REV. JAMES BRYCE

On the death of Dr. Kidd the congregation elected to call the Rev. James Bryce. His election was by no means unanimous and there were two secessions from the congregation. One group of families went to the Bon-Accord Church. This Church stemmed from Trinity Chapel-of-Ease (where Dr. Kidd had been evening lecturer in 1801) and had been formed by those members of Trinity Chapel who had wished to call the Rev. Gavin Parker in 1828, a move quite in keeping with the urge for church extension at that time. As Union Terrace Chapel-of-Ease the new chapel functioned satisfactorily and became a full charge with the name of Bon-Accord Church in 1834 at the same time as Gilcomston. The minister, Gavin Parker, was a quiet man but of full strength of conviction, leading his whole congregation out at the Disruption to form Bon-Accord Free Church; later Bon-Accord and St. Paul's and now (1986) by a curious reversal again Bon-Accord Free Church.

The other group of seceders formed yet another congregation, that of Holburn Parish Church. They built the buildings which now form Holburn Central Church and called a young licentiate who failed to keep the members together. On his resignation they called the Rev. William Mitchell, who led most of the congregation out of the Established Church in 1843. As Holburn Free Church they erected the building at the corner of Bon-Accord Terrace and Justice Mill Lane, now an electrical goods warehouse. Under Mr. Mitchell's successor, Mr. McQueen, the congregation agreed to a Presbytery request to move towards Mannofield and build the premises which now house the Holburn West Church, the manse being next door to the present Gilcomston manse, at No. 16 Beaconsfield Place.

As can be seen from the foregoing paragraphs there was a certain vitality and purpose in the congregation which Dr. Kidd built up during his tenure of the Gilcomston pulpit. This is further shown by the formation of Woodside Parish Church, created partially out of Gilcomston in 1828 with the full consent and concurrence of Dr. Kidd. Again most of the congregation and the minister went out at the Disruption. Dr. Kidd had taken part in the discussion of the Veto Act of 1834 from which the Disruption may be immediately traced and this may explain why all his daughter churches with most of their members 'came out' in 1843. But to return to the point, the two secessions did not drain away all the life-blood of the congregation of Gilcomston. Under James Bryce the work continued.

Mr Bryce was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Stirling on 27th April, 1819, and was ordained by them to the charge at Stamfordham on 18th May, 1824. On 30th April, 1835 he was elected and presented to the charge at Wooler in the Borders but remained only two months being inducted to Gilcomston on 2nd July, 1835. As one might expect it was difficult to follow in the steps of Dr. Kidd, but Mr. Bryce did so with acceptance to most of the congregation. He certainly was not in the image of his predecessor. David Masson (later Professor Masson of the Chair of Rhetoric and English Literature in the University of Edinburgh) in his book Memories of Two Cities, 1911, p.300 lists those ministers whom he remembers, and amongst them we find, "James Bryce, a large-bodied man, the successor of Dr. Kidd in Gilcomston Chapel, sed quantum mutatus ab illo (but what a change from him!)"

Further detail on James Bryce is to be found in The Aberdeen Pulpit and Universities (Aberdeen: J. Strachan, 1844), a series of sketches by James Bruce (editor of the 'Fifeshire Journal'), which first appeared in the Aberdeen Monthly Circular, and later in book form in 1844. These give rather a jaundiced view of ministers, particularly Evangelicals, (though the same comments about sloppy thinking, hyper-emotionalism, and inanity hold true in some quarters today). But Bruce's astringent comments do give a welcome view of the other aspect of these gentlemen whose saintliness in the received biographies carries a touch of unreality. According to Bruce, Bryce was

"the only really gentlemanly-looking clergyman on the Evangelical side of the Presbytery. He is a man that, for personal appearance, might be an Archbishop; and he has a fine manly honest face, which ought no longer to countenance the people with whom he has too long associated, but whom we sincerely trust he will throw overboard as speedily as he conveniently can."

