Tristram Clarke, M.A., Ph.D.
1997, Scottish Church History Society Vol. XXVII
The last forty or fifty years have seen the erection of many hundreds of parochial and dissenting churches in Scotland. The number which will escape the censure of the most indulgent taste is small; but in almost every instance there has been an intention to do well, which must be recognised with gratitude. The reproach which Scott put into the mouth of Andrew Fairservice, that many a dog-kennel in England was better than many a Scottish church, is no longer true.[1]
This contribution will examine the good intentions visible in the building of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Jedburgh in 1843–3, and how it set a new standard in church architecture. Joseph Robertson, who passed the above judgement on Scottish church architecture in 1849, was a conservative episcopalian deeply versed in the history of Scottish medieval church architecture and wrote at a time when little scholarly work in this field had been accomplished in Scotland. Still less had the architectural exactness espoused in England found its way into new Scottish churches. By contrast the ecclesiological movement in England, born a decade earlier, already commanded the study of historical church architecture, was dominating the designs for new Anglican and Roman Catholic churches throughout England, and was making itself felt in the colonies. The Anglican ecclesiologists sought to recover the Church of England’s continuity with its medieval and post-Reformation past by architectural designs which incorporated faithfulness to medieval forms. They argued that churches should articulate the nave and the chancel as separate spaces for the congregation and the clergy in order to provide a true setting for liturgical worship and to express its doctrinal meaning.
The ecclesiological movement
This architectural programme derived from antiquarian and archaeological studies, but its motive force was the shift in Anglican thought which the Oxford Movement effected from the mid-1830’s onwards, with its call in Tracts for the Times for the Church of England to return to the fundamentals of its faith and to purity of worship. The Tractarians influenced the promotion of a movement in church architecture which would express the restored central role of sacramental worship. The architectural lobby emerged in the formation of architectural societies at Oxford and Cambridge in 1838–9, and found a receptive audience for its ideas, for which the term ecclesiology was coined. The Anglican ecclesiologists were heavily influenced by two works by the Roman Catholic architect A. W. N. Pugin, who strove towards a similar goal. His seminal work Contrasts, of 1836, was followed in 1841 by the highly influential True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture, which attacked the paganism of classical styles.[2]
The commissioning and completion in 1844 of the church of St John the Evangelist at Jedburgh marked the advent of mature ecclesiological design in Scotland. It came about as the result of the close contacts between individual episcopalians in Scotland and their English friends. The ideas of the Oxford Movement and of the ecclesiologists found a receptive audience among some episcopalians, partly because of the prevalence of high church views on the sacraments, the nature of the church and apostolic succession among the Scottish clergy and laity. These affinities strengthened the position of the Scottish traditionalists, many of whom preferred the Scottish Communion Office, against those who favoured the English form, and against the evangelical episcopal clergy whose hostility towards the Scottish liturgy caused the Church considerable difficulties from the 1840’s. Much of these tensions arose from the changing nature of the episcopal communion as the middle and upper classes of the burghs resorted in increased numbers to the Episcopal Church. Differences arose in liturgical taste and usage between English and Scots clergy and laity, but not along clear “national” lines, and St. John’s played its part in the drawing up of the battle lines between the prayer book partisans.
In the early 1840’s the Church was undergoing a revival, and many of its chapels were either improved or rebuilt, or new ones raised through individual and collective munificence, including some assistance from the Scottish Episcopal Church Society after 1838.[3] The Society gave more help to the improvement of existing episcopalian schools and new school buildings, and in areas where it had little or no footing the Church undertook mission work. This activity paralleled the church extension movement in England. From about 1840 the Scottish episcopalians’ newly-found confidence was expressed architecturally by churches in a new style, and by the foundation of collegiate institutions and cathedrals. Generally, voluntary lay support was as vital to the episcopalians as it was to the Free Church, although subscriptions tended to come from fewer but wealthier adherents. As a consequence the erection of a number of private or semi-private chapels was an episcopalian phenomenon. This study concentrates on the change in church design from the mid-1840’s as heralded by St. John’s.
It is easier for us to understand doctrinal and ritual changes which the Oxford Movement or Tractarianism brought to the Episcopal Church, than it is to sense with the eyes of church members of the 1840’s the fundamental shift in architectural style which with it was accompanied. This is partly because of the widespread effects of the ecclesiological movement, not just on the Episcopal Church, but also in the architecture of the established Church and other denominations from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. Our images of Scottish churches are heavily influenced by the imposing Gothic edifices which were built from the 1840’s in almost every Scottish city, town and village, and which owe a debt to the movement which strove to create a greater historical continuity and more accurate styles in church architecture. Few churches of any denomination survive in their pre-1840’s state, so it is hard to visualise the radical change brought by the ecclesiologically correct new churches. Until that period most churches and chapels which were not built in a classical style employed variant forms of Perpendicular or late Gothic style to clothe preaching spaces. The ecclesiologists criticised them as inauthentic and inadequate for Christian worship. Galleries were common to churches and chapels of all denominations, and many episcopal chapels of the period before 1840 incorporated them, but they attracted the particular contempt of the ecclesiologists. Reflecting the same critical view as Joseph Robertson quoted above, The Ecclesiologist in 1848 wrote of the need for buildings “worthy of the name of a church, instead of the shabby and sectarian-looking “Episcopal chapels” unhappily so common in Scotland. [4]
Episcopalian ecclesiology in Scotland
By this date episcopal chapels tended to feature a recess or shallow chancel for the altar, but they scarcely approached the new standards set by the ecclesiologists. Amongst the first new churches in Scotland to merit their attention was St. James’s Episcopal Church, Cruden Bay, designed by William Hay, and completed in 1843. It consists of a nave and chancel and tower placed centrally on the west facade. External decoration in the form of pinnacles and skews, and the buttressed and pinnacled tower with its short spire reflect the prevailing eclecticism of late Georgian gothic rather than observance of medieval form. The chancel is high in relation to the nave, and its steep roof pitch is not carried through to the nave, creating an uncomfortable appearance. However, the lancet windows and buttresses lend the church a rugged simplicity, and internally it incorporates several features approved by supporters of the new style. The chancel is raised on three steps, and it contains an altar and sedilia. These were no doubt specified by the minister, the Rev. J. B. Pratt, a proponent of the Scottish liturgy. Despite the lack of a rood screen and of a south porch instead of the west door, The Ecclesiologist hoped that the church might be “quoted as another proof of the spread of sounder architectural taste in the Scotch Church.”[5]
Another claimant as the first ecclesiologically-correct structure was the little church of St. Catherine opened at Blairgowrie in 1843. The Rev. John Marshall, the episcopal minister for whom it was built, asserted in 1859 that “he was the first, since the era of the Reformation, to erect a church, in Scotland, on the principles of the ecclesiastical architecture of the Middle Ages.”[6] The writer of the New Statistical Account of the parish in 1845 described it as “being intended as a model of the style and form of ecclesiastical edifices previous to the Reformation” This plain church consists of a nave and a separate chancel, with a simple Y tracery in the windows, and has been dismissed recently as a rubble box … showing little trace of architectural aptitude, far less Ecclesiological influence”.[7] (Maclean, Scottish Episcopal Church). This harsh judgement is put in perspective by Marshall’s acknowledgement that “the sole architect in the construction … has been my own step-son, Master J. B. Henderson, a boy of fifteen years of age, whose general acquirements, and whose knowledge of the various styles of Church architecture in particular … are such as might confer honour upon individuals, who with all the assistance which a regular professional education can afford, have arrived in the full maturity of manhood”[8]. It seems safer to conclude that the Blairgowrie church is a better example of the good intentions in church design noted by Joseph Robertson than that a teenager was responsible for the starting point of the ecclesiological movement in Scotland.
