The Union of 1900

The Act of May 1900

On 31 May 1900 the General Assembly of the Free Church, “with consent of a majority of Presbyteries”, passed an Act anent [concerning] Union with the United Presbyterian Church. Its preamble begins: “Whereas the General Assembly of 1895 declared their sense of the obligation lying on this Church to aim at the general re-union of Scottish Presbyterians, and in particular, to embrace the earliest fitting opportunity of accomplishing Union with the United Presbyterian Church”. It noted that “the terms of a Uniting Act, comprehending certain declarations, have not yet been finally adjusted”.¹

The Act then ordained “that the plan of Union set forth in the proposals hereinbefore referred to … is authorised and accepted by this Church, with a view to an incorporative Union with the United Presbyterian Church, as a plan to come into operation, as soon as a Uniting Act shall have been passed by the General Assembly, with consent of a majority of the Presbyteries of the Church”.²

MacPherson gives the Assembly’s vote that day: it “declared in favour of union by a majority of five hundred and ninety-two against twenty-nine”. The presbyteries’ returns are counted differently. MacPherson writes that in 1899 “of the seventy-five Free Church presbyteries, seventy-one were in favour and four were against union”. The United Free Church’s answer in the case of 1904 gives, for the overture of 1899, “only four presbyteries out of seventy-five disapproving, seventy approving, and one sending no return”, and for the Uniting Act sent down in 1900, “seventy-one presbyteries out of seventy-five approving, and four disapproving, while seven foreign Presbyteries expressed approval and one made no return.”³

The Assembly appointed “the next General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland to meet at Edinburgh, on Tuesday, the 30th day of October 1900, at half-past Eleven o’clock forenoon”, and gave its Commission [the body that acts for the Assembly between its meetings] power, “In view of the approaching Union”, to deal with proposals “to facilitate its completion”. Its Moderator was Walter Ross Taylor, D.D. Closing the Assembly, he hoped they would enter the union “with unbroken ranks”, and said that those who differed had spoken with “a total absence of bitterness, or of any suggestion of separating from their brethren”.⁴

Before the union

In October 1900, weeks before the union, the Free Presbyterian Magazine noted the founding of the Free Church of Scotland Defence Association by “several ministers and others”.⁵

The two sides later disagreed about the special Assembly in October. The minority pleaded that the course taken was “of hurrying the report and minimising time for deliberation by calling a special Assembly in October to receive and consider it.” The United Free Church answered that “There is no stated period which must elapse between one Assembly and another, and it was quite regular for the Assembly to meet in October, as has been previously done.”⁶

30 October 1900

The Assembly met on 30 October 1900 with Dr Ross Taylor as Moderator. Hew Morrison’s Manual, written from the United Free side, records that Principal Robert Rainy proposed the adoption of the Uniting Act and said: “In looking into the future I have a hope that a good many who have not seen their way to support this union, who perhaps at various stages have opposed it, will still feel that it is their duty, that they will make it their business to make the best of it”.⁷

Seconding an amendment, Mr Archibald MacNeilage, “the leading layman on the anti-union side of the house”, said: “I am not saying anything out of place when I ask the Principal to believe regarding those of us who to-day stand at the parting of the ways and know we are going to part if the motion is carried, that it is not because we have any disregard for the welfare of religion in Scotland that we feel ourselves to-day in the position in which we stand.” Morrison gives the result: “At four o’clock the vote was taken, which showed 643 for the motion and 27 for the amendment, or a majority in favour of union of 616.”⁸

The minority’s pleadings record that when the report on union came up, “certain of the pursuers, being commissioners lawfully returned to the said General Assembly, protested”, and that after the counter-motion was rejected they “tabled a dissent and protest, in which they dissented from the resolution of the Assembly and protested against the same as illegal and unconstitutional.” They record further dissents against the Acts appointing new general trustees and making the United Free Church “the successor in office of the Free Church of Scotland”. The United Free Church admitted that the counter-motion and amendments were rejected, and referred to the dissents “for their terms, beyond which no admission is made”.⁹

