 1849. At first he was appointed to serve solely in St John’s, but in 1839 he also became Dean of the Diocese of Moray (possibly Moray, Ross and Argyle) in what is now known as the Scottish Episcopal Church.

He left a notebook with a Sunday diary for part of 1829, and a daily diary for the years 1839 to 1841. This not only describes his clerical duties, but provides an account of middle-class life in and around Inverness at this period. In 1839, through his exertions he oversaw the opening of a new Church in Church Street, close to its present junction with Union Street. This replaced the smaller Church near to the north-east end of the street.

In 1922, extracts from these diaries were first published with some explanatory comment, but this booklet is now almost impossible to locate other than through specialist libraries. This new edition has copied the explanatory text from the 1922 edition, with corrections where necessary, but has the full text of the diaries. For the modern reader, notes identify many of the people mentioned and explain various events. Illustrations of the church and some key personalities have been added.

Robert Preece was for many years Principal Teacher of Geography at Inverness Royal Academy, and also a teacher of Media Studies. He has written the definitive history of the Academy, published in 2011, and also has produced an illustrated account of the history of the Scout Movement in its first hundred years in and around Inverness.

£6 from bookshops, or by post from:

Robert Preece, 10 Heatherley Crescent, Inverness, IV2 4AW

£5 for direct sales

Cheques payable to: Diocese of Moray, Ross and Caithness

ISBN: 978-1-905787-89-0

Printing and binding by For the Right Reasons, Printers and Publishers, 60 Grant Street, Inverness, IV3 8BN

Any surplus from sales of this book will be used to fund archive work in the Diocese of Moray, Ross and Caithness  (Scottish Charity No. SC004655)

 

 

Duncan Mackenzie 1783-1858

Archdeacon of Moray and Ross
Priest in Strathnairn, Dingwall, Fortrose and the Gaelic Mission in Inverness

In the upper part of the wild and rugged glen through which the river Nairn flows, a numerous body of Episcopalians has existed since the Revolution of 1688. Till the population was thinned by emigration in the early part of the  century, the great majority of natives of the glen were devotedly attached to the Church of their Fathers [...] particularly so from the associations connected with the life and labours of the venerable "Parson Duncan", who spent here upwards of 40 years of his life in works of true Christian philanthropy, acting in the most unostentatious manner, not only the part of the Christian minister, but the medical adviser and the trusty counsellor of the whole glen.

-- words from a nationwide appeal in 1875 for funds to build a house for a priest in Strathnairn.

Duncan Mackenzie was born in Nether Lochaber around 1783. When he was in his mid-20s he began training for the ministry.  He was placed with the Reverend John Murdoch, the priest in Keith, learning from him as well as spending the winters studying at King’s College, Aberdeen, from which he graduated with a Master of Arts degree in 1817.

At King's he became interested in Gaelic studies and was later, during his Strathnairn years, to translate Scriptures and the Prayer Book into Gaelic.

He was ordained deacon in the year of his graduation and appointed incumbent of Strathnairn.  He was ordained priest two years later and immediately was given added responsibility as incumbent of Dingwall, 30 miles away. He remained in Strathnairn until his death 41 years later, although he resigned the charge at Dingwall after 32 years. During those years he was in Strathnairn and Dingwall on alternate Sundays. He also spent eight years as priest of Fortrose (1832-1840) and, for the five years before his death (1853-1858), was priest-in-charge of the Gaelic Mission in Inverness. In addition to all of this he served as Archdeacon of Moray and Ross and travelled throughout the north, both on foot and on horseback. His silver plated stirrups are preserved at Saint Paul's Church in Strathnairn.

Parson Duncan was prepared to minister to everyone, without thought of denomination, and was greatly liked and valued for his care, love and generosity.  In Strathnairn services were initially held in a church at Knocknacroshaig, near Brin Rock. The church was built in 1817, the year Duncan Mackenzie came to the glen. It is thought that it was destroyed in a fire and thereafter he held services in the open, while building another church on the site of the present Saint Paul's at Croachy.

Florence, his wife, and he lived in two rooms adjoining the new church but, in later years, his generosity to those in need could no longer be funded from his stipend of £15 a year and so, to augment it, he took on the tenancy of a farm at Tullich.  He died, still ministering and farming, aged seventy-five, in 1858 and is buried in the churchyard of Saint John's at Ballachulish. Florence outlived him by seven years.

The present Saint Paul's was built on the site of Parson Duncan’s church in 1868 and the west wall contains a rose window memorial to this great priest. One of his family members is a priest in the Episcopal Church today – the Very Reverend Norman MacCallum, former Dean of Argyll and the Isles and Provost of the Cathedral in Oban.

