The Impact of the

‘Stewarton Case’

on the Disruption of 1843

By James Murray  BA (Hons)

The Disruption was a turning point in Scottish history and it marked the end of what has occasionally been known as the ‘parish state’. Poor relief, schooling and moral discipline had all been organised through the medium of the parish since the Reformation. The incredible shattering of the Established Church through the Disruption would see an end to its monopoly on power in these and other such areas. The Disruption came at a point in time where, looking back historically, there was a period of ‘quiet’ in Scottish history. The cotton spinners’ strike of 1837 was in the past and the Famine, which would see another bout of Clearances in the Highlands, lay some distance in the future. However it was a time where religious revivals were gathering momentum and “the Disruption saw Scottish society at a crossroads.”[1] What follows is a brief analysis of the ‘Stewarton Case’ and its impact on the Disruptuion of 1843, arguably the single most important event in 19^th Century Scottish history, however before proceeding it should be noted that the author makes no claims that this work is in any way an exhaustive account but offers it merely as a brief overview through his own research findings. Indeed the connection between the ‘Stewarton Case’ and the Disruption has seen virtually no major academic investigation whatsoever either in the past or in the modern day thus this work is only offered as a small contribution to the advancement of Stewarton and its history.

 The Disruption came at the end of the ‘Ten Years Conflict’ and “Evangelicalism was at the root of this great schism in the Church of Scotland.”[2] In the 1830’s the Evangelicals had gained a great deal of strength and Thomas Chalmers, their leader, had become Moderator of the national Church in 1832. At this time there were essentially two ‘camps’– the Moderates and the Evangelicals. The Moderates generally avoided fervent religious enthusiasm, they were more relaxed about church discipline “and preferred to accept … civil power rather than confront it.”[3] The Evangelicals on the other hand were more committed to the independence of the Kirk and it certainly had no desire to surrender sovereignty of a spiritual nature to the state. So it is not difficult to see that these are two diametrically different positions with very little common ground in between.

 The main issue that caused the ‘great schism’ in the Church of Scotland was the issue of patronage, in essence who should have the ultimate authority to appoint parish ministers. The Patronage Act of 1712 allowed individual patrons, usually landowners, “the right to present their candidates to vacant church offices within their gift.”[4] Therefore the main landowner, or landowners, in a particular parish could install a man of their choosing into their local church. Thus “patronage became a symbol of the subordination of the Church to upper social orders, especially the landed interest.”[5] When the Evangelicals gained power in the 1830’s their first initiative was the Veto Act of 1834. This was introduced in an effort to control the influence of patronage but fell short of an outright abolition. In effect “it gave local congregations the absolute right to veto a minister presented by a patron”[6] although the problem was that “to reject any presentee … more than half of the heads of families had to take exception.”[7]

 Following this a test case was invoked, the ‘Auchterarder Case’, and like many test cases the decision was not as clear as may have been wished. The nominee of the case was the Earl of Kinnoul and it did not help that Robert Young, the pastor, was a nephew of the Earl’s. The case dragged on for five years and it passed from the Court of Session to the House of Lords in 1839. Ultimately the decision made by the House of Lords “denied the Church’s claim to spiritual independence”[8] and denied the legality of the Veto Act. Thomas Chalmers, the leader of the ‘non-intrusionists’, believed that the state had absolutely no right to interfere in the authority of the Church. In 1842 the “General Assembly replied with a remarkable document, the ‘Claim of Right’, which reiterated that only Christ had headship over the Church.”[9] Thus the ‘Claim of Right’ was a defiant and “uncompromising statement of spiritual independence”[10] from secular authority.