For real signs of the architectural sophistication which characterised the ecclesiological movement we must look to the contemporary church of St. John’s, Jedburgh. Although recognised as one of the first Tractarian churches in Scotland, its origins and development have hardly been examined.[9] St. John’s was not merely the brilliant outcome of aristocratic patronage, but also the result of changes in the Episcopal church and of events which rocked the Established Church in the early 1840’s and led to the Disruption. Its construction therefore tells us much about the episcopalians’ aspirations during a disturbed phase of their history, and it marks a significant moment in the evolution of church architecture in Scotland.
The initial proposal – a flash in the pan?
The idea for an episcopal church in the parish of Jedburgh, with its strong tradition of presbyterian secession, had a surprising origin. It appears that the General Assembly’s attempt to frustrate the ministers of the presbytery of Strathbogie over the presentation to the parish of Mamoch, and the withdrawal of parishioners in January 1841, indirectly affected Jedburgh. In the years before the Disruption the parish minister of Jedburgh, the Rev. John Purves, had been active in the revival movements in association with other Border clergy. His “uncommonly earnest and impressive” sermons attracted large congregations and he frequently preached at weekday meetings in Jedburgh and the surrounding area.[10] In early March 1841 the Marquess of Lothian received a letter from “a number of the respectable inhabitants of Jedburgh and the Vicinity” expressing their disgust at the “lawless proceedings” of the dominant party in the church, and their “extreme dissatisfaction” with their minister, whom they believe was abetting the non-intrusionists “by his doings in and out of the Pulpit”. There is no indication in the presbytery minutes of problems at Jedburgh, but the feelings of the moderates were clearly offended. A provisional committee proposed the erection of an episcopalian chapel in the burgh and requested Lord Lothian’s sanction and financial assistance in the venture.[11] He immediately visited Jedburgh to inspect two possible sites and readily agreed to offer his assistance if details could be supplied of how they intended to raise funds to build a chapel and pay a clergyman.[12] His response may have disappointed the committee, for on 27 April he wrote that Jedburgh chapel “seems to have been a flash in the pan”.[13]
However, the committee, whose secretary was Robert Laing, the burgh clerk, and probably included several heritors, did not give up. It was noted later that the residents of Jedburgh and vicinity showed “a growing desire” for a church[14], although who they were and what action they took is unclear. Certainly their original idea had fallen on fertile ground. John Kerr, seventh Marquess of Lothian took his duties as a landowner seriously and was an active improver on his estates and not least in the parish of Jedburgh, where he was the principal heritor. Above all he was a religious man who supported several private schools, and paid a £10 subscription to the presbyterian chapel at Edgerston near the town. His own observance was an intriguing blend of traditional attendance at Newbattle or Ancrum parish church, depending on his residence at Newbattle Abbey or Monteviot, of private prayers and readings of sermons at home, and of attendance at episcopal worship in Edinburgh on feast days. In at least the last two he was joined by his devout Anglican wife, Cecil, daughter of the Marquess of Bath.[15] Describing the episcopal chapel proposal as a headache in April 1841, Lothian asked his brother the Rev. Lord Henry Kerr to interest himself in it on his next visit to Scotland.[16] If he did so there is no record of it, but in August they did discuss the recent proposal for an episcopal college, which later became Trinity College, Glenalmond. Although Lothian approved the scheme and had pledged £500 towards it, he told his brother that he thought “the maintenance of present Clergy and increase of required Church accommodation was of prior importance”.[17] His perception of the greater need for the provision of new churches may have determined him to assist the Jedburgh scheme, for he decided by autumn to buy ground for a chapel at the Cross Acre, a market garden on the northern edge of the burgh, and put the purchase in hand.[18]
This is how matters stood when Lothian died on 14 November. During the next few months his widow was preoccupied with the management of the family’s affairs, but the chapel project was not forgotten. In June 1842 the Earl of Home undertook to canvass the opinion of the late Marquess’s other trustees about the propriety of contributing to a chapel if the committee, which was still in existence, had any justification for their claim that the chapel could be started with a congregation of at least fifty individuals. If it was to be built merely for the convenience of the family at Monteviot and with only the chance of a congregation, he believed that the expense could not be justified.[19] In July the Duke of Buccleuch promised £100 and about the same was expected from Lord Douglas, although from his territorial interest in the parish it was thought he should give twice as much as the Duke, who had no connection.[20]
Home thought it probable that had Lord Lothian lived, he would have built the chapel as well as provided the ground. Therefore, he reasoned, the trustees should donate the site, a subscription for the building of the church and an annual subscription towards its running costs. The danger lay in the failure of promised support from other quarters if the grandees were seen to be giving enough to build what the “Jedburghites” thought was a sufficiently good chapel. Accordingly Lady Lothian suggested the plan adopted by the Church Building Society in England of making the family’s support dependent on what the congregation could raise itself. The proposal for matching funding was, however, incompatible with the family’s subscription being stated at the outset and it was probably abandoned. The most significant condition which Home proposed should be made was that the family should have a “preponderant voice in the choice of plan.”[21] Such a provision suggests strongly that Home, if not the other trustees and Lady Lothian, intended to adopt a particular arrangement and architectural style for the chapel.
Home also believed that they should acquiesce in the congregation’s wish for the bishop to have the right of presentation. About two months later the Bishop of Glasgow, in whose diocese Jedburgh lay, told Lady Lothian that he declined to be given the right and suggested an alternative scheme. It involved the creation of a trust, to which the chapel ground would be conveyed on behalf of the congregation, and its planned composition demonstrates the control which Lady Lothian and her allies wished to exert. At the meeting with the bishop and one or two unnamed leading episcopalians in the town, it was agreed there should five trustees. Lady Lothian would act with the bishop (an ex officio trustee) and the Duke of Buccleuch, and she was anxious that their quorum would be able to outvote the other two proposed trustees, John Scotland, factor to Lord Douglas, and Will Fair of Langlee, in the event of any differences over the choice of clergyman. As she told Buccleuch when inviting him to act as trustee on 20 October 1842, “We are more likely to choose a good man then the other two I should imagine”.[22] Scotland was an episcopalian and subscriber to the chapel, and Fair led the subscribers at the laying of the foundation stone in July 1843.
