New era for a rock of ages
Chance to reflect on history of kirk over 160 challenging years
by David Partner
(From The Orcadian dated December 5, 2002)

The refurbishment and re-dedication of the church in King Street, as well as the recent news items on its opening, is possibly an appropriate moment to take a brief look back at the history of the kirk and the buildings which have occupied the site.

Like so many churches throughout Scotland, the history of the East Kirk reflects part of the history of the reformed Church in Scotland, having been known as the Free Church, the King Street Church and finally the East Church.

The King Street Halls - the new home of the East Kirk congregation in Kirkwall.

Holy place

In October 1953, a booklet, Sixty Years a Holy Place, detailing an account of the King Street Church – erected in 1892 – was published.

Its compilers rightly said that the history of the congregation went back to 1843, the time of the Disruption, a major event in Scottish church history. Again, rightly, they stated that to understand that event, one had to trace ecclesiastical history even further back.

Following the Reformation in Scotland in 1560, there were basically three main kirks – the Church of Scotland, the Roman Catholic and the Episcopalian.

The Church of Scotland congregations chose their own ministers. They were not appointed by bishops or other superiors as in the other two bodies. But in 1712 the government passed the Patronage Act which allowed local landlords to appoint the minister. This was resisted and resented by congregations and caused the original Secession in 1733.

Between then and 1843, other sects were formed, most of which were more liberal than the original seceders – the Relief Church, the Old Scotch Independents and the Congregationalists.

Some of the original seceders, whose Synod was known as the General Associate reunited in 1820 to form the United Secession Church, which in 1847 united with the Relief Church to form the United Presbyterian Church.

Patronage

However, the question of patronage simmered on.

The main Church of Scotland resented it, but while the “Moderates” (ministers who tolerated the patronage though disagreeing with it) were in the leadership, nothing happened.

But in the first half of the 19th century, leadership passed to the “Evangelicals” (ministers who strenuously opposed patronage and also felt the preaching of the word should be much more fundamentalist).

The final breaking point came with the passage of two acts of the General Assembly in 1834 – the Veto Act and the Chapel Act.

The former allowed congregations to veto ministers appointed by patrons, while the latter allowed ministers of the “chapels of ease” to rank equally with ministers of parish churches.

These were challenged in the Court of Session by the patrons and declared illegal.

The Rev Thomas Chalmers then said that while the state should support the kirk, it should not interfere in the government of the church and led the walkout in 1843, when 451 ministers left the main Church of Scotland to form the Free Church of Scotland.

Local scene

In Kirkwall, the Cathedral, founded in 1137, had simply become a reformed congregation at the time of the Reformation.

The first Secession Church was only established in 1796 when the congregation, which was to become the Paterson Church, was formed.

The events of the Disruption of 1843, however, had an immediate effect in Kirkwall, largely due to the fact there had already been a breakaway from the Cathedral with the formation of a “chapel of ease” or extension Church of Scotland congregation called the East Kirk. This came about due to the actions of the Rev Peter Petrie.

Rev Petrie, a native of Holm, had been appointed to the second charge, or assistantship, of the Cathedral in 1831.

He immediately set about remedying what he perceived as grievances in his new parish. Among these was the fact he felt the Cathedral to be inconvenient, uncomfortable and unsuitable for the needs of a large congregation. He was also more used to being an independent minister, a position he had held with a chapel of ease in Leith.

Cathedral

The unsuitability and discomfort of the Cathedral had however been aired back in 1822. Three leading members had presented a petition containing five conclusive grounds on the subject.

Included in these were the facts that in Kirkwall and St Ola parish there were 2,404 adults. By law 1,602 were entitled to accommodation in the church but there was only seating room for 671.

There were also large seats taken up by individuals who never attended and new members could not get seats. They suggested a new and more commodious building was needed. At the time nothing much was done, so when Rev Petrie came he found dissension already simmering in the congregation and by 1834 had a sufficient body of adherents to petition the Presbytery of Kirkwall with his complaints.

The older, more conservative members of St Magnus were horrified by the perceived insults to the venerable old building and submitted a counter-petition in which they said that although they would not oppose the erection of a new building, they would oppose this church being declared the parish church in place of St Magnus.

The matter was remitted to the General Assembly, whose Commissioners upheld the Presbytery, urging it to sanction the erection of an additional sanctuary. This eventually bore fruit on ground now occupied by the St Magnus centre. The East Kirk had come into being.

East Kirk

At the Disruption of 1843, Rev Petrie was one of the ministers who came out of the Church of Scotland.

The first Session Meeting of the new Free Church was held on June 15, 1843, when the Demission from the established parish church was signed. It was later resolved on February 1, 1844, to elect a Deacons’ Court – the first meeting of which was on June 10, 1844.

The Rev Petrie was translated to Govan Free Church on June 30, 1844, and in November of that year Rev William Sinclair, from Grange in Aberdeenshire, was inducted to the Kirkwall charge.

Smith in his The Church in Orkney describes Sinclair as an “earnest evangelical good minister”. He was to be minister for 30 years, over some of the most critical years in the kirk’s history.