But Bryce did not throw overboard his congregation, for he came out with them at the Disruption. It is a question however, how far he led his people, and how far he was led by them. From the accounts he does not seem to have been a real leader of men. For example, in 1839, during the absence of the minister, the Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne, who was abroad as part of the committee looking into the missionary situation on the continent and the near east, a revival began in St. Peter's parish, Dundee. In 1840 W.C. Burns (late of China), under whose preaching the Dundee revival had begun, came to Aberdeen and with some success conducted various series of meetings in our city. As a result of considerable debate, particularly by attacks on the whole proceedings in the Herald, (a local newspaper of the day) the Presbytery of Aberdeen formed a Committee on Revivals, to look into the matter of revivals with particular reference to Aberdeen. After enquiry into the facts of various instances of conversion the Committee reported favourably. But the conduct of Mr. Bryce is very interesting. Though a member of the Committee, his name is in little evidence in the transcript of the examinations, and he was not present at the final meeting which approved revivals. Again to quote Bruce, yet bearing in mind that man's obvious detestation of evangelicalism,

"nobody gives Mr Bryce credit for sincere attachment to the party with whom he generally votes, but all are inclined to agree with a lady who ought to know something about his sentiments, and who says that he would be as good a Moderate as the very best of them, had he only a proper bond for his stipend."

Yet Mr. Bryce did sign the Deed of Demission and on 15th June 1843 was declared no longer to be a minister of the Established Church of Scotland. With most of his congregation he left the church as a result of that most important upheaval of Scotland's religious life of the last century. Nor was he passive thereafter for, until the establishment of a faculty for the Free Church, he acted as lecturer in Church History at the classes which later were formed into Christ's College. He was also active in translation work (see Bibliography).

The absolute truth of the Disruption will probably never be known until heaven. Each and every writer has brought his or her own religious attitudes to the matter, and in the rare cases where there has been an attempt to be dispassionate, the historian has leant over backwards not to be biased. Suffice it here to say that the immediate question was one of the authority of the state over the church, in particular whether the civil courts of Scotland could interfere to compel the settlement of a minister on the wishes of the patron of a church, the feelings of the congregation expressed under the Veto Act, notwithstanding. As has been said, Dr. Kidd had been to the fore in the matter in earlier days, writing on the subject and allowing anti-Intrusion meetings to be held in his church, and it is likely that it is due to his efforts that the congregation of Gilcomston was so willing to 'launch out into the deep.'

On 18th May, 1843 following upon Protest of the Erastian constitution of the Church of Scotland, many of the ministers and elders, delegates to the General Assembly of the Church, withdrew from the Assembly and formed the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland. The ministers and elders of the Church in Aberdeen who adhered to the Free Church met in Melville Church, Aberdeen on Wednesday, 7th June, 1843, and forming themselves into a Presbytery of the Free Church, authorised the various members, elders and ministers who had left the established church to form Kirk Sessions. Page 3 of the Minute Book of the Gilcomston Free Church session reads,

"In compliance with the ... directions of the Presbytery, the Rev. James Bryce, and the following adhering elders viz: James Reid, Gardener, Springbank, Alexander Wallace Chalmers, Governor of the Prison of Aberdeen, Alexander Mackay, Dyer, Aberdeen, William Henderson, Painter, Aberdeen, Robert Grant, Japanner, Aberdeen, Thomas Milne, Nurseryman, Sunnyside, William Murdoch, Cabinetmaker, Aberdeen, and William Jessiman, Builder, Aberdeen, met on the evening of Saturday the Tenth day of June, Eighteen Hundred and Forty Three, in the Session House of the Original Seceders in Skene Terrace, to form a Session for the Congregation lately assembling for worship in Gilcomston Church: ... The Session was then constituted by singing, reading and praying, and was declared to be formed in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the authority of the Aberdeen Presbytery of the Free Church of Scotland ..."

Gilcomston Free Church, the congregation which through being Gilcomston United Free Church, came in 1929 to be Gilcomston South Church of Scotland, was thus born.

Of the first elders special mention may be made of Alexander Wallace Chalmers. Mr. Chalmers was ordained an elder in Gilcomston on 10th February 1833, presumably by Dr. Kidd. He was throughout most of the period from then until the end of his life, Governor of the Prison of Aberdeen. This prison was not the familiar Craiginches of today, but was the Bridewell, erected in 1802. Parts of the walls of the Bridewell can still be seen. As one walks north up Rose Street, about fifty yards north of Thistle Street just before one comes to what used to be Kennerty dairies on the east and Middleton's paper works on the west side of the road (now housing on the west and a garden centre on the east), there is a gap of about nine inches between the houses. This gap marks the southern wall of the old prison. Again if one walks up Thistle Lane from Thistle Street, the wall on the right hand, beginning at the corner of the lane, is the old prison wall. Finally when one is at the Chapel Street car park, looking west towards the manufacturing works, the old wall is clearly seen, built upon with brick. At the southermost corner of the portion of the wall you can still see a half circle rose style church window, which seems to have belonged to the prison chapel. These are the few traces left of a building which was of great importance some one hundred and twenty years ago. [But (1986) things change: portions of the Bridewell wall are still there, behind the buildings on the west of Chapel Street south of the multi-storey Car Park, and north of the premises of a car hire firm. The half-rose window at the south east corner of the Bridewell has been boarded up. Another part of the wall can be seen in the back area of the flats on Thistle Street and Rose Street, best seen through the access at the west of Hebron Evangelical Church. The Thistle Lane wall is still there, but otherwise it is becoming more difficult to see these fragments of history.]