 The crisis gained momentum when the Court of Session awarded damages of £15,000 to the patron and the rejected candidate, Robert Young, in the Kinnoul case. The problem however was that another 40 patronage cases were pending thus the Church was in the position of facing extreme financial costs in respect to it maintaining its principles. The alternative was for Chalmers and the ‘non-intrusionists’ to break away from the Church altogether. This was made all the more likely as the government, and indeed parliament, were not inclined to strike a compromise. Indeed by early 1843 the government under Sir Robert Peel viewed the ‘Claim of Right’ as unreasonable because to accede to it would be to allow “clerical tyranny.”[11] The General Assembly however would deliver a shock. Instead of a secession by a few exasperated members over 470 withdrew from a total of 1,200 ministers. Of those who ‘walked out’ there was many elders, most of the overseas missionaries and approximately 40 percent of the Church of Scotland’s communicants. Most of those who made up the Disruption suffered severe financial loss initially although “their sacrifice won them admiration in many quarters.”[12] Thomas Chalmers became the first Moderator of the General Assembly of the then newly formed Free Church of Scotland. Indeed “for Scotland the Disruption was the most momentous single event of the nineteenth century.”[13]

 So what of the ‘Stewarton Case’ and its contribution to the Disruption and the formation of the Free Church? Indeed there is a heavy endorsement of the impact that the ‘Stewarton Case’ had as:

 Mr Murray Dunlop, the advocate who was one of the four chiefs, the Big Four of the Disruption, and who drafted the document known as the ‘Claim of Right’, used to say that if there had been no Stewarton Case there would have been no Disruption, that it was only realised how the Stewarton Case was going that the decision to form the Free Church was taken.[14]

 William Ferguson further supports this notion in his book ‘Scotland – 1689 to the Present’ where he states, “For the non-intrusionists the last straw was provided by the decision in the Stewarton case in the early spring of 1843.”[15] Therefore there is a certain belief in some quarters that the ‘Stewarton Case’ was the ‘trigger’ that initiated the Disruption. Indeed the fact that Murray Dunlop, one of the ‘Big Four’, substantiates this claim only adds weight to the hypothesis that the ‘Stewarton Case’ was instrumental in igniting the Disruption of 1843.

The reason for the development of the Stewarton Case related to the issue of patronage and in particular a Stewarton man named William Cunninghame, the laird of Lainshaw, who was the largest landowner in the Stewarton area and thus had a great deal of influence over the parish. In addition it should also be noted that “William Cunninghame was a personal friend of Dr Thomas Chalmers.”[16] Stewarton in the modern day is a town in East Ayrshire of approximately 14,000 people and it is roughly six miles from Kilmarnock and Irvine although in the 1845 Statistical Account it is stated that Stewarton had a population of 4712 in 1836 and of that figure there were 867 who were dissenters, thus nearly 4,000 people within the population were spiritually active[17]. This highlights the depth to which spirituality ran in such a small town however this was not a unique phenomenon in 19^th Century Scotland because in general terms Scotland was an extremely religious country. Indeed the Church was the absolute epicentre of life for the vast majority of the Scottish people and the local ministers were generally highly respected - whether that respect was instilled by fear or religious persuasion is however another issue altogether although generally speaking it was most likely a mixture of both.

 In terms of a background to the ‘Stewarton Case’ the Presbytery of Irvine was seeking to form a quad sacra parish in Stewarton and this led William Cunninghame to apply to the Court of Session to interdict the Presbytery of Irvine and the Synod of Glasgow to prevent this taking place. Cunninghame succeeded in obtaining an interdict and this sparked a legal battle, which lasted for three years and ended with the split of the Church of Scotland. The person most affected by this case was the Reverend James Cleland who was prevented from appearing in the Presbytery however the purpose of interdicting Reverend Cleland and other ministers like him from appearing in Presbyteries would in essence revert their churches to the inferior status as ‘chapels of ease’. In brief the Chapels Act of 1834 granted full status to ‘chapels of ease’ and this was brought about through Evangelical zeal for church extension although on occasions they were thwarted by the refusal of heritors, or landowners, to meet the cost of any new churches. Thus voluntary efforts would create a ‘chapel of ease’, generally in highly populated districts, to meet the spiritual demand of parishioners.

 As a New Year dawned in 1843 many Scots were awaiting the decision by the Court of Session and on the 20^th January a decision was made in relation to the ‘Stewarton Case’ and many Scots were eager to hear the result. The Court of Session “decided by eight votes to five in favour of Cunninghame [and] this meant in effect that the Chapels Act was illegal.”[18] Thus it may be fair to claim that, “such a decision reached at such a time, January 1843, made the Disruption practically inevitable.”[19] Thus the collision course between the secular government and the Church’s ruling body, the General Assembly, was unavoidable. The state was now squarely interfering in the machinations of the Church and the ‘Two Kingdom’ theory was in effect over – the state and the Church were at this point not two distinct autonomous entities. The pendulum was swinging in favour of the state in terms of having a direct influence over the Church and the Church’s General Assembly. In other words the Church would have to take into account the ‘law of the land’ and could not, as was previously the case, decide on spiritual matters in total autonomy but would be held accountable for any legislation that was deemed ‘illegal’.

