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History of st george's west
A Short History of Our Congregation: OLD ST GEORGE'S
by Revd James Black
An edited extract from The Tradition of St George’s West (1931)
In the year 1810, as the New Town of Edinburgh was creeping westwards in its noble design, the Town Council resolved that a new church should be built to relieve the growing congestion in the old Kirk of St Andrew's, George Street. At that time our dignified Charlotte Square was only half-built: beyond that, down to the Water of Leith, there were only green fields, woods and lanes. As a site for the projected church - to be known afterwards as "St George's", the City Fathers selected the west side of Charlotte Square. By ancient custom the Council was responsible for the churching of the people; and so it not only granted the site, but built the edifice. Amid all the civic pomp of that formal day, the foundation-stone was laid on 18th May 1811. Certain delays intervened: and as a result, the building, as it now stands, was not finished until 1814.
Patronage, of course, ruled the Church appointments of that time (in any case, there was no congregation as yet to call a minister) and so it fell to the Town Council to make the first appointment to St George's. Their choice fell upon Mr, afterwards Dr, Andrew Thomson, who had been minister of New Greyfriars in Edinburgh for four years, a vigorous, powerful and distinctive preacher. Dr Thomson, thirty-five years of age at the time, accepted the heavy responsibility of filling an empty church: and on 5th June 1814 the building was formally opened and the minister inducted and installed. But such were Dr Thomson's powers and qualities that within a short time every sitting was taken and the church was crowded. Naturally, since it was situated in the new West End of Edinburgh amid fine residences, the congregation from the earliest was a most distinguished and powerful body. The first Kirk- Session, appointed in 1815, forms an impressive roll of notable names.
A vigorous Evangelical in days of torpid moderatism, Dr Thomson served in a noble ministry from 1814 to 1831, dying suddenly at his own door-step at the early age of fifty-two. We never have a Communion day in our modern St George's without remembering our first minister: for among his many claims to respect and remembrance not the least notable is the fact that he composed the stirring psalm-tune, St George's Edinburgh, which we sing without fail every Communion evening.
In other and deeper ways, the first minister made St George's-and as certainly St George's West. Undoubtedly his personality and his rich evangelical preaching formed the " character " of the congregation -(congregations as well as individuals have characters) -and he first attracted those " spiritual hearers " who later went out at the Disruption to found our congregation of Free St George's. He was a very brilliant and ready speaker, but he also had the grace and the " gumption " to bestow infinite pains on everything he prepared. One famous story is preserved about him which reveals at once his wit and his character. A minister of Moderate leanings, who was a keen fisher and whose manse lay " convenient to the Tweed," once said to Thomson : " I wonder you spend so much time on your sermons, with your ability and ready speech. Many a time have I written a sermon and killed a salmon before breakfast." To which Dr Thomson replied in a flash: “Well, sir, 1'd rather have eaten your salmon than listened to your sermon.”
The
famous Robert Smith Candlish forms the historical link between old St
George's and our own congregation. He was born in 1806, his father, a
doctor of medicine, being a friend of Robert Burns. He was inducted to
the church in Charlotte Square in the autumn of 1834, a young man of
twenty- eight years of age. Up to that time he had held no independent
charge of his own, but had been an assistant- minister for about five
years. He actually came to St George's as an assistant, but the quality
of the man and the power of his preaching so won the people that the
Session petitioned the Town Council to ordain him as their minister.
Next to Dr Chalmers, his own friend, he was destined to become the greatest
and most powerful figure of that stormy generation. Not only did he have
what Chalmers called "a massive mind", but he possessed all
the fire, passion and imagination of the born preacher. An ideal combination.
In his very interesting and informing history of our church, Mr Maclagan mentions the names of many of the people who were either elders in the Session or members of the Congregation during these early years. In the Session, during the first years, there were no fewer than four Lords of the Court of Session, three Lord Provosts, and three distinguished Professors of the University, with many noted surgeons, lawyers and Members of Parliament. Among the membership were seven Law Lords, professors like the famous philosopher Sir William Hamilton, and not least of any, Dr Chalmers himself. These are great forbears for us to remember!
But the unhappy time of disaster and disruption was hastening on.
The historic Disruption took place in 1843. Dr Candlish and the great majority of his people had resolved to go out from the Church of Scotland and suffer for their religious liberties and principles. On Sunday, 14th May 1843, he preached his last sermon in the old church in Charlotte Square. The actual Disruption took place on the 18th of the month, when hundreds of loyal ministers and elders marched out in procession and protest from the General Assembly and formed The Free Church of Scotland. Let us remember that they marched out penniless, leaving everything behind them, for conscience' sake, except their Bibles and their principles. Truly they suffered for their faith.