Gerald Stranraer-Mull

Books from St Ninian's, Perth

Historian Margaret Lye has published a series of books on Scottish Episcopalians in Perthshire, Angus and Fife. All of them are available to purchase on the St Ninian's Cathedral Website:

The Architecture of Hippolyte Jean Blanc, (1998). This is an honours dissertation at St. Andrews University of about 10,800 words on his church at Broughty Ferry for the Church of Scotland and at Invergowrie for the Episcopalians. £2

The Art of Henrietta Cater in St. Ninian’s MS1 & MS2, (2000): About 11,900 words and 12 colour plates this describes an illuminated manuscript of the Scotch Communion Office (MS1) presented to Bp. Torry in 1847 and decoration of a printed copy of the office (MS2). £3

A Guide to the Building and Development of St. Ninian’s Cathedral, Perth 1847-1914 (2003) About 23,500 words and 9 colour plates on the decision to build and stages in its development. £4

The Diaries of the Very Rev. G T S Farquhar (2007) Farquhar’s diaries cover the years 1881-1927 and amount to over 850,000 words. From 1883 he was based at St. Ninian’s and for most of the time was supernumerary of the diocese. They are in 2 volumes and include Lye’s Introduction of about 15,000 words. £8

A Guide to Episcopal Churches in the Diocese of St. Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane, (2010). About 76,900 words and over 90 colour plates. All 49 churches in the diocese are described. £5

Church Music in North-East Scotland

This article by David Welch on Church music in north-east Scotland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries contains a great deal of fascinating information about music in Episcopal churches.

A Key to Scottish Churches

If you have ever struggled to understand (or explain) how the Scottish Episcopal Church fits in, this handy guide to 'Scottish Sects' by ecclesiastical historian Henry Sefton might be useful:

All Hallows Episcopal Chapel at the 1938 Empire Exhibition

The Scotsman, 25 April 1938

EPISCOPAL CHURCH - Timber Building with Wooden Tiles

The architects, Messrs R. Mervyn Noad & Wallace, of Glasgow, have taken full advantage of the site, which is at the end of an avenue. The whole building is of timber roofed with cedar wood tiles. It is approached by two flights of ten steps, between which rises a 24-foot cross. The Glasgow Tree Lovers’ Society has planted the bed of flowers surrounding the base of the cross, as well as two hedges flanking the entrance to the building. Over the door in a niche is a figure of Christ, designed by the late Mr Archibald Dawson, Glasgow. The building is divided into an outer hall, 36 feet long by 24 feet broad, and an inner chapel, 24 feet by 16 feet. The hall has a sense of loftiness and space, as it is 40 feet from the floor to the ridge. The roof is left open, and on the lowest rafters are displayed the shields of the seven diocese, which are the work of Mr. H. Lewis Gordon, Edinburgh There will be an information stand, two show cases devoted to Church history, and cases displaying vestments and work of the Church Crafts League. Over the entrance door is a mosaic plaque of St Margaret of Scotland by Miss O. Carleton Smyth, and a 7-foot angel in plaster by Miss Evelyn Beale, Glasgow, is over the five-fold door leading into th chapel. Two tempera panels by Miss Mabel Dawson, Edinburgh, depict Bishop Kennedy and St Joan. A model of an 18th century meeting-house has been designed by the Rev. R. Henderson-Howat. The hall is intended to be used as a restroom, for which purpose armchairs and tables have been loaned. The chapel will seat 40. Stained-glass figures of St Ninian, St Patrick, St Columba, and St Kentigern by Miss Margaret Chilton, Edinburgh, are in the four windows; whilst the symbols of these saints in the upper parts of the windows were painted on glass by Mr Ralph Cowan, Glasgow. The seating is of oak, arranged with a central aisle.

The Exhibition had three chapels: Church of Scotland, Episcopalian, and Roman Catholic.  The exhibition was not open on Sundays, but on other days there was a daily act of worship in All Hallows. On 13 June,the Revd Duncan Macinnes, rector of St Mary’s, Glencoe, and St Paul’s Church, Kinlochleven, travelled to Glasgow to conduct Gaelic Evensong there, with the choir of St Mary’s Cathedral Glasgow taking part in the service.  On 30 June, Bishop Darbyshire led a radio service from the chapel.

Flags carried in battle by Covenanters and some of their personal relics are included in a special display in the Hall of History, in the Scottish Pavilion south, 1938 being the tercentenary of the signing of the National Covenant.

