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Radicalism in Scotland

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Scottish Presbyterianism and Settler Colonial Politics

Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series ((CIPCSS))

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Abstract

This chapter suggests that some dissenters in Scotland became increasingly radical following the 1832 Reform Act. The Rev. Andrew Marshall, the great champion of church disestablishment, moved towards Chartism as it evolved in the late 1830s. Only a wholesale political revolution, it was argued, could elevate dissenters, level society and overthrow the established hierarchy. The connection of voluntaryism to political liberalism and radical Chartist reform in Scotland has received too little attention from historians. In Scotland a reinvigorated campaign for the reform of the established church culminated in the Disruption of the Kirk; these events sent shockwaves across the British empire. In order to understand the nature of colonial unrest in the post-1832 settler world, the chapter argues, it is first necessary to take stock of Scotland’s domestic turbulence.

[I]f [monarchs] countenance one part of their subjects, in harassing and distressing the rest, as was too much the case in the cruel state-uniformities of the last century, they are rather tyrants, than nursing fathers and mothers to the church as they invade the sacred prerogatives of Christ, and the rights of his people. And every such invasion is a step towards the overturning of their throne.

(Thomson and Struthers 1848, p. 314)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cockburn 1874, p. 35.

  2. 2.

    Jennings 1962, p. 69.

  3. 3.

    ‘Address to the Rev. Leaders of the Voluntary Church Movement’, United Secession Magazine, September 1834.

  4. 4.

    See e.g. Anderson 1832; Marshall 1831, 1832.

  5. 5.

    See e.g., Marshall 1829, 1831.

  6. 6.

    Brent 1987, p. 24.

  7. 7.

    Cockburn 1874, pp. 90–1.

  8. 8.

    Brown 1997. See also Brown 2001, pp. 176–84; Brown 2008.

  9. 9.

    ‘Glasgow Dissenters’ Petition’, Church of Scotland Magazine, May 1834. According to Henry Cockburn 40,000 signatures appeared on the Glasgow petition. Cockburn 1874, p. 58.

  10. 10.

    ‘Voluntary Principles…’, Church of Scotland Magazine, June 1834.

  11. 11.

    Brown 1982.

  12. 12.

    Brown 1982, p. 238.

  13. 13.

    ‘The Formation of a Church Society in Dundee’, Presbyterian Magazine, June 1834; Brown 2001, p. 194.

  14. 14.

    Nicolson 1885, p. 94.

  15. 15.

    See Mackie 1888, pp. 171–3.

  16. 16.

    Brown 1997, p. 689.

  17. 17.

    See e.g., Maclaren 1836.

  18. 18.

    Voluntaries tended to support legal assessment of poor relief since some dissenters did not benefit from kirk session aid. Thomas Chalmers on the other hand advocated charitable giving and the complete abolition of legal assessment.

  19. 19.

    ‘On the Effects of Abolishing the Power of the Civil Magistrate about Matters of Religion’, Church of Scotland Magazine, November 1835; ‘Voluntary Truths Elegantly Expressed’, Church of Scotland Magazine, August 1834. See also, ‘On the Present Outcry Against the Established Church’, Presbyterian Magazine, January 1833.

  20. 20.

    ‘Glasgow Voluntary Church Society’, Church of Scotland Magazine, January 1836.

  21. 21.

    ‘Mr Colquhoun’s Bill and Meeting in Dr Heugh’s Chapel’, Church of Scotland Magazine, June 1834.

  22. 22.

    See for example an article in the Reformers’ Gazette on 28 October 1837 about ‘A Campsie Voluntary Rat’ who had been a ‘Radical’ but was now writing in favour of endowments.

  23. 23.

    Hutchison 1986, p. 17.

  24. 24.

    Brown 1840, pp. 5–6.

  25. 25.

    Macewen 1895, pp. 39, 93–4, 114. See e.g., Ferrier 1836, pp. 14, 18.

  26. 26.

    Thomson and Struthers 1848, p. 314.

  27. 27.

    Anon. 1834, p. 14. See also Montgomery 1980, p. 162.

  28. 28.

    ‘The Radicals and Ourselves’, The Scotsman, 19 September 1838. The Scotsman steered a more moderate course in later years as McLaren and the voluntary radicals distanced themselves from the paper. See Mackie 1888, p. 158.

  29. 29.

    Mackie 1888, pp. 139–40.

  30. 30.

    ‘Editorial’, Glasgow Argus, 24 April 1834.

  31. 31.

    ‘Church and State’, Glasgow Argus, 31 March 1834. See also, ‘Church and State’, Glasgow Argus, 17 March 1834.

  32. 32.

    Pickering and Tyrrell 2000, p. 59.

  33. 33.

    McLaren 1842; Mackie 1888, pp. 225–6, 232–4; Pickering and Tyrrell 2000, pp. 53–60.

  34. 34.

    Quoted in Pickering and Tyrell 2000, p. 59.

  35. 35.

    Dissenting congregations were not legally obliged to distribute poor relief and their dependence on Church of Scotland session aid caused resentment. In some cases, dissenting congregations were told to reimburse the Kirk or were denied relief altogether; see Cage 1981, pp. 29, 52. The Disruption, which increased the number of dissenters and decreased the amount of aid available in the Kirk, rendered the system unworkable, helping to bring about poor law reform in 1845.

  36. 36.

    Hanna 1851, p. 433; Brown 1982, p. 232.

