A thriving congregation

AFTER I wrote about Airdrie: New Wellwynd Parish Church a few months ago, the minister of Airdrie: High, the Rev Dr Ian McDonald, wrote to the Editor of this magazine regarding my comment that the High Chapel mission by the Church of Scotland in the 1830s was not a success.

That comment was based on a quotation in volume 3 of the Fasti Ecclesiae Scotticanae, the official record of the ministers of the Church of Scotland and their charges. This volume deals with congregations of the Church of Scotland prior to the union of that Church with the United Free Church in 1929, and was therefore written from that perspective.

It reads: ‘A year or two later a third chapel [of ease] was built in the town [Airdrie],and was named the High Chapel of Airdrie. On 28th May it also received a chapel constitution. The High Chapel had little success, and was retained by the Free Church in 1843’.

Having re-read this account and other relevant published material I believe that for the Church of Scotland in the late 1830s the ‘High Chapel’ mission was not successful, but from the point of view of the wider Church it was indeed a success.

The mission was founded in 1837-38 and the church building was constructed in 1838, and a minister appointed.

According to Ewing’s History of the Free Church Congregations the congregation of the quoad sacra church [High Chapel] adhered to the Free Church in 1843. There was no move, on the part of the residual Church of Scotland, to deprive the congregation of the use of the church, on which there was a considerable debt.

In 1853 the Established Presbytery surrendered its right of property in the building, ‘a stated sum being payable to them’. In the late 1840s there were 400 members. On the union of the Free and United Presbyterian churches in 1900 the High Free became the High United Free Church, and in 1929, when the United Free Church amalgamated with the Church of Scotland the High Church became Airdrie: High Parish Church in the merged body, as stated by Dr McDonald.

It has indeed remained a thriving congregation, with an important role in its community.

At the time of the Disruption in 1843 Airdrie was a growing weaving and mining town. Weavers had a tradition of independence of thought. The freedom from dependence on the parish of New Monkland [and hence on the landowners (heritors) of that parish which the Free Church offered was attractive.

Airdrie was a lively place, with new railways linking it both to Glasgow and to Edinburgh and the iron industry expanding in and around Coatbridge. Airdrie was also becoming a market town for villages in the neighbourhood. The previous year (1842) had, however, witnessed the worst trade depression of the whole of the 19th century, with widespread unemployment, and starvation only mitigated by charitable giving, largely organised by the churches.

The growth of the town from the 1830s led to the building of several new churches, notably (apart from the Church of Scotland buildings) a simple Reformed Presbyterian church (1838) a fine Roman Catholic chapel, St Margaret’s (1839) and a Methodist chapel (1841). Most of these buildings were well-proportioned classical buildings.

The simple and dignified High building is said to have been designed by its first minister, the Rev Thomas Burns, who had trained as a joiner. It bears a plaque inscribed ‘Erected by the Friends of the Church of Scotland 1838’. A hall was added to the south of this building in the 1960s.

I am most grateful to Dr McDonald for his original comment, encouraging me to explore further Airdrie’s most interesting church history, and allowing me to pay tribute to the long-term success of this congregation.

This article appears in the April 2017 Issue of Life and Work

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