When Rev Sinclair’s health began to fail, an assistant, Mr James Stuart, was appointed, and on Rev Sinclair’s death in 1874, Stuart succeeded him.

Stuart’s sudden death in 1883 led to the ordination of Rev Alexander Isdale who was minister until 1899. His successor was David Tripney (1899 - 1911) and during his time, in 1900, the United Presbyterian and Free Churches merged to form the United Free Church.

It was then that the congregation chose to call itself “King Street”. Between then and 1967 some ten ministers served the congregation. In 1967 the Paterson Church charge became vacant. Both churches were facing falling rolls.

The King Street session clerk, Edwin Eunson, approached the Paterson session clerk, John Shearer, with regard to a possible union (both congregations had been Church of Scotland since 1929 when the United Free Church and the main Church of Scotland merged).

After much discussion, and many misgivings in both congregations, the churches merged to form the East Kirk.

The King Street minister, George Parkinson, became minister of the joint congregation, and the Paterson Church building became the place of worship.

Now some 35 years on, the East Kirk congregation is once again back in the refurbished King Street Building.

After Rev Petrie had been successful in 1834 in getting agreement to have an extension Church of Scotland building erected, a meeting was finally held in 1836 in the Grammar School, where it was resolved to build a commodious church capable of seating 1,000 people.

The church cost £1,400 and was opened in 1841. The money had come from subscriptions, not only locally but even from cities in Scotland and England visited by Mr Petrie for that purpose. Importantly, it also had a small grant of £200 from the Church of Scotland Committee.

When Rev Petrie formed the Free Church congregation after the 1843 Disruption, he put himself and his followers in an awkward spot as regards the building.

It stood on ground belonging to the parish church (the Cathedral) and should have vacated the premises. It did receive several notices to quit and finally did so in 1847. The congregation may have felt the building belonged to them – they had raised the subscriptions for it – but it was on St Magnus’ grounds and, having been built as a Church of Scotland extension, had received a grant towards the cost of building it.

Legally the building belonged to the Cathedral, who finding they had no use for it, sold it to a Mr James Walls who used the stone to erect the houses in the Ayre Road, one of which incorporated the original doorway arch.

Leased

This was the first kirk on the King Street site - dedicated on June 18, 1848. Substantial though it appears, the building remained like this for less than 50 years, and it was resolved in 1891 to build a new kirk on the same site.

The new Free Church congregation now needed a building. Thanks to the efforts of Dr John Bremner they acquired a site next to the house on the corner of King Street and Mill Street. This house had been leased on behalf of the congregation by Dr Bremner from Mr Heddle of Melsetter, and had originally been built in 1804 by William Sinclair, town clerk of Kirkwall.

Once again the congregation had to raise subscriptions to build a church. The Deacons’ Court meeting of April 5 reported that as at March 15, 1847, the subscriptions raised were £151.85 (putting it into modern decimalisation) of which £72.20 had come from persons not of the congregation. A year later it is reported that disbursements to March 15, 1847, on building had been £183.49, while disbursements for 1847 / 48 had been £697.29, while receipts had been £99.27. Clearly the church was struggling financially, so in 1852 Rev Sinclair and Rev Armour of Sanday went south on a “begging expedition”. This trip was so successful that they raised £200 more than needed for the Free Church Congregations in Orkney, of which the King Street received £500. The new building was dedicated on June 18, 1848.

Fifty years later the building was in such poor repair that it was resolved in September 1891 to build a new church on the same site. The contractors were Samuel Baikie and Sons and the building cost £1,523.

Foundation

The foundation stone was laid on Monday, November 28, 1892, by Mr Stephen Muir, senior elder, and the opening service was held on Friday, October 20, 1893.

The new building was capable of seating 1,000 people, with the hall, church officer’s house and vestry retained from the 1847 building.

Now, 109 years later, the building has had a complete makeover at a cost 450 times that of 1893.

Curiously the idea of a second floor was mooted in different circumstances in 1979.

The First Kirkwall Company Boys’ Brigade were again needing premises. The late Robert Tullock, battalion president and acting company captain, met with the church representatives, Scouts and Guides and suggested putting in a second floor and making the premises a centre for the voluntary uniformed organisations.

As battalion secretary, I was present at the discussions, which for a variety of reasons too lengthy for this article, did not bear fruit.

It is interesting to speculate on what the East Kirk congregation would have done about the Paterson building if King Street had not been available.

Conclusion

The building erected in 1893 was better built than that of 1847.

Now with its facelift it should be good for generations to come. Kirkwall has many buildings in use that are centuries old. There is no reason not to think that this building too could still be in use a century from now.

The front windows still require work, but that is being negotiated, and when they are done the building will be very impressive.

But, from a personal point of view, what would make the frontage even more impressive, since it does stand back a short distance from the pavement alignment, would be the removal of the sycamore tree in front. Apart from the aesthetic and photographic angles, it would remove the hazards of slippery autumn leaves - unsafe for elderly people – and the potential mess to the building, not to mention weddings, funerals, or church parties, from nesting rooks.