Tales from the Kirk Session by Dr. Jean Barclay The Elder at the Plate by H C Preston In the early 1720s the Dunfermline kirk session consisted of the two ministers and 25 elders who were subject each year to ‘privy censure’ to ensure they were ‘circumspect in their walk and conversation’. The elders were responsible for taking the collection on Sundays, accepting or giving testimonials of good behaviour from people coming or going, relief of the poor and Sabbath visiting. This last to ensure that no-one was drinking or carrying out household tasks or other activities when they should have been at church. The ‘elders at the plate’ were regarded with some awe but in 1726 two of them, Robert Couston and Robert Ferguson, fell from grace. With Robert Couston it was drink. On November 20th 1726 it was reported to the kirk session that Robert Couston, one of their number, was scandalously drunk at Wednesday’s market. When Robert was questioned he acknowledged that he had been somewhat mistaken with drink that day but denied reports that he had also been fighting and rankling (wrangling). On December 7th several elders reported that they had heard that on market day after daylight was gone, Robert had been in a public change house (inn) in the town and that he was not only mistaken with drink but was offensively kissing both men and women. Robert admitted that he ‘kisst a young woman who might become his good-daughter’ (daughter in law) and that he also ‘kisst William…
Adam Westwood, Dunfermline artist (1844–1924)
Adam Westwood was a local painter who has left us some beautiful images of Dunfermline in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. In “Adam Westwood, Dunfermline artist (1844–1924)” Jean Barclay gives us a concise summary of his life and work illustrated with some rarely-seen examples of his work.
The Tale of the Holes in the Floor
Tales from the Kirk Session The Affair of the Holes in the Floor By Elaine Campbell The Ordination of Elders By J M Lorimer RSA From ‘The Kirk and its Worthies’ By Nicholas Dickson In the 17th and 18th century the Kirk was a very important institution in monitoring how people conducted their day to day lives and it interfered in a way we would now find unacceptable. It did however, do a lot of good in the community by giving small pensions to people who were unable to work through age or disability, paying school fees for a child whose father had died and by trying to ensure that the father of an illegitimate child took responsibility for its upkeep. As the arbiters of morals in the community, the Kirk Session Minutes contain a large number of cases of fornication and children born out of wedlock. Occasionally, there are cases where there is a dispute about paternity of an illegitimate child or whether fornication has taken place and some of these can be as entertaining as a soap opera. The Session normally met each week and on Thursday, 13th July 1752 the Moderator informed the Session that one of the elders had given a report of “flagrant and scandalous behaviour” on the previous Friday between George Wilson, a farmer in Knockhouse (Knockhouse farm is now part of Crossford) and Isabel Watson, the widow of Peter Shorthouse, who was the late gravedigger in Dunfermline. The Moderator had therefore cited both George and Isabel to appear before this…
Christmas Banned!
In the next in our “Tales from the Kirk Session” series, Jean Barclay describes the very slow re-emergence of Christmas after the Reformation. “The Kirk that Stole Christmas” describes these changes, from the attempted abolition of the holiday by the Kirk in the sixteenth century, right up to the establishment of the Public Holiday in 1958.
James and Charles Stewart, Builders
James Stewart and Sons, Builders and Quarrymen Dunfermline’s Industrial Past by George Beattie Born in Falkland but brought up in Dunfermline, James Stewart served an apprenticeship as a stone-mason with a then noted country builder at Cowstrandburn, near Dunfermline. He was later employed by the Dunfermline firm of Messrs W & J Hutchison, stone masons and builders. In 1876 Messrs Hutchison were awarded the contract for building the new City Chambers in Dunfermline and James Stewart was the foreman stone-mason on this project which took almost three years to complete. The ornate and impressive stonework on this building is testimony to Mr Stewart’s ability and it is probably no surprise that he started in business on his own a short time after the City Chambers building was completed. It would appear that James Stewart was initially in partnership with one of the Hutchison family as there is a reference in one of the Trade Directories of the early 1880s to a building company of Stewart & Hutchison. If so, this partnership did not last long as the Dunfermline Trades Directory of 1890 indicates that Mr Stewart was then trading on his own account from premises in Burt Street, Dunfermline. He also had premises at Grantsbank (now Pilmuir Street) from an early period. It may be that the Grantsbank premises and the Foundry Street premises, mentioned in the above letter heading, were one and the same. In 1900, whilst still at Grantsbank, James Stewart was…