Yet the disposition signed by the Lothian trustees in October 1843 makes no mention of Scotland and Fair as chapel trustees, and instead names Lord Douglas and Lady Lothian’s brother-in-law, the Rev. Lord Henry Kerr.[23] It was normal for the patronal rights of an episcopal chapel to be vested in a few trustees, so it is tempting to interpret the alteration from the proposed inclusion of gentlemen to an essentially aristocratic means of control as a reaction to the events of the Disruption. However, John Scotland may also have been excluded because of his lack of discretion which the family had noted in the past, and the inclusion of the patroness’s brother-in-law was natural enough. The trustees were also ex officio members of the vestry, but their role in its daily affairs is obscured by the loss of the early minutes. It is likely to have been limited by the non-residence of most trustees, and Lord Douglas’s death in January 1844.[24] The changes undoubtedly underline the division in social rank and function between the trustees and the vestrymen, who, as Lady Lothian put it, were ‘to overlook the Yearly Accounts and the minor concerns of the Chapel”.[25] Furthermore, the assertion of patronal rights may point to an additional reason for the Scottish landed classes’ attraction to a denomination which was not riven by disputes over lay rights at this date.
The commissioning of the design
By autumn 1842 the Marchioness was firmly in control of the project. She reported to the Duke of Buccleuch on 20 October “I am very busy preparing plans etc for this Chapel and I hope we shall begin early in the Spring”. Detailed planning was evidently being undertaken, for in December her factor suggested a source of whinstone on the estate suitable for the chapel in answer to her query.[26] It seems likely that a professional architect had now been commissioned, although it is possible that Lady Lothian had formed her own ideas or received others’ proposals. She was well aware of an interesting parallel development, the private episcopal chapel at Dalkeith for her neighbours the Buccleuchs, which was then evolving through a series of amateur and professional designs. The Buccleuchs shared an interest in building with their relations the Lothian family, with whom they were on very friendly terms. As fellow episcopalians they discussed the Buccleuchs’ initial proposal for buying a meeting house in Dalkeith to use as a chapel in January 1841.[27] It was a mark of the changes in worship that the idea of taking over a meeting house was evidently deemed unsuitable for episcopal worship if not unbecoming the dignity of the duke who received Queen Victoria as his guest in 1842. The Duchess’s brother, the Rev. Lord John Thynne, a High Church Anglican, probably influenced the family’s decision to erect instead a new chapel in keeping with the latest ideas of architectural propriety emanating from the English ecclesiologists. The leading English architect Benjamin Ferrey produced designs for the Buccleuchs in late 1842, and other ideas came from High Church circles. In the end the commission went to the Scots architects, William Burn, well known for his St. John’s Episcopal Church, Edinburgh, and his partner the young David Bryce, who produced a rich design based on the Early English style, which was realised in 1845.[28]
This slow process prompted Lady Lothian to tease the Duke in October 1842 that the Jedburgh chapel would be finished before his. The route she took to a working design was probably more direct, for she is credited (on unknown evidence) with being one of the co-founders of Cambridge Camden Society, the main engine of the ecclesiological movement. Certainly she had access to some of the latest ideas being applied to Anglican church architecture through the pages of the society’s periodical The Ecclesiologist, and was familiar with the church building schemes operating in the Church of England.[29] The choice of the Exeter architect John Hayward to design the Jedburgh chapel nevertheless requires explanation. He was a leading member ofthe Exeter Diocesan Architectural Society and was achieving regional prominence in the early 1840’s with his increasingly sophisticated new churches in Devon. In October 1842 The Ecclesiologist praised his recent church at St. Andrew’s, Exwick near Exeter as ‘the best specimen of a modern church we have yet seen”.[30] This might have been sufficient to bring him to the notice of Lady Lothian, but by then she probably already knew of him, if she had not actually commissioned him, through her brother-in-law, the Rev. Lord Henry Kerr (1800 – 1882). He was the rector of Dittisham, Devon, a fellow member of the Exeter society and a Cambridge graduate with a strong interest in Scottish episcopal building projects. It is said that both he and the Marchioness’s brother, Lord John Talbot, had interested her in the Oxford Movement.[31]
The construction of the building is scantily documented. Hayward’s involvement first emerges when Lady Lothian’s factor told her in March 1843 that Hayward’s present plans could not be followed if the cost of the masons’ work was reduced by £300. Because of past bad experience the factor was anxious about the proposed employment of an English clerk of works unfamiliar with Borders building practice, but he acknowledged that for the church a proper person “acquainted with such buildings may facilitate the works in a way that we from want of practice cannot do here”. During May tradesmen’s tenders were sought and protracted efforts to drain the site began.[32] The foundation stone was laid by Lady Lothian on 14 July 1843 in a simple ceremony intended only for her family and the subscribers from Jedburgh and the neighbourhood[33]. The mason work, woodwork and plasterwork were respectively by Messrs Cranston, Thomson and Smith of Jedburgh. In the absence of building accounts we have to rely on Lady Lothian’s statement that the mason work amounted to about £900, the carpenter work to about £700, the slater work to about £170, and the plaster and plumber work to £25, making a total of £1,795.[34] Much of this probably came from her purse. In addition she endowed the congregation with £1,000 for the support of a minister in 1844.[35]
The new congregation formed in December in a house in the town and there were good reports of the start of services by the Rev. William Spranger White, Lady Lothian’s newly appointed English chaplain. It was felt necessary to observe the legal formality of registering White’s letters of orders in terms of the act of parliament in 1792 which had repealed the laws against the episcopalians. The practice had largely lapsed, so we can infer that the registration was probably undertaken either to forestall or to meet local objections. On 10 February 1844 the sheriff clerk accordingly made the first entry in a special register.[36] The congregation first occupied their church on 26 May 1844 and it was consecrated in a splendid ceremony on 15 August.[37]
With the commissioning of Hayward the Jedburgh project acquired a measure of the collective energy being generated by the Cambridge Camden Society, and it benefited directly from collaborations in its ecclesiological enterprise. Friendly criticism from fellow ecclesiologists seems to have enhanced Hayward’s facility for working on a small scale in the Decorated style, and the fitting out of the church was assisted by their designs. His scheme for St. John’s was ‘materially altered and improved” during the course of building, partly at the recommendation of the Camden Society, who made “many valuable suggestions”, so it is scarcely surprising that its mouthpiece The Ecclesiologist enthused at the finished result. “The noble founders have spared neither personal trouble nor money in making this church in some sort worthy of its purpose. We believe that few modern churches can compete with it in the ecclesiological propriety and decorative richness of their internal fittings and enrichments”.[38] Nevertheless this was a striking claim by a fastidiously critical organ, and it is worthwhile examining the executed design in order to understand what both patron and architect sought to achieve and why the church so excited the Tractarians.
The structure and layout of the church
In its plan and overall design, St. John’s embodied the ecclesiologists’ aim of an authentically detailed setting for sacramental worship. Its elevations reflect a deliberate attempt to shed the decorative elements then commonly used in gothic revival buildings in order to express the devotional purpose of the church more clearly. Hayward’s use of the Decorated style of the fourteenth century represents an early example of the English ecclesiologists’ growing preference in the 1840’s for the middle period of Gothic as a more perfect model than either the Early English or lancet style which was being heavily used, or the late medieval forms of Perpendicular. Within his attractively simple design, Hayward placed most of the features which became essential to the plans of almost all Scottish episcopal churches from that date; a nave and chancel defined as separate spaces, a porch, a vestry, and a bellcote, used here in place of a tower. Its other vital feature was its alignment with its to the east. This had already been applied to some earlier Gothic revival churches, but henceforward this alignment became almost obligatory for Scottish episcopal churches.