The pleadings go on: “about five p.m. on the afternoon of October 30, 1900, the defender the Reverend Robert Rainy, D.D., moved ‘that the General Assembly now adjourn, to meet to-morrow forenoon, at half-past eleven o’clock, in the Waverley Market Hall, there to consummate the union which has now been legislatively sanctioned by the Church.’” MacNeilage moved instead that the Assembly meet “here” at the same hour. When Rainy’s motion was carried, the Rev. J. K. Cameron dissented and protested “that, notwithstanding the pretended adjournment or dissolution of the General Assembly for the purpose of carrying through the proposed Union, we have right to continue in session and to exercise all the powers inherent in the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland”. The United Free Church answered that the Assembly “regularly and lawfully adjourned”.¹⁰

31 October 1900: the Waverley Market

MacPherson describes the next morning: the members of the Free Church Assembly, “who had mustered in front of the Free Assembly Hall, and the members of the United Presbyterian Synod, who had been marshalled in the Synod Hall, marched in order” to a hall fitted up in the Waverley Market, “in the forenoon of Wednesday, the 31st October, 1900”. “The Uniting Act was read, and Dr. Ross Taylor, Moderator of the Free Church Assembly, and Dr. Alexander Mair, Moderator of the United Presbyterian Synod, gave each other, on behalf of their respective churches, the right hand of fellowship, and the two churches had become one, under the name of the United Free Church of Scotland.” Morrison writes that “there were nearly ten thousand people present”.¹¹

The minority’s pleadings quote the enacting words of the Uniting Act: the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland and the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church “do hereby, in terms and in pursuance of the deliverance of their respective Church courts, enact and declare that the Free Church of Scotland and the United Presbyterian Church do and shall henceforth constitute one United Church; that the name of the United Church shall be the United Free Church of Scotland, and that its Supreme Court shall be designated the General Assembly of the United Free Church of Scotland.”¹²

Principal Rainy was chosen the first Moderator of the United Church. The United Assembly adopted declarations, the third of which reads: “As this union takes place on the footing of maintaining the liberty of judgment and action heretofore recognised in either of the Churches uniting, so, in particular, it is hereby declared that members of both Churches, and also of all Churches which in times past have united with either of them, shall have full right, as they see cause, to assert and maintain the views of truth and duty which they had liberty to maintain in the said Churches.”¹³

Before it closed, the United Assembly resolved “to express their deep regret that some of the ministers and elders of the recent Free Church General Assembly have not as yet seen their way to enter the United Free Church, and the gratification it would give them, if these brethren, on further consideration, were prepared to continue with them in carrying forward the work of Christ in the land.”¹⁴

The minority’s Assembly

The minority’s pleadings record that on 30 October, when the majority withdrew, those of them who were commissioners “retired … to the writing-room of the Assembly Hall … and there, being a quorum of Assembly, continued the sederunt [sitting]. The pursuer the Reverend Colin A. Bannatyne was appointed moderator in the absence of Dr. Ross Taylor.” They resolved that the Acts against which they had dissented were “unconstitutional, null and void, and of no effect”, and adjourned to the Assembly Hall at 11.30 the next morning. The United Free Church answered that it was “Not known and not admitted” what meetings were held, and denied that they “constituted a quorum of the said Assembly”.¹⁵

The Free Church’s own Acts record the next morning. On Wednesday 31 October 1900, at half-past eleven, Colin Archibald Bannatyne, “Minister of the Free Church of Culter, Biggar”, with the Rev. John Kennedy Cameron of Brodick, the Rev. William MacKinnon of Gairloch, the Rev. Murdo M’Queen of Kiltearn, Mr Walter Rounsfell Brown, elder, Glasgow, Mr John Hay Thorburn, elder, Leith, “and others, Members of the General Assembly”, came to the gate of the Free Church Assembly Hall and “demanded admission for the purpose of conducting the business of the meeting pursuant to adjournment of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, and found the entrance gate to the said hall locked, and admission was there and then refused them”. On 2 November Bannatyne protested before William Gunn, notary public.¹⁶

