Chapel Street,
Dunfermline,
Scotland

“A Brief History of the Congregation - 1752-1932”
(This account is taken from the leaflet accompanying the Ter-Diamond (180th) Jubilee Celebrations, May 1932.)

THOMAS GILLESPIE, the founder and first minister of the congregation, was born at Clearburn in the Parish of Duddingston, near Edinburgh, in the year 1708.  Coming under the influence of the famous Thomas Boston, he decided to study for the ministry, and was educated first at Edinburgh University, and later at Northampton under Philip Doddridge.  Ordained at Northampton in 1741, he was inducted on 4th September of the same year to the little parish at Carnock (three miles west of Dunfermline), of which John Row, the historian of the Reformation, and James Hog, editor of “The Marrow of Modern Divinity,”had been ministers.  For eleven years Gillespie maintained a faithful ministry in that Parish, taking a prominent part in the revival work at Kilsyth.

On Saturday 23rd May 1752 he was deposed from the ministry of the Church of Scotland for refusing to take part in the forced settlement of a minister at Inverkeithing*.  He preached the following day in the churchyard at Carnock, and on subsequent Sundays, first in a neighbouring hollow and then on the public highway to immense congregations.  As autumn approached his supporters secured a meeting-house in Dunfermline, which became the first home of our Congregation. There Gillespie continued to minister until his death.

For the first nine years he stood entirely alone.  In 1761 he joined with Thomas Boston of Jedburgh, who was in a similar position, and Thomas Collier of Colinsburgh, together with elders of the three congregations concerned, to form “The Presbytery of Relief” which became, in the course of time, the Relief denomination, and of which he is regarded as the founder, and ours as the “Mother Church”.

The Relief Church, which followed an independent existence from 1761 to 1847, joining then with the Secession Church to form the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, had a notable history.  It was the first in Scotland to open its pulpits to all true ministers of Christ and its Communion Table to all believers; the first to introduce the hymn book into public worship; the first to sponsor the cause of foreign missions, and the first to take a definite stand against the evils of the slave trade.

In 1774, when Gillespie died, a dispute arose over the future of the property, and the trustees responsible for the custody of the building arranged for its being handed over to the Church of Scotland.  The overwhelming majority of the congregation elected, however, to continue with the Relief Church.  In 1779 the minority were constituted as a “Chapel of Ease,” and in 1835 as a Quoad Sacra charge of the Church of Scotland, this being the present St. Andrew’s Parish Church.  Meanwhile, the Relief Congregation had raised funds for a new meeting house which was erected on the present site in 1777, the former one being virtually that occupied by St. Andrew’s Church.  In 1847 upon the Union of the Secession and Relief Churches (the one denomination with over 400 congregations and the other with 115), steps were taken to bring about a union between the Dunfermline Relief Church (our own) and Maygate Secession Church.  This was consummated in the following year.  The two congregations worshipped together in the Maygate from 1847 to 1849, when the present building, the third home of our congregation, was opened for worship.

In 1882 considerable additions were made to the premises, including the building of a Church Hall, and in 1929 these were further enlarged, giving us now one of the best suite of halls of any church in Dunfermline.

Gillespie Memorial Church, as the Congregation is now called, has had a number of notable ministers.  Thomas Gillespie himself was succeeded in 1777 by the Rev. James Smith, the author of several books including “Historical Sketches of the Relief Church”, and “The Necessity, Nature and Design of Christ’s Sufferings.”  On the translation of Mr. Smith to Dundee, the Rev. Henry Fergus was ordained his successor in 1790, continuing in active duty until 1830, and being the author of many works including a monumental “History of the United States,” and a short account of “The Laws and Institutions of Moses”.  A colleague and successor was appointed in 1830 in the person of the Rev. Charles Waldie, and a second colleague five years later, the Rev. Neil McMichael.  Ordained in 1835 Dr. McMichael, as he afterwards became, was for 39 years Minister of the Congregation, and for the larger part of that time held the Chair of Systematic Theology and Church History, first in the Relief and later in the U.P. College at Edinburgh.  He is still remembered with affection by many in our midst, and was in his day one of the most outstanding churchmen in the denomination.