St. John’s church consists of an aisleless nave of four bays and a chancel of two, executed in dressed rubble in small courses for the walls and hewn stone for the quoins and mouldings. With a nave of 66 feet long and 27 feet wide and a chancel of 30 by 21 feet, it is a modest size. The roof is steeply pitched in the approved ecclesiological manner and covered in Westmorland slates. On the south is the porch, with a small chamber called a parvise above it, entered by a tiny newel stair in the porch, and balancing it on the north of the chancel is the small vestry. The east and west windows are filled with Decorated tracery. Crosses terminate the east gables of nave and chancel. Surmounting the west gable of the nave is a bellcote, a feature which excited the suspicions of local critics. Local reaction to another feature associated with medieval church architecture is unrecorded. At the entrance to the churchyard stands a picturesque lychgate with timber beams and tiled roof, which completes the image of an English country church transposed to a Scottish setting. It was designed by William Butterfield, then at the beginning of his brilliant architectural career, and closely associated with the Cambridge Camden Society. He also assisted Hayward with the interior of the church, and north of the church he is said to have added a school and schoolhouse in 1845. Together the church and school form a fine group of buildings beside the Jed Water. Like the lychgate they are among Butterfield’s earliest realised attempts at these different structures.[39]
To contemporaries familiar with churches and chapels of the period, with their pews and galleries focussing attention on triple-decker pulpits, and their rectangular spaces defined by lath and plaster, Hayward’s interior appeared very striking. Its complementary qualities of simplicity and enrichment are still very evident. In place of pews there are open oak benches ranged either side of a central aisle which draws the eye up through the nave, through the chancel arch and towards the altar and the east window. The pulpit is placed to one side of this axis and the nave space rises to the exposed timber roof. Open roofs gained widespread currency in “correct” churches because they satisfied the ecclesiological principle that the structure of a building should be honestly and openly expressed. Often the pine beams were varnished to imitate oak where the real material was too expensive, but occasionally they were painted. Here a subdued background colour was relieved by a diaper pattern in bright colours over the entire nave roof. This scheme, now obscured by modern paint, was executed by the Edinburgh decorator D. R. Hay, then at the height of his powers as an interior decorator and theorist of colour and pattern. His church work was normally for Roman Catholic churches.[40]
Many other arresting features catch the eye in the nave. The first major feature and one of the most significant is the font, which stands to the west of the church door, in the position regarded by the ecclesiologists as the correct one. This was intended to symbolise entry into the church through baptism, and it bears alternating evangelists’ symbols and quatrefoils. On the right of the door is the oak alms box, another ecclesiological detail. Its ornamental foliage scrolls were designed by the painter William Dyce, whose other work for the church is discussed below. All over this part of the church, scriptural texts were painted, now obscured or lost. Set above the door is the stone balcony behind which lay the room above the porch where Hayward placed the organ, built by Hamilton of Edinburgh. This is now blocked. Immediately inside the door the scheme of decorated encaustic floor tiles begins with the arms of the Lothian family and the diocese of Glasgow, informing us of the benefactors and the superintending bishop, and continues up the aisle with the arms and initials of the founders and the Queen, and the date of the Church.[41]
The benches seated 180 people and those at the front were free, a point emphasised at the time to show that the chapel was not socially exclusive. Beyond them originally stood small choir stalls at right angles facing across the aisle. Hayward’s original intention was to place the choir in the chancel.[42] At the front of the nave a faldstool, or small reading desk, could be placed for reading the Litany. To the right stood a bronze eagle lectern, based on an original in the parish church of King’s Lynn, which was gifted by the Dean of Edinburgh, E. B. Ramsay, a personal friend of the Lothians.[43] To the left of the chancel arch is the pulpit carved with cusped panels and surmounted with a shallow stone canopy. It is reached by a staircase through the wall from the vestry, an arrangement derived from medieval precedents. The feature reappears at St. Mary’s Dalkeith soon afterwards, but it is as likely that the designs have a common origin, probably the refectory pulpit in Beaulieu Abbey, as that Hayward directly influenced Burn and Bryce. The pulpit was gifted by the Dowager Queen Adelaide, widow of William IV, who was an active patron of the ecclesiologists and whose involvement was possibly due to Lady Lothian’s influence.
In the west window only the upper sections between the tracery were decorated at first, until the main panels were replaced with scenes of the Passion and Ascension in 1853. Other windows in the nave have simpler tracery and were at first filled with clear leaded panes in medieval patterns. Only the window opposite the door contained stained glass, depicting the arms of the sees of Durham in which Jedburgh was originally situated, and of Glasgow. This work was by the Edinburgh specialist, Ballantynes. To light the nave two distinctive brass coronae once hung from the roof, designed by Butterfield especially for gas lighting; they were particularly admired for achieving “somewhat more of ecclesiastical propriety” than other gas lamps.[44]
The lofty space of the nave contrasts with the enclosed chancel where the most decoration was concentrated to emphasise the centrality of the sacrament in Tractarian worship. To separate the space where the clergy officiated from the nave, Hayward’s chancel screen of elaborate Decorated tracery in carved oak fills the chancel arch to the height of about eleven feet.[45] Two steps lead up into the chancel, the risers bearing texts reminding the onlooker of death and judgment. The floor tiles begin with a St. Andrew’s cross as a pun on the “saltire”, the term for the space beyond the entrance to the chancel. Nearer the altar steps the tiles bear Puginesque floriated designs and the figurative panels of the evangelists’ emblems, including St. John’s eagle, and the medieval symbol of the pelican in its piety, indicating Christ’s suffering and the resurrection. The altar is approached up three steps and represents perhaps the most important features which the ecclesiologists reintroduced in place of the communion tables of protestant churches. The Scottish episcopalians were free to erect stone altars, unlike their Anglican cousins, so Hayward made the most of the opportunity to grace the sanctuary with an altar of Caen stone embellished with elaborately carved quatrefoils. On the altar for the consecration stood two gilt candlesticks with wax tapers, which were lit, it was explained, only when required, at evening prayers. Also placed there for the consecration ceremony were silver-gilt communion vessels, inscribed with the Latin words of the institution of the sacrament, and designed by Butterfield. At this period he had the task of superintending the execution of communion vessels for the Camden Society and he designed most himself.[46] Beside them lay two elaborately volumes of the Scottish liturgy, which will be discussed below.
Instead of a reredos, the carved feature above the altar which was to become a typical feature of episcopal churches, Hayward placed tiles bearing sacred emblems designed by A. W. N. Pugin. He had employed a similar in his highly praised church at Exwick, and some of the designs are identical. They run right round the chancel walls, forming a rich setting for the other features by which the ecclesiologists set so much store. On the south side are the sedilia, or recessed stone seats for the clergy, which were a conscious restoration of a medieval feature to chancels, and here are given some elaborate crocketed hoods modelled on the sedilia in the parish church of Ottery St. Mary. Devon. Like the altar and the pulpit, the sedilia was carved from Caen stone in the workshop of Mr. Rowe of Exeter. Lady Lothian paid for the sedilia and altar.[47] Two other features which were required for the high form of liturgical service reappeared. The piscina, an open recess in which to place communion vessels, and on the north side the credence table on a bracket to hold the elements.
