Scotland the Brief

Part 2: Imperial Partner
15 A House Divided

The great public debate in Victorian Scotland was not however about politics but about religion. The issue of control of the Kirk had throbbed away, parish by parish, in the eighteenth century. But as political reform gained momentum, the religious issue moved alongside it. It had little to do with theology, much more with the Church's prominent social position far greater than in any other European country dominating education, poor relief, and social discipline.

Initially, religious politics had consisted of 'seceding': stalking out of the Kirk while usually still claiming to embody it. But as the evangelical revival gained support, in the late eighteenth century and with the support of the Dundas family, the struggle returned to the parish. Shortly after the 1832 Act the evangelical party increased and, under its eloquent leader the Revd. Thomas Chalmers, became ever more influential. Not least because of its links with the press, which was expertly led by Hugh Miller, editor of The Witness.

After 1834 matters came to a head, as congregations resisted the intrusion of lairds' nominees; actions were fought all through the Church courts and then, on appeal, to the Court of Session. Westminster Whigs didn't really want to know about the issue, since the Scots were unlike English nonconformists in wanting to retain an established church. The Tories wouldn't move against their aristocratic allies. In 1842 the Home Secretary Sir James Graham threw 'Scotland's Claim of Right' out. This provoked a walk-out of the leading evangelicals at the next General Assembly the following May to found the Free Church. Known forever after as the Disruption, this was recorded by the artist and photographer D O Hill and Robert Adamson (the individual portraits were superb, the oil painting almost comic).

The Disruption brought no revival but an obsessive competition to build as many churches as possible. By the 1860s Scotland was over-churched, with up to six big half-empty gothic barns in every small town, but the actual conflict would limp on until Kirk reunion finally came in 1929. It was probably in this decade that 'North Britain' came closest to describing the place. But even then protests at governmental delays were starting to mount, and the creation of the Scotch Education Department in 1871 intensified the call for a Scottish Minister. Fear of the country following Ireland into agrarian revolt forced this concession the revival of the Scottish Office under a Scottish Secretary in 1885.