Christmas in Glasgow, 1816

Two hundred years ago, the only Episcopal Chapel with its own building in Glasgow was St Andrews-by-the-Green, a fine classical stone edifice built sixty years previously.

St-Andrews-by-the-Green, Glasgow, built 1750

However, in those days before the Clyde was deepened, Glasgow often flooded, and on Christmas Day 1816, the floor of St-Andrews-by-the-Green was four or five feet underwater.

Christmas that year was on a Wednesday, and whereas the presbyterian Parish Churches did not celebrate Christmas and were therefore closed, the Episcopal Church was attended by a large congregation of 290 people.

As Robert Reid writes,

"The predicament caused by the river inundation of the church was made known to Dr. Gibb, then minister of St. Andrew’s Parish Church, who most readily permitted the congregation to assemble therein, and celebrate the Christmas of 1816." (Robert Reid (Senex), Glasgow Past & Present (Glasgow, 1884), vol. 3, p. 229.)

St Andrew's Parish Church, Glasgow

This minister was Gavin Gibb, D.D., who would become Moderator of the Church of Scotland the following year, and Professor of Oriental Languages at Glasgow University from 1820 to 1831.

The Christmas Communion was a great success, and £28 10s 10d was given in offerings.

This example of ecumenical friendship was not unusual amongst presbyterians and episcopalians in lowland Scotland at this period. In Edinburgh, Bishop Sandford (who was also Bishop of Glasgow) built strong working relationships with his presbyterian neighbours. After a generation of war and the fear of a secular revolution such as had taken place in France, these Christians felt that what united them was stronger than their differences.

However, the situation is rather more complicated than it at first appears. Three days earlier, on Sunday 22 December 1816, another St Andrews had opened.

St Andrews Roman Catholic Chapel (now Cathedral), Glasgow

"Divine service was performed yesterday for the first time in that elegant structure the Roman Catholic Chapel, Clyde Street. The Rev. Mr Scott officiated. The Chapel was crowded, and the whole was conducted with the greatest decorum and propriety." (Glasgow Herald, 23 December 1816)

An element of the hospitality by the parish church to the Episcopalian congregation may therefore be an expression of solidarity amongst Protestants, in the face of the resurgence of a new denomination which for centuries had been regarded as a serious threat and was still regarded with great suspicion and often open hostility.

Was the new Catholic chapel also flooded, and if so, where did they celebrate their first Christmas?We do not know. But it is the only one of the St Andrews still open as a church today.


Roger Edwards