The chancel roof is strikingly decorated. Its wooden beams were painted blue and red, while the ceiling between was covered with blue porcelain tiles designed and presented by Herbert Minton. They are studded with gilt stars, every sixteen tiles forming a square with a crimson quatrefoil enclosing a sacred emblem.[48] The chancel windows contained a full set of fine figurative stained glass depicting the Agony in the Garden, Christ bearing the Cross, and the Ascension, as a memorial to Lord Lothian. They were executed by the London firm of Ward and Nixon in time for the consecration at a cost of £150 – £200. The north window of the chancel depicting the miracle of the loaves and fishes inspired the Rev. John Keble to pen twelve stanzas which he presented to Lady Lothian.[49] The richly coloured biblical scenes which the windows mostly contained were to become commonplace in churches of several denominations, but in the 1840s this fresh style was a matter for comment.
The consecration festival
St John’s was, and remains, a forcible statement of the ecclesiologists’ ideals. It was launched in a striking fashion by its patrons and subscribers and their friends and allies. As the Rev. W. H. Teale, one of the participants who probably helped to stage the event, wrote, “it was determined that the work should not be done as if they were ashamed of their religion”.[50] At the consecration ceremony on 15 August 1844 an exceptional array of four Scottish bishops and thirty-two clergy took part, among them several luminaries of the Oxford Movement. Bishop Russell of Glasgow led the clergy, with the Primus, Bishop Skinner of Aberdeen, Low of Moray, Ross and Argyll, and Terrot of Edinburgh. The English clergy included John Keble, the founder of the Oxford Movement, then Vicar of Hursley, Robert Wilberforce, archdeacon of the East Riding of Yorkshire, William Dodsworth, curate of Christ Church, St. Pancras, London, W. H. Teale from Yorkshire, John and Frances Grey, two clerical sons of Earl Grey from Durham and Northumberland, several other Northumbrian clergy, and Dr. W. G. Hook, vicar of Leeds. Their presence was of course no accident and resulted from the connections between the Lothian family and supporters of the Oxford Movement in England and Scotland.
Lady Lothian had met W. F. Hook in about March 1842, and he became her confidant and spiritual adviser. Her friend the Earl of Home liked Hook’s churchmanship, which was high but stopped short of the extreme Catholicity of some Tractarians. The appearance of “the notorious Puseyite vicar of Leeds” at the consecration was reported locally well in advance, and it appears that she recruited his assistance in planning the consecration, and probably also in securing the participation of other clergy. It was probably for this purpose that she visited him in Leeds in late May. Later he claimed he might have proposed alterations to the ceremony had he known her well enough. What he may have had in mind was an even more explicit statement of catholic worship, for as he told another participant, the Hon. and Rev. Francis Grey, rector of Morpeth, “The consecration of Jedburgh was intended to be a demonstration at a time when we hoped to awaken the Church in Scotland”.[51] Hook was a strong proponent of church extension, and he had personal experience of the importance of consecrations as outward symbols of the meaning and value of the Church. His own new parish church had consecrated in September 1841 in an elaborate service attended not only by English bishops, but also the Bishop of New Jersey, and his old friend Bishop Low.
Church music
One of Hook’s many achievements at Leeds was to introduce choral services as part of parish worship, and the plan to do the same in St. John’s suggests his influence. The choir which sang at the consecration service was borrowed from St. John’s Episcopal Church, Edinburgh, doubtless through the good offices of Dean Ramsay, but significantly Hook loaned a Mr. Sparks from Leeds to assist Mr. Hamilton, the organist of St. John’s.[52] This was probably done to ensure that the chanted parts of the services, based on English cathedral practice, were correctly sung by minister and choir. Lady Lothian and her allies may have been put on their mettle by the consecration of the new Roman Catholic church of St. Mary and St. David at Hawick on 22 May 1844, at which the choir of St. Mary’s Edinburgh, gave “a most brilliant performance”.[53] The presence of the Rev. William Dodsworth at St. John’s is further circumstantial evidence of the way the ceremony reflected the close connections in England between certain Tractarians and the revival of choral music. He was one of several enthusiastic revivers and his charge, Christ Church, Albany Street, was among the first to support a surpliced choir in London. The organist and schoolmaster appointed to train the choir at St. John’s was educated at St. Mark’s College, Chelsea, opened in 1841 as a school where choral music formed part of the education.[54]
Of crucial importance for the music at St. John’s was the production by William Dyce of his settings of the Scottish liturgy. in 1844 he was on the verge of achieving fame as a painter, but had already established himself as an ecclesiological authority with his publication on the ceremony of laying the foundation stones of churches and his Notes on the Altar (1844), an historical survey of the position of the altar in Anglican churches. W. E. Gladstone consulted him over the design of Trinity College, Glenalmond in 1843, and later he was involved with the internal arrangement of the chapel and the installation of its stained glass. Dyce and Gladstone shared a love of choral music, and Dyce is now credited with founding the modern tradition of Anglican plainchant with his edition of Merbecke’s setting of The Order of Daily Service (1843). Next, he himself set the Scottish Communion Office, apparently for use in the Trinity College chapel, and designed the book, which was printed to match the English office by his cousin James Burns in London. On revising the last sheet on 19 July 1844 he informed one of the projectors of Trinity College of the liturgy’s imminent use at the Jedburgh consecration. He sent Gladstone a copy on 18 July, fresh from the press.[55] The Jedburgh copy was “richly bound and ornamented externally with gilt clasps and bosses”, and it was matched by a large quarto volume of the Scottish Prayer Book, also printed by Burns and “adorned with two massive silver ornaments, enriched by deep blue enamel squares at the four corners bearing the Cross in gold, and the like in the centre, bearing the monogram of the Sacred Name.”[56] Dyce’s design for the Communion Office included decorative whose plant scrolls resemble those on the poor’s box in St. John’s. He probably played some part in the design of the bindings of both service books for the consecration, which clearly recall medieval liturgies and are fine examples of this aspect of ecclesiology which was being developed by Pugin and others. There is no evidence to link Butterfield with this work, although he designed many book covers for churches.[57]
The six sermons
Hook not only influenced the musical content of the ceremony, but he, rather than the Bishop of Glasgow or another Scottish cleric, preached the consecration sermon. In “The Church in Scotland Aggressive”, on Matthew 5:16, he called on the Scottish Episcopal Church to propagate the Gospel principles and to “spread a more catholic spirit through the length and breadth of the land”. He was careful to state that respect was due to the established church, but the episcopalians should use their differences over essentials of doctrine and church government in order to convince the Kirk of the deficiencies of its system. He strongly enjoined observance of liturgical worship. It expressed the centrality of baptism and the eucharist, which made it necessary for the font and the altar to occupy conspicuous places in church. St. John’s was built as a place of homage where others could “discern the principle which the Church observes in appointing her services, and in conducting her public worship”. The following day Hook delivered another sermon, in which he described the part played by ecclesiastical symbolism and the varied prayers of the liturgy in keeping attention focussed on “the sanctuary”.[58]