It had originally been planned to relocate the chapel after the end of the Exhibition, but in the event it was sold on site for £45, because a further £400 was required to restore the site afterwards.

http://thecathedral.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/1938empireexhibition.pdf

Dr Archibald Pitcairne

This week is the 300th anniversary of the death of Dr Archibald Pitcairne, a significant Episcopalian layman and committed Jacobite, and who went to the aid of Sir Isaac Newton during his dark years.  Pitcairne is buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh. According to the DNB he died on 23 October 1713 and was buried on 26th, whilst the tombstone give 26th for his death.

 

I would be interested to learn of instances when Pitcairne makes an appearance in the SEC story.  He probably treated quite a number of early Episcopalians, eg., when the young Countess Dundonald contracted smallpox in Paisley in 1710, Pitcairne summoned Bishop Alexander Rose to her deathbed.

 

Should you be near Greyfriars this week, I hope you can pay your respects to Dr Pitcairne.

 

Roger Edwards

Meeting in St Ninian's Cathedral, Perth

The Scottish Episcopal Historians met in St Ninian's, Perth, on Saturday 12 October 2013.

Papers included:

• Margaret Margaret Lye - St Ninian’s Cathedral, Perth.
• Michael Riordan - The Rosehearty circle and their take-up of Camisard prophecy.
• Eleanor Harris - British, Bourgeois, but still Belonging: the Episcopalian laity of Charlotte Chapel, Edinburgh 1794-1818.

Recent or forthcoming books and book chapters on Episcopal history include: 

• Gerald Stranraer-Mull - Steps on the Way 1513-2013.
• Allan Maclean - Ethnological history of the Episcopal Church
• Alasdair Raffe (Edinburgh) - The Church's history in the period 1662-1829.
• David Willington (Perth) - St John's Episcopal Church, Perth - the history of a worshipping community.

Steps on the Way: A Chronlogy of Scottish Episcopal History

A new website by Gerald Stranraer-Mull, Dean Emeritus of Aberdeen and Orkney, tells the story of the Scottish Episcopal Church as a chronological series of dates. This useful source of reference is enlivened by vignettes drawing out the important events of each century, a preface and further reading.

It can be found at www.episcopalhistory.org

The Ethics of Church History

One of the many insights of Diarmaid MacCulloch's Gifford Lecture series on silence in Christian History, now released as a book, is that there is a profoundly ethical dimension to the careful and truthful telling of church history. His approach to silence is to see the theme in its variety of positive and negative forms. Those who are used to reading this blog will know that I have a particular fondness for telling the positive story of Christian silence insofar as it relates to under-appreciated mystical dimension of the faith, with its origins in the teachings of such early exponents as the Desert monastics, Pseudo-Dionysius and the author of the Cloud of Unknowing, and such modern champions as Thomas Merton, Bede Griffiths and William Johnston.

But it is the negative story where the question of ethics comes most into focus. Other forms of Christian silence have include the (not always complete and occasionally brutal) repression of heterodox ideas and, most significantly for contemporary Christianity, in the denial and obfuscation surrounding abuse. As well as the sexual abuse of children, MacCulloch reminds the churches of their enormous success in finding arguments to approve of the continuation of slavery and of their undeniable role in the formation and perpetuation of anti-semitic ideologies. The ethical task of the historian is the fearless identification of the causes and practice of such abuses, the analysis of the apparatus used to cover them up and the exercise of careful moral judgement in condemning wrongdoing. On that latter point, it is too easy for historians to excuse past behaviour with the qualification that it was 'reasonable by the standards of the time'. MacCulloch does the church a great service in not letting it use such a lazy way out. He points out that those who discovered some of the earliest recorded clerical abuse of children in the 17th century were fully aware of its evil. It is also important to remind ourselves that the acquiescence of a silent majority does not render moral judgement redundant. Evil is evil, even when the majority are too fearful to name it as such.

There is, I think, a relationship between MacCulloch's positive silences and the historian's task of 'demanding the constant rupture of silences around abuse'. The Christian mystical tradition places a significant emphasis on unflinching self-awareness, on tearful penitence and on inner transformation. With this in mind, the careful telling of the church's history strikes me as a deeply spiritual task as well as its most essential ethical one.

John McLuckie, 
justluckie.typepad.com 

Michael Fraser, Priest of Daviot and Dunlichity 1673-1726

Strathnairn is one of the most beautiful places in Scotland -- wonderful in summer and magnificent in winter, with its tranquillity cloaking a long history. The cairns and hut circles speak of a people long ago, the church sites of Celtic saints, and the glen itself of Bonnie Prince Charlie's desperate ride from the battlefield of Culloden.