According to their pleadings, those present “constituted themselves at the outer gate as a meeting of General Assembly” and adjourned to the Queen Street Hall at 2 p.m. There Bannatyne was elected Moderator and J. K. Cameron, minister at Brodick, senior principal clerk, the Assembly finding that Dr Ross Taylor and the clerks had “voluntarily withdrawn themselves from the service of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland”. Morrison puts the meeting at “one hundred and fifty or so”, and quotes Bannatyne’s address: “They had no alternative, if they would be true to their ordination vows, in humble dependence to the great Head of the Church, but to continue at their post as members of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland”.¹⁷

The Free Church’s Acts print what followed under the heading “OCTOBER XXX. MDCCCC. (1900)”, the first Act dated “Edinburgh, 31st October 1900. Sess. [session] 4.” That day the Assembly instructed “the General Trustees and the Finance Committee of the Free Church of Scotland” to hold the Assembly Hall, College and offices “for the use of and subject to the directions of this General Assembly”, and “interpelled [forbade]” them from letting the United Free Church use them. On 1 November it appointed a Law and Advisory Committee: the Rev. Colin A. Bannatyne, the Rev. J. D. M’Culloch (Convener), the Rev. J. K. Cameron, J. Hay Thorburn, A. MacNeilage and W. Rounsfell Brown.¹⁸

On 2 November the Assembly appealed to the people of the Free Church: “You are doubtless aware that a large number of the Members of the Assembly have withdrawn themselves from the Free Church, and have formed a new Church on a new basis, and under a new name. Such abandonment of an historic Church we deeply deplore, and cannot imitate. At all costs we are prepared to adhere to the Westminster Confession of Faith and the other Standards of the Church of 1843 as heretofore understood.” It asked members “scattered over our large cities and country districts” to tell the nearest congregation “remaining faithful to the Free Church, that they adhere to the Free Church, even though they could seldom worship with that congregation”, and closed with the words of Dr John Erskine: “Be valiant for the truth upon the earth; when truth falls in the street, resolve to fall with it, rather than renounce it.”¹⁹

The same day it gave its Commission power to act, “In view of the disturbance to the Church occasioned by the withdrawal of a majority of Ministers and Elders of the Church to unite with another body”, and appointed the next General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland to meet at Edinburgh on 21 May 1901.²⁰

The size of the minority

The sources differ on how many ministers stayed out of the union. Scott gives twenty-four. A table in Morrison’s Manual (Appendix XXIX), from the United Free side, gives 27 home ministers who declined to enter the United Church, against 1,132 who entered (the two figures are printed in each other’s columns), and 4,194 home communicants who declined. In the vote of 30 October, 27 members of the Assembly voted for the amendment. The Free Presbyterian Magazine of October 1904 mentions twenty-five in passing, without saying what was counted; the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland’s history gives twenty-six.²¹

Scott describes the minority as “almost all in the Highlands”.²²

The question at issue

The minority stated its position in its Appeal of 2 November 1900, quoted above: those who entered the union had “formed a new Church on a new basis, and under a new name”. In its pleadings it maintained that “Neither a majority of the clergy and office-bearers who formed the General Assembly for the time being nor any mere majority of the members of the Church, however large, had power and authority to alter the principles and standards of the Church as originally constituted.”²³

The United Free Church pleaded that the Free Church, “in entering into the said union, and in dealing with the funds and property belonging to it … having acted throughout lawfully and regularly, and in virtue of its inherent powers and liberties, the defenders should be assoilzied [freed from the claim].”²⁴

The historian Kenneth Ross argues that “what aroused and sustained the long controversy was a difference within the Free Church as to the Church’s relation to her Creed.”²⁵