The consecration ceremony
Four other English clergy preached, but no Scot. Archdeacon Wilberforce preached on the necessity of prayer, praise and the sacrament of communion for salvation, and William Dodsworth, John Keble and W. H. Teale each developed the theme of regular liturgical worship. They thus emphasised the establishment of St. John’s as a place where communion would be offered with reverence and dignity in the form of daily offices and frequent communions, which was a novelty at this period. The church, they said, was intended to express the notion of the beauty of holiness.[59] To underline the point the consecration was managed with a degree of ceremony unprecedented in the episcopalians’ post-Revolution history. The bishops wore their episcopal robes, the clergy their surplices, stoles and hoods, and the choir was also in surplices. Starting from Robert Laing’s house nearby, the procession was led by the vestry, followed by the four bishops, each with two chaplains, the choir and the clergy. Following the English form of consecration, as was usual at this date, the trustees’ petition for consecration was presented and after prayers were said, was authorised and ordered to be registered in the diocesan records. Morning prayer followed, chanted by the Rev. W. White, with the people and choir chanting the psalms and responses, then a communion service. The choral high point was Thomas Tallis’s setting of the creed. As Rev. W. H. Teale wrote: “It is believed that this church is the first church in Scotland in which the choral service has been restored since the Revolution”.[60]
Reactions to the consecration
The use of the Scottish liturgy was one of the most significant aspects of the service because the Tractarians favoured it as a better formulation of sacramental worship than the English communion office. Few clergy in the south of Scotland employed it, so its introduction at Jedburgh was unusual, and in view of the hostility of many clergy, liable to stir up a reaction. Bishop Russell authorised its use in May 1844 after being satisfied that it was desired by the majority of the congregation, but he anticipated “the calumny of tongues” for doing so. As he told Bishop Skinner, “I did not expect an application for it from the edge of the Cheviot Hills, and backed by natives of England”.[61] The natives were presumably English members of the congregation, including Lady Lothian herself, and while there is no direct evidence that her English clerical friends influenced the choice, any one of several English or Scottish clerics may have done so. She certainly liked the Scottish form, for in describing the services on Sunday, 18th August she told her sister “Our yesterday’s festival was very very gratifying. The Scotch office overpoweringly beautiful.”[62]
The consecration festival held deep personal significance for her as the fulfilment of her husband’s wishes and of her own religious duty, and she drew strength from the participation of the English clergy. She cherished her good fortune in counting as friends John Keble and his wife, Wilberforce, and the other worthy clerics who were her guests at Monteviot. Hook was especially attractive to her, “really such a friend as few are blessed with”. His allusions to her husband’s benefaction and her own role in completing the project, caused her almost to break down at the consecration service. She wrote rapturously of the eventful four days of services and celebrations, and expressed her sense of humility at being “God’s chosen instrument”. W. E. Gladstone expressed the same sense of zealous embarkation on a divinely sanctioned endeavour after the consecration of the Gladstone’s private chapel at Fasque three years later.[63]
Such high ideas about the purpose of churches were not shared by certain clergy in the diocese of Glasgow, whose opposition to Tractarianism became more vocal at this period. They pressed Bishop Russell to introduce measures to have the Scottish office replaced as the primary stand of the Church by the English liturgy. The appearance of English Tractarian clergy at Jedburgh was remarkable, and it was unsurprising that the extraordinary and unprecedented ceremony should attract criticism from the evangelical wing of the Church. In September 1844 the Rev. Charles Popham Miles, of St. Jude’s, Glasgow, took his bishop to task for the “unhappy display” of the consecration ceremony, including the procession of the clergy to the church, which he alleged was offensive to many Christians. Miles alleged that the English liturgy was disregarded and stubbornly attacked the offensive style of the display, which he claimed was not lessened by the presence of at least four clergy who were “avowedly the supporters of a peculiar school” adding, “This in plain language was a display of Tractarian energy”.
The bishop was thrown on the defensive, claiming that he knew very few of the English clergy, but that he found them “pious, meek and self-denied”, unlike, as he implied, his correspondent. He also explained lamely that rather than arriving in a proper procession, as Miles alleged, they had all hurried to the church under umbrellas in the pouring rain. Russell admitted that the architectural descriptions in the press had been unusual, “the giving new names to old things, and thereby exciting the fears of the ignorant. This I regret”. Above all he sought to reassure Miles that there was nothing done at Jedburgh to undermine the position of the English liturgy in the Episcopal Church, which remained a matter for each congregation. However, Miles remained unimpressed “l may add, that it is not the “new names“ given to “old things“ which … excites the fears of Protestants, but rather, we are alarmed at the revival of old things themselves, and associate with the revival the superstitions, and the idolatry, and the mummeries of Rome!” Miles was now determined to support his fellow minister, the Rev. Sir William Dunbar, who had recently been excommunicated because of conflicts over the Scottish liturgy in Aberdeen, and therefore soon after this correspondence Miles repudiated the bishop’s authority.[64]
Miles’s own church of St. Jude’s was essentially a preaching space rendered in bold Grecian style by John Stephen in 1838–9. Its completely classical statement might be taken to symbolise the low church views of the congregation, for it represents the very opposite of what the nascent ecclesiological movement was striving for. In the case of St Thomas’s, Edinburgh, a disavowal of ecclesiological theory and practice was almost certainly behind the choice of an eclectic Norman revival style, an idiom which was being used in England by those indifferent or opposed to the new prescriptions.[65] Contemporary with St. John’s, Jedburgh, it was designed by the Edinburgh architect David Cousin in 1843 for the congregation which adhered to the Rev. D. T. K. Drummond. His evangelical prayer and bible meetings had brought him into a conflict with the Bishop of Edinburgh which led to his resignation from the Church and the establishment of a congregation independent of the bishop’s authority in 1842.[66] It is likely that the hostility which the Anglican evangelicals felt towards the ecclesiologists was shared by Drummond and his sympathisers, and led them to erect a church devoid of Gothic features on the plan of a preaching space. Later English Episcopal churches which existed outwith the Scottish bishops’ jurisdiction, for example St. Paul’s, Aberdeen, and St. Silas’s, Glasgow, utilised Gothic in a fashion similar to presbyterian churches.