Mr Chalmers, the Governor of the Bridewell, was one of the leading men of the congregation, and, at the Disruption, it was he who took much of the initiative in procuring a new place of worship. He was immediately appointed Session Clerk, and also Convener of the Committee of the Session and the congregation anent the erection of a new church. From the detailed minutes of both the Session and of the Committee which he kept and which are still in the keeping of the congregation, it is quite obvious that he fully discharged his duties to the best of his abilities, and was mainly responsible for the successful settling of the congregation in their first place of worship. His name also appears once or twice in the public press of the time, but normally without controversy. However, there is one revealing instance in which he was the subject of a considerable degree of animosity. It appears that he was in the habit of visiting the condemned criminals in their cells before their execution and of talking with them about Christ. In so doing he was following the example of Dr. Kidd, but in Mr. Chalmers' case there was the difficulty that he was an official of the prison. So the accusation arose that he was abusing his position to preach his own peculiar opinions to a person who was already under considerable stress. After enquiry Mr. Chalmers was fully absolved from any such accusation, and continued to visit the condemned - because that was what they wanted. For the rest of his life he apparently took an active part in the church affairs, including as Session Clerk until 4th September 1854, and latterly as Treasurer, attending almost every meeting of the Deacons' Court and Session. This service was broken only by his death on 20th June, 1862.

With Mr. Chalmers presiding, the Committee for the New Church got to work speedily. Until they should have obtained a site it was arranged that the congregation should worship at first in the church of the Original Seceders in Skene Square, but this proved somewhat small for the number - over 1,300 of the congregation had come out with the minister and Session. On 17th June, 1843, it was reported to the Committee that the Banqueting Room and the Lobby of the Public Rooms (now the Music Hall) had been rented until the end of November for 30 gns. The congregation provided their own seats, and these were removable so that they could be taken to the new church when that was ready. This accommodation was not very suitable, for only 850 seats were available in the space, while over 1,100 sittings had been applied for; but for the period it served.

On 17th June it was decided that the new church would have to accommodate at least 1,200 and an approach was made to William Henderson who was building a church in Footdee to see if he would undertake the planning of the new church. On 21st June, 1843 it was reported that several sites had been inspected. These included sites in Skene Street, Union Street, Union Terrace and Crown Street but the most favoured was a site extending 70 feet along Huntly Street and back to Union Wynd. This site feued to the congregation for £16:10/- per annum, is opposite the former Blind Asylum (now offices). For many years after 1868 the former Gilcomston church was in use as a public hall, "The Royal Albert Hall" (see Ordnance Survey map 1901). In 1968 the premises housed Aberdeen Motors body shop. Thereafter it was a chemist's depot, then an oilfield hydrographic base. In April 1986 it was up for sale.

On 4th July, 1843 Mr. Henderson submitted plans for the new building (for which he refused his fee). It was to be a single storey building, seating 1219 people with an allowance of 18 inches each. After deliberation on the interior arrangement this was approved, and it was also suggested that provision be made for a school room (Note: in those days education was provided by private schools, and church schools were one of the most important of these institutions). Finance seems to have been one of the least of the problems of the congregation at this time, and building was commenced before even the grant from the Free Church Building (5/- per seat) had been allowed. There seems to have been no ceremonial at the commencement. The Minutes of 28th July, 1843 state that there was no ceremony at the laying of the foundation stone, since there was no room to hold such.

Building was swift, and with the simple form of building selected, the church was opened for worship on Sunday 5th November 1843, again apparently without ceremonial. The degree of effectiveness of the church seems, however, to have waned, for reasons to which we shall come, but the school attached to the church prospered to some degree. And so matters continued until failing health required Mr. Bryce to retire to Edinburgh, where he lived for the rest of his days. In 1856 he published The Rules and Practice of the Free Church in so far as differing from the Established, and was made an LL.D. of Glasgow University in 1858. He died on 23rd March 1861.

Bibliography

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