 According to one contemporary judge, who sat on the Court of Session and who participated in the decision of the ‘Stewarton Case’, he stated that the case, “was by far the most important case they [the Court of Session] had been called to consider in their time.”[20] Thus the significance of the case to this unnamed judge lends credence to the argument that the ‘Stewarton Case’ had a significant impact on the events leading up to the Disruption on May 18^th 1843. The Disruption therefore led to the creation of the Free Church with Thomas Chalmers being installed as the Church’s Moderator. The Reverend David Arthur from the John Knox Church in Stewarton took part in the walkout from the Church of Scotland Assembly Hall and duly took up a position on the newly formed General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland. Therefore the ‘victory’ by William Cunninghame with his case at the Court of Session leaves little doubt that the ‘Stewarton Case’ contributed in some significant way to the Disruption taking place.

 In conclusion it is clear to see that the ‘Stewarton Case’ did indeed have a large degree of influence and impact on and over the events leading up to the Disruption of 1843. However to ascertain the Stewarton Case’ impact to a finer, more precise, degree another more in-depth study is required. This is an incident that few historians have attached any significance to, yet there are very clear ‘signals’ relating to the importance of this particular case and its relationship to the evolution of Scottish history in the 19^th Century.

 Mr Murray Dunlop, who was one of the so-called ‘Big Four’ of the Disruption and who helped draft the ‘Claim of Right’, believed that if no ‘Stewarton Case’ had been brought before a Court of Session then ‘there would have been no Disruption’. Mr Murray Dunlop also believed that once it was known how the ‘Stewarton Case’ was going then the ultimate decision to form the Free Church was taken. This is high testimony indeed to the influence and the impact that this case had in arguably the most significant act of the 19^th Century yet it remains relatively unstudied. This notion is further supported by William Ferguson argument in his book ‘Scotland – 1689 to the Present’ where he believes that the ‘Stewarton Case was the ‘last straw’ for the non-intrusionists and this ultimately led these non-intrusionists, such as Thomas Chalmers and Murray Dunlop, to break away and form the Free Church.

 What is also of significance is that one of the judges who sat, along with twelve other judges, on the ‘Stewarton Case’ believed that it was one of the most important decisions that they, as a Court, had ever had to make. It may be possible to suggest at this point that the importance the judges appear to have attached to this case may have been rooted in the fact that they had some inkling as to what would happen when the decision they were about to make became publicly known. In essence there may have potentially been a feeling of trepidation by the judges as they may have had a notion, or possibly more than a notion, that a momentous event would take place following the decision they would make in relation to the ‘Stewarton Case’. This point however is certainly open to debate and would require further investigation, however what is of certainty is that the findings of the case were eagerly awaited by a great deal of Scots at the time. This is most likely because the Church was at the centre of the vast majority of the Scottish peoples lives and it also had a great deal of influence over them thus they no doubt knew the findings of the ‘Stewarton Case’ would have some sort of impact upon them.

 However the claim that the ‘Stewarton Case’ solely contributed to the Disruption would be misleading as other cases were also being brought before the courts. There was the ‘Auchterarder Case’ involving the Earl of Kinnoul, that went before the House of Lords and the decision made in this case effectively denied the legality of the Veto Act and ‘denied the Church’s claim to spiritual independence’. This ultimately led to Thomas Chalmers and others drafting the ‘Claim of Right’ that sought to reiterate the Church’s independence from the state thus a collision course was set between the state and the Church. The ‘Stewarton Case’ and the decision relating to it led to the Chapels Act also being made illegal thus the Disruption and the formation of the Free Church was in effect bound to happen. Therefore it has to be concluded that the ‘Stewarton Case’ may very well have been the ‘straw that broke the camels back’ but whether it absolutely and directly influenced the initiation of the Disruption requires more study although it initially appears that this may, to some degree, have been the case.