And hidden stories can be found in the lives of those who lived in the glen. That of Michael Fraser, priest of Daviot and Dunlichity for 53 years, reveals a great survivor in troubled times. He was the child of Thomas Fraser and his wife Katherine Gordon, daughter of Sir Robert and Lady Gordon of Embo. He studied at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and in 1670 was appointed schoolmaster, often in those days a forerunner to ordination, at Thurso in Caithness. He was ordained on February 19th, 1672, and the Bishop of Moray, Murdo Mackenzie, nominated him as priest at Daviot and Dunlichity on October 20th that year.

Dunlichity Parish Church in Strathnairn

Michael Fraser's appointment came twelve years after the restoration of both King Charles II and of the Episcopal Church as the Church of Scotland. The latter change had produced little alteration in the worship within parish churches but pressure on Presbyterians gradually increased during these years. Ministers who would not conform to the Episcopal ways were forbidden to exercise their ministry and, indeed, from living within 20 miles of their former parishes. In Strathnairn Alexander Fraser, minister of Daviot and Dunlichity, was deposed for his Presbyterian views, thus creating the vacancy which the bishop wished Michael Fraser to fill.

There was, though, an immediate problem. Sir Hugh Campbell of Cawdor claimed that the bishop had no authority to appoint anyone to Daviot and Dunlichity as that right belonged to him as patron of the parish. Sir Hugh wanted to appoint the Reverend Donald Macpherson of Cawdor Church instead. Bishop and Presbytery united in favour of Michael Fraser, but Sir Hugh persisted in his claim until the bishop eventually withdrew his own nominee. However, having gained the victory, Sir Hugh himself now nominated Michael Fraser as the new priest, and his long ministry in Strathnairn began on March 4th 1673.

Bishop Mackenzie’s opinion of Michael Fraser soon changed and just after Christmas 1674 he rebuked him for being in Edinburgh and absent from the parish for too long. A few months later the Synod, annoyed by his artistic endeavours, demanded that he "abstain from all limning and painting which hitherto has diverted him from his ministerial duties". Patience had run out by 1678, the year Bishop Mackenzie died (he had resigned in 1677) and Michael Fraser was suspended from office. He was soon back in place but an enormous change was coming to the whole church. In 1688 there was revolution and James VII and II was succeeded by his daughter Mary and her husband William, the Prince of Orange. The Scottish bishops declined to recognise the new monarchs and in consequence, in 1690, the Episcopal Church was once more displaced as the Church of Scotland by a Presbyterian regime.

It made no difference in Strathnairn. Michael Fraser continued blithely on, and even when in 1694 the Presbytery formally declared the parish vacant he took absolutely no notice. And, indeed, the Presbytery took no further action against him for the next 21 years. Only after he played a prominent role in the 1715 Jacobite Rising did the Presbytery attempt another intervention. It declared him to be "an intruder at Daviot and Dunlichity". The priest then offered to resign, but only on condition that a competent person be appointed in his place.

Nothing came of it and so he stayed. Five years later a Presbytery visit to the parish received a hostile reception. Parishioners were quick to defend their priest and stones were thrown. The following year the leading gentlemen of the parish asked the Presbytery's forbearance for the priest, saying that they would concur with the Presbytery’s wishes in the event of his death "which now, in the course of nature, cannot be long". It was actually another four years, in 1726, before Michael Fraser, the great survivor, died -- still, of course, in office.

Saint Paul’s Church and Hall in Strathnairn

The Episcopal Church remained strong in Strathnairn and is today is represented by Saint Paul's at Croachy. The church building (the second on the site and the fourth in the glen) dates from 1868. A hall was added in 2002.

Gerald Stranraer-Mull

Alexander MacDonald: Bard Of The Gaelic Enlightenment

This newly published set of thirteen conference papers on the Jacobite poet Alexander MacDonald was reviewed in the Herald:

His story provides a welcome counter to the modern fallacy that presents the Scottish Episcopal Church as the English Church. Whatever the ethnic origins of those who sit in its pews today, it was a very Scottish church whose genealogy goes back to Columba's Iona.

Click here to read the full article.