Local responses
Local reaction in Jedburgh to the appearance of an alien type of church is not clear. The whiggish Kelso Chronicle was hostile to the style of the foundation stone ceremony and warned of Puseyite tendencies, but this was a common theme in the British press in summer 1844.[67] As the bellcote of the church neared completion some people voiced the erroneous belief that the law forbade Scottish dissenters of any denomination from ringing bells, or even erecting a belfry to house them. However, the mischievous correspondent in the Chronicle who anticipated the marring of the chapel’s beauty by the enforced demolition of the “steeple” was silenced by anonymous letters from an episcopalian and a United Secession minister with a better grasp of the law.[68] Later that year the kirk session was exercised by the question, but then advised the presbytery that it was inexpedient to proceed.[69] A more positive reaction may have been that by establishing regular choral services at St. John’s with a choir recruited from the children at the episcopal school, the kirk session was stirred to raise the standard of psalmody in the parish kirk. The timing of the precentor’s resolution of training the congregation’s children according to some professional advice in the autumn of 1844, is certainly suggestive.[70]
Propaganda in stone
It was decided at the time of the Jedburgh consecration to publish the six sermons, a task which fell to the Rev. W. H. Teale. He prefaced them with a lengthy and informative description of the fabric in which he aimed not only to draw attention to the “judicious regard to ecclesiastical propriety in which the whole has been conceived”, but to provide details of the design, arrangement and minutest detail of the church for readers who might find them of practical use. With his architectural description illustrated with engraved views and a ground plan, his detailed account of the ceremony, the sextet of sermons, and the mention of the proposed daily saying of the office, frequent communion and choral services, Teale’s little volume was unmistakably a piece of decorous ecclesiological and Tractarian propaganda. Indeed, Like the church itself, it blended their aims into a single whole. As a historian of the Oxford Movement in Scotland wrote, “St. John’s, Jedburgh, in the simplicity of its architectural style and in the perfect finish of every part of it, recalls the very spirit of Keble, modest, reverent and above all thorough in the loving care bestowed upon every detail of screen, pulpit, bench ends and even tiles”.[71]
Architectural and ecclesiastical effects
The influence of St. John’s on the Episcopal Church is hard to gauge. Architecturally few churches or chapels came to match the depth and richness of its design, but the type of English church to which it was related may have provided models for subsequent developments in Scottish church design. St. John’s was followed all over Scotland by many other less elaborate and cheaper variants on its essential arrangement of aiseless nave, chancel, porch and bellcote or tower. In the 1840’s and 1850’s the most prolific exponent of the new Tractarian style was John Henderson, who is not to be confused with the youthful architect of the church at Blairgowrie. His main churches the 1840’s had been exercises in the eclectic Gothic which the Tractarians denigrated, and it is possible that having seen St. John’s at its consecration he was inspired to produce more “correct” designs. St. Mary’s, Dunblane, 1845, although designed in Early English style with lancet windows, nonetheless shares an overall simplicity of form with Jedburgh. Henderson achieved this also with St. Mary’s, Hamilton, finished in 1847, and St. Columba’s, Edinburgh, of 1846–8. Until more work is done on these and later church designs, it will not be possible to conclude safely that St. John’s had a limited effect.[72]
The influence of the St. John’s consecration was perhaps felt in the ceremony at Dunblane on 11 May 1845, which was performed by the aged Bishop Torry of St. Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane, accompanied by the Bishops of Glasgow and Moray, and twenty-two priests in surplices. Although the consecration was not conducted as elaborately as at Jedburgh, the Scottish Communion Office was used and defended by one of its leading supporters, the Rev. John Alexander, who preached.[73] In his pugnacious sermon the polarisation of liturgical and doctrinal beliefs can be detected, which was placing the proponents of the Scottish liturgy alongside those who favoured a Tractarian approach in architecture. Doctrinal difficulties concerning the real presence were already dividing the Church in 1845. The push by the ecclesiologists for “correct” church design was inextricably bound up with the Tractarian movement, and their architectural zeal helped foment discord within the Church, just as it did south of the Border.
Critics of Tractarian views warned of a drift towards doctrines which were essentially Roman Catholic and at Jedburgh this tendency had an unexpected and embarrassing outcome for the episcopalians. In 1851 the Marchioness of Lothian became a Roman Catholic as the result of long-held feelings and recent events in the Church of England. For many Anglicans the Gorham judgement in 1850 convinced them that only the Roman Church remained untrammelled by the state and it prompted their conversion. The Rev. Lord Henry Kerr also quit the Church of England and converted in 1852. Two other leading participants in the Jedburgh ceremony converted, the Rev. W. Dodsworth in 1851, and in 1854 Archdeacon Wilberforce. It cannot have helped St. John’s that Robert Laing, one of its leading laymen, who handled its legal affairs, also became Catholic in 1853.[74] Although Lady Lothian and her brother remained trustees until 1863, her removal from the congregation affected the school, and it was probably the reason why, despite expanding numbers, it was decided not to proceed with the construction of an aisle to Hayward’s plans in 1854–5.[75] However, the cycle of ecclesiastical endowment by the family had already begun again with their large contribution towards the Catholic chapel in Dalkeith, built in 1853–4 to the ecclesiologically-correct designs of J. A. Hansom, an English architect. It is similar in scale and feeling to St. John’s.[76]
Conclusion
Although several of its founders were no longer of the congregation, St. Johns pioneering role remained, as other churches were erected throughout Scotland in a dynamic building programme.[77] St John’s embodied a conscious revival of medieval forms, in which architecture and the fine arts were blended into a consistent whole expressing the Tractarians’ vision of the Church by Catholic worship. Its character and purpose was well summarised by a sympathetic observer at the time of the consecration:
“It is, we believe, the only new church which has yet been completed in Scotland on the true principles of Catholic architecture, and as far as we can judge, it is perfectly chaste in all its parts, and correct in its arrangements. It embraces, we should say, all the essentials for the proper celebration of divine service according to the ritual of our Church. A very large sum, indeed, must have been expended in furnishing it out in such an efficient and handsome manner, and the piety and munificence of its noble patroness must excite the gratitude of every Churchman, while he cannot fail to regard the event with unmingled satisfaction as an earnest of the dawning of brighter days.” [78]
[1] J. Robertson, Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals (Aberdeen, 1891), 100-101; a reprint of his review of Robert Billings and William Burn, The baronial and ecclesiastical antiquities of Scotland (1847-1849) and other works, originally published in Quarterly Review, June 1849.
[2] J.M. Robinson, Treasures of the English Churches (London, 1995), 155-65, summarises the emergence of the ecclesiological movement well.
[3] A. Maclean, “The Scottish Episcopal Church and the Ecclesiological Movement, 1840- 1860”, Architectural Heritage, viii (1997), 47-59.
[4] The Ecclesiologist, 8 (1848), 139.
[5] The Ecclesiologist, 3 (1844), 87.
[6] J. Marshall, A History of Scottish Ecclesiastical and Civil Affairs (Edinburgh, 1859), 29.
[7] Maclean, “Scottish Episcopal Church”, n.6, citing The New Statistical Account of Scotland (1845), 927, and S. McKinstry, Rowand Anderson, ‘The Premier Architect of Scotland’ (Edinburgh, 1991), 35.
[8] J. Marshall, The Lord’s house. Being a discourse preached at the opening of a house of prayer, on the fifth Wednesday in Lent, 1843 (Edinburgh, 1843), viii.
[9] A. Ryrie, A Vision Pursued: St John’s Church, Jedburgh, 1844-1994 (1994), provides an excellent history of the congregation, and a short account of the building of the church.
[10] J. Tait, Two centuries of Border church life [vol. 1] (Kelso, 1889), 330-3; Jubilee celebrations of the Rev. John Purves, LL.D., Free Church, Jedburgh (Edinburgh, 1878), vi-vii.
[11] SRO, GD 40/9/390, Robert Laing to the Marquess of Lothian, 8 March 1841.