  37. 37.

    Spall Jnr. 1990. Nevertheless, establishmentarianism did find support amongst the lower classes. The Conservative Operatives’ Association declared its intention to uphold the British Constitution as established at 1690. Its main priority was ‘to defend the Ecclesiastical and Educational Establishments of Scotland as an integral part of that Constitution’. It supported church extension and non-intrusion. See Ward 1976, pp. 141–51; Hutchison 1986, p. 19.

  38. 38.

    United Secession Magazine, June 1834. Voluntary radicals frequently accused Churchmen of resisting reform. There was some truth to this. In the 1837 elections, only one Kirk minister in Roxburghshire , and only one in Midlothian , voted liberal. See Hutchison 1986, p. 19. James McCosh , member of the Presbytery of Arbroath , said that he regretted the extent to which evangelical Kirkmen ‘threw themselves openly into the Tory side of politics’ after the excesses following the reform bill. Guthrie and Guthrie 1874, p. 340.

  39. 39.

    Anon. 1841. In England the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 had linked the incomes of established clergymen with the price of corn. The Anti-Corn Law Circular denounced the ‘Bread-Taxing Bishops’ while the Scottish Patriot observed that the ‘teinds on which the established clergy fattened’ were enhanced by restrictions on food. See Brown 2001, pp. 330–1. Some Kirk ministers supported Corn Law repeal, including the evangelical Rev. Robert Burns of Paisley who was a member of the Anti-Corn Law League and apparently the only Kirkman to attend the Glasgow banquet held in honour of Richard Cobden. See Burns 1873, pp. 96–7.

  40. 40.

    ‘The Church Established in Scotland and the Corn Laws’, Glasgow Argus, 26 February 1838; ‘True Religion in Scotland Depends on the Permanency of the Corn Laws!’, Glasgow Argus, 19 March 1838.

  41. 41.

    Pickering and Tyrrell 2000, p. 56.

  42. 42.

    ‘To editor’, Church of Scotland Magazine, March 1834.

  43. 43.

    Best 1960.

  44. 44.

    Miller 1975, p. 261.

  45. 45.

    Brown 1840, pp. 5–6; Macfarlane and Marshall 1840.

  46. 46.

    Brown 2001, pp. 332–7. Two older accounts of Scottish Chartism are Wright 1953 and Wilson 1970. See also Fraser 1989; Duncan 1989, pp. 78–91; Fraser 2010. On Chartism more broadly see Chase 2007.

  47. 47.

    Bayly 2004, p. 159.

  48. 48.

    Fraser 2010, pp. 82–94.

  49. 49.

    Chase 2007, pp. 41, 52.

  50. 50.

    Christodoulou 1992, pp. 618–21.

  51. 51.

    Ian Machin has observed the link between English nonconformist voluntaryism and Chartism but the relationship between voluntaryism and Chartism in Scotland has yet fully to be explored. Machin 1977, p. 110.

  52. 52.

    Neilson 1920, pp. 121–9.

  53. 53.

    Smith 1987, pp. 159–60.

  54. 54.

    ‘Central Board and the People’s Charter’, True Scotsman, 20 October 1838.

  55. 55.

    ‘The Great Voluntary Meeting in Edinburgh’, True Scotsman, 2 January 1841. See also ‘Spirit of Reform’, Scottish Patriot, 6 July 1839; ‘Address to the Chartists of Scotland’, Scottish Patriot, 2 November 1839.

  56. 56.

    ‘To the Rev. Mr Stark, Burgh Missionary, Lanark, True Scotsman, 16 March 1839; ‘Voluntaries, Read This! The Connexion of Voluntaryism and Universal Suffrage’, True Scotsman, 9 February 1839.

  57. 57.

    Fraser 2010, pp. 83, 90.

  58. 58.

    Marshall 1840.

  59. 59.

    ‘Chartism’, United Secession Magazine, March 1841. See also Voluntary Church Magazine, February 1841.

  60. 60.

    ‘Dissenting Neutrality’, United Secession Magazine, June 1840.

  61. 61.

    However, the Argus itself was not an advocate of Chartism. William Weir disapproved of physical-force activism, as had been demonstrated by the cotton spinners, and which the early Birmingham Chartists appeared to represent.

  62. 62.

    Glasgow Argus, 1 February 1841. See also ‘Non-Intrusionists’, Scottish Patriot, 20 March 1841.

  63. 63.

    Faulkner 1970, pp. 60–1; Cook 1924, p. 499; Smith 1987, pp. 153–7. Brewster pointed out that the Church was not setting a good example by rebelling against the judgment of the supreme court on disputed patronage cases. See Brewster 1843, appendix, pp. 410–11, 414, 416; Smith 1987, pp. 181–2.

  64. 64.

    Brown 2001, pp. 333–4.

  65. 65.

    Cowan 1946, pp. 154, 162.

  66. 66.

    See Brewster 1843, pp. 26, 186–7, 213–14, 249, 276–313.

  67. 67.

    Mortensen 2000, pp. 230–66; Rodger 2008.

  68. 68.

    The Church of Scotland 1842, pp. 1, 15.

  69. 69.

    Kidd and Wallace 2013, pp. 233–55.

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  1. School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

    Valerie Wallace

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Wallace, V. (2018). Radicalism in Scotland. In: Scottish Presbyterianism and Settler Colonial Politics. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70467-8_7

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