The Sad Story of James Lundin Cooper

Eleanor Harris is researching the 430 individuals who appear in the registers of Charlotte Episcopal Chapel, Edinburgh, 1794-1818. James Lundin Cooper of Kirkcaldy, and his unfortunate bride Sarah Brown, were amongst them...
In 1816, twenty-five-year-old James Lundin Cooper brought his bride Sarah Brown to Edinburgh to be married by Bishop Daniel Sandford in the stylish Charlotte Chapel. He was a writer in Kirkcaldy and she was the daughter of a local merchant. He appears a few years later practising his profession, administering the estate of a bankrupt businessman in Kirkcaldy.
Cooper was an ambitious man, and not content to remain merely a provincial lawyer he sought his fortune in business. By 1830 he was manager of the Kirkcaldy and London Shipping Company, which ran three ships and employed three Captains, rejoicing in the names of Moir, Morison and Mann. As the leading Manager (or vestryman) of the Episcopal Chapel in Kirkcaldy, he successfully charmed the energetic, young and dedicated priest Mr Marshall into replacing their decrepit old incumbent, even though the chapel could only offer a paltry £20 stipend. Meanwhile his family prospered: Sarah bore him three chidren, Elizabeth, Michael and Mary.
It quickly became clear to Rev Marshall, however, that Cooper and his fellow managers were running a racket, giving themselves huge discounts on seat-rents, keeping Marshall's salary low, and 'finding it convenient that the clause should fall into disuse' which stipulated that the whole congregation should choose their managers annually, preferring instead to appoint themselves for life.
When the priest tried to rectify the situation, the managers went to the bishop, accusing Marshall of immorality, neglect of duty, and (when this didn't work), insanity. This was a great mistake: Marshall was well-respected, and eloquent clergy weighed in to defend his character from this evident nonsense. Cooper, one of them reported, 'had the modesty to offer evidence to Bishop Torry that Mr Marshall is (or was) insane, and in his hand writing came forth a document in which that gentleman was charged with going to a theatre and dining out.' Cooper, who had been the man of education and status amongst the merchants and shoemakers on the vestry, was made to look very foolish by being represented in the lead actor in this farce.
Whereas other managers left the Episcopal Church altogether and began attending the Kirk -- although they still made a point of turning up to collect the contents of the collection plate, and chattering and laughing in the porch during Mr Marshall's service -- James does appear to have put his head down and attempted to make amends with the priest.
But it was too late. Whether it was divine judgement, the discrediting of his character, bad luck or similarly bad judgement in his business dealings, Cooper went bankrupt  in 1836. In 1838 his daughters Elizabeth and Mary died, and the following year James himself went to his grave. His teenage son Michael only outlived him by two years. I don't know what happened to Sarah. Perhaps she remarried.
One could take various morals from this story. I suppose the first might be, don't accuse your priest of insanity if you meet him at the theatre.
Eleanor Harris.

One-Day Seminar, Perth, 12 October 2013

The next meeting of the Scottish Episcopal Historians network will take place on 12 October 2013 at Perth Cathedral.

Papers are invited on any aspect of Scottish Episcopal history.

If you would like to present a paper or attend, please contact eleanormharris@gmail.com

Eleanor Harris

Eleanor Harris is working on a PhD, 'The Episcopal Congregation of Charlotte Chapel, Edinburgh, 1792-1818' at the University of Stirling. She is particularly interested in the influence of Episcopalianism in the political, intellectual and domestic culture of Scotland and beyond.

Eleanor is a keen public speaker whose audiences have included the Ecclesiastical History Society, Old Edinburgh Club, Scottish Festival of History, Sydney Smith Association and Georgian House Volunteers. She is also a founder-member of the Scottish Episcopal Historians and editor of this blog.

Her first peer-reviewed paper, 'Reconciliation and Revival: Bishop Daniel Sandford of Edinburgh, 1766-1830', is due to be published in Records of the Scottish Church History Society this year.

Eleanor can be contacted at eleanormharris@gmail.com. You can also keep up to date with her work @eleanormharris on twitter and facebook.

'In talent of the first rank; in inclination totally deficient'

John Mather, 1781-1850, First organist of St John's Episcopal Church, Edinburgh

If in Edinburgh around the time of Waterloo you passed a 'lusty man with spectacles' on the steep New Town streets, it might be John Mather, hurrying to visit his mistress, rehearse a chorus of 200 voices, give an organ lesson, escape an angry creditor or beat his unfortunate wife.

This lecture by Eleanor Harris marking the 200th anniversary of the concert series which launched his career introduces this colourful character of Regency Edinburgh. It explores the exalted aspirations and subsequent shambles in which John Mather launched the first Edinburgh Festival, the Choir of St John's, and the Edinburgh Institution for the Improvement of Sacred Music. It examines how the community of the New Town of Edinburgh dealt with a talented member who destroyed his own career through financial incompetence and domestic violence.

It includes a new edition by Anthony Mudge of John Mather's only extant composition, Hail to the Chief, a glee for three voices and keyboard, performed at the lecture.

Available for £4 from St John's Church Office, Princes Street, Edinburgh, 0131 229 7565, office@stjohns-edinburgh.org.uk