On the death of Dr. McMichael, the Rev. John W. Dunbar, M.A., was appointed his successor, and a year after his translation to Edinburgh in 1884, the Rev. Thomas E. Miller succeeded him.  Mr. Dunbar’s ministry of 10 years, and Mr. Miller’s of 39 years, have left a deep impress on the congregation, and both are remembered by hundreds in the community.  From Mr. Dunbar’s pen came a short work on “The Beatitudes of the Old Testament”, and from Mr. Miller’s no fewer than four volumes on the “Men and Women of the Bible”.  Mr. Miller, who was for some time convener of the Home Mission Committee in the United Free Church of Scotland (into which Gillespie Church had passed in 1900 with the whole of the United Presbyterian denomination), took a prominent part in the wider work of the Church.

In 1925 he was succeeded by the Rev. Ernest J.F. Elliot, who, after a brief but brilliant ministry, was elected to the High (now St. Columba) Church, Inverness, the premier pulpit in the Highlands, in which charge he is wielding a great influence in the North.

The present Minister, the Rev. D.P. Thomson, M.A., was ordained and inducted on 1st February 1928, and is therefore only the ninth who has held office in the long period of 180 years.

In anticipation of the union of the Churches the following year, a Commemoration Gathering was held in the Old Carnock Parish Church in May 1928, when the Ministers of Carnock Parish and Gillespie Memorial Churches took part together, this being the first event of its kind.  Following the Union of October 1929, and the presentation to our Church of the historic Communion Plate of the old Gillespie Meeting House by the Minister and Kirk Session of St. Andrew’s Parish Church (in whose custody they had been since 1774). A united Communion Service of the two congregations, Gillespie and St. Andrew’s, was held and an arrangement made whereby they would join forces in social work among the Model Lodging House population in the district.  Thus, after many generations, were the breaches of a former day completely healed.

Now, at the close of the 180th year of our congregational life, the Ter-Diamond Jubilee of our church is to be celebrated by united gatherings both at Carnock and within our own walls, in which the three congregations that share the Gillespie tradition are to take part together, an event so far as is known without parallel in the history of Scottish Presbyterianism.

Of the many features of our congregational work and service to which one would like to refer, those that have stood out perhaps most conspicuously are its home and foreign missionary interest.  We have today at least five representatives on the foreign mission field, and of these two, the Rev. P.L. And Mrs. Hunter, have given some 43 years of service in South Africa.  The Church they founded, and have seen steadily grow in numbers and in influence, in the great district of the Transkei where they labour, is fittingly named “Gillespie” after the congregation that sent them out.  Mr. Hunter, it should be added, was one of the many District Missionaries who gave service in the home field at our own doors, the tradition they left being well maintained by a band of office-bearers and workers, who are their present day successors.

An historic past, rich in memory and tradition; a living present, as full of opportunity and privilege as it is of challenge and responsibility; and a future “as bright with hope as the promises of God” - these are the things we in Gillespie Memorial Church rejoice in today, as we set out, a fully constituted parish of the Church of Scotland, on the closing decades of the second century of our congregational life and witness.

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* Rev. TE Miller, writing in 1902, says “It is difficult, even at this distance of time, to restrain one’s pen.  No more unworthy deed stains the record of the Church of Scotland’s history...”.  After the verdict of the Assembly, Gillespie is recorded as saying “Moderator, I desire to receive this sentence of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, pronounced against me, with real concern and awful impressions of the divine conduct in it; but I rejoice, that to me it is given in behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake.”  These words, and the manner of their utterance, created a profound impression in the House itself, and everywhere throughout the country there was bitter complaint against the deed of the Assembly.
       Had the deposed Minister of Carnock been a man of ambition, a worldly-minded ecclesiastic, he might have rent the Church of Scotland in twain,..  But Thomas Gillespie had no ambition that way.  He left the Assembly and set out quietly to Carnock.  Arriving at the manse, his first words to his wife were “I am no longer minister of Carnock.”  Mrs. Gillespie’s answer was like the breaking through of sunshine, “Well,” she said, “if we must beg, I will carry the meal poke.”  That answer settles Mrs. Gillespie’s claim to be the first Reliever, having thus come to the relief of her husband oppressed in his Christian privileges.

(from:  TE Miller, MA, 1902.  Gillespie Church, Dunfermline.  Printed by W Clark & Son, Journal Office, Dunfermline.  Price One Shilling, net.)