[12] SRO, GD 40/15/70/4, Marquess of Lothian’s journal, 10 March 1841; GD 40/9/386, p.39, copy of Marquess of Lothian to Robert Laing, 14 March 1841.
[13] SR0, GD 40/9/386, p.49, copy of Marquess of Lothian to Lord Henry Kerr 27 April 1841.
[14] Six Sermons preached at the Consecration of the Church of St John the Evangelist Jedburgh in the Diocese of Glasgow, ed. W.H. Teale (Edinburgh, 1845) xv.
[15] SRO, GD 40/15/70/4, Marquess’s journal, January-November 1841.
[16] SRO, SRO, GD 40/15/70/4, Marquess’s journal, 26 August 1841.
[17] GD 40/9/386, p. 49, copy of Marquess of Lothian to Lord Henry Kerr, 27 April 1841.
[18] Teale, Six Sermons, xv; SRO, GD 40/14/31/4, Bond of corroboration by the late Marquess’s trustees and deed of mortification by Marchioness of Lothian, 29 March – 7 June 1844.
[19] SRO, GD 40/9/397/12, Earl of Home to Marchioness of Lothian. 23 June 1842.
[20] SRO, GD 40/9/397/13, Home to Marchioness of Lothian. 1 1 July 1842.
[21] SRO, GD 40/9/397/16, Home to Marchioness of Lothian, 21 August 1842.
[22] lbid.; GD 40/9/397/22, Home to Marchioness of Lothian, 25 October 1842; GD 224/1025, Marchioness of Lothian to Duke of Buccleuch, 20 October 1842.
[23] SRO, GD 224/1025, disposition in trust by the trustees of the late Marquess of Lothian to trustees of St John’s Episcopal Chapel, Jedburgh. 12, 14 & 17 October 1843
[24] Ryrie, Vision Pursued, 24; SRO, GD 40/14/31/3, extract of deed of constitution, signed by the trustees, 1-28 November 1843, and recorded in the Roxburghshire Sheriff Court register of deeds, 24 June 186j (SRO, SC 62/56/31).
[25] SRO, GD 224/1025, Marchioness of Lothian to Duke of Buccleuch, 20 October 1842.
[26] Ibid.; GD 40/9/393, J. Grainger to Marchioness, 17 December 1842.
[27] SRO, GD 40/15/70/4, Marquess’s journal, 3 January 1841. See entry for 2 March 1841 for a visit to Dalkeith Palace at the Buccleuchs’ request to consult with William Bum about a coved ceiling.
[28] J Gifford, “Dalkeith Chapel and the end of a partnership”, in V. Fiddes and A. Rowan, David Bryce 1803-1876 (Edinburgh, 1976), 31-36. Designs for St Mary’s episcopal chapel are in SRO, RHP 9717/1-25, and related papers, 1842-1845 in GD 224/1009/22-23.
[29] P. Thompson, William Butterfield (London, 1971), 44. The authority for Lady Lothian’s role is not stated; cf. M. Cherry, “Patronage, the Anglican Church and the local architect in Victorian England”, in The Victorian Church: Architecture and Society, edd. C. Brooks and A. Saint (London, 1995), 182; SRO. GD 40/9/397/22, Earl of Home to Marchioness of Lothian, 25 October 1842.
[30] Ibid., 173, 181-2.
[31] J. Balfour Paul, The Scots Peerage, v (1908), 484; Ryrie, Vision Pursued, 4.
[32] SRO, GD 40/9/393/20, 25-6, J. Grainger to Marchioness of Lothian, 30 March, 6 & 25 May 1843.
[33] Kelso Mail, 17 July 1843
[34] Kelso Chronicle, 26 July 1844; SRO, GD 224/1009/22/18, Marchioness of Lothian to Duchess of Buccleuch, 10 May 1846.
[35] SRO, GD 40/14/31/4, Bond of corroboration by the late Marquess’s trustees and deed of mortification by Marchioness of Lothian, 29 March – 7 June 1844.
[36] SRO, SC 62/73/1, register of certificates of oaths and declarations by episcopal clergy, 1844-58.
[37] Ryrie, Vision Pursued, 4, 11
[38] The Ecclesiologist, 3 (1844), 113, quoted in Cherry. “Patronage”, 182.
[39] Thompson, Butterfield, 44, 435, 476. The ground for the school buildings was not given to St John’s until 1848 (SRO, GD 40/14/31/5, Disposition by late Marquess’s trustees, 21 December 1847- 3 January 1848).
[40] Teale, Six Sermons, xxix; Kelso Mail, 22 August 1844; D.R. Hay, Original Geometric Designs (London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, 1844); Dictionary of National Biography, ix, 253-4.
[41] SRO, RHP 37883, printed paper designs for the floor tiles by Minton, c. 1843-44.
[42] SRO, GD 224/1025/1, the Rev. A. Tarbutt to Duke of Buccleuch, 26 February 1855.
[43] Teale, Six Sermons, xxv-xxvi; Kelso Mail 22 August 1844.
[44] Teale, Six Sermons, xxvii-xxviii, xxxviii; Scottish Ecclesiastical Journal, iii, no 34 (October 1853), 232.
[45] SRO, RHP 37895, working drawings of the screen by John Hayward. Exeter, 8 December 1843.
[46] Teale, Six Sermons, xxxii; Thompson, Butterfield, 494-5.
[47] Teale, Six Sermons, xxxi-xxxv; Kelso Chronicle, 21 June 1844. Next year an Exeter mason carved the font and a screen for St Mary’s, Dalkeith (SRO, GD 224/34/1, B. Ferrey to Duke of Buccleuch, 4 November 1845).
[48] Teale, Six Sermons, xxxvi.
[49] SRO, GD 40/2/17/5, dated 15 August 1844.
[50] Teale, Six Sermons, xlii-xliii.
[51] SRO, GD 40/9/397/2, Earl of Home to Marchioness of Lothian, 23 March 1842; Kelso Chronicle, 26 April 1844; Hook witnessed her deed of mortification to the church at Leeds, 22 May 1844 (see note 35); W.R.W. Stephens, The Life and Letters of Walter Farquhar Hook, ii (1878), 181, 238.
[52] B. Rainbow, The Choral Revival in the Anglican Church (1839-1872) (London 1970), 26-8; Kelso Mail, 22 August 1844.
[53] Kelso Chronicle, 7 June 1844.
[54] Rainbow, Choral Revival, 66-7, 136; Teale, Six Sermons, lii.
[55] M. Pointon, William Dyce 1806-1864. A Critical Biography (Oxford, 1979). 61-2, 66-70; Rainbow, Choral Revival, 79; NLS, MS 3669, fo. 97, W. Dyce to J Scott-Hope, 19 July 1844. Scott-Hope’s sister was married to the Rev. Lord Henry Kerr.
[56] Teale, Six Sermons, xxxii-xxxiii. The books are still in the Church’s possession.
[57] C. Wainwright, “Book Design and Production” in P. Atterbury and C. Wainwnght, Pugin. A Gothic Passion (London, 1994), 153-4; Thompson, Butterfield, 493.
[58] Teale, Six Sermons, 21, 23, 55-72.
[59] Teale, Six Sermons, 31-54, 73-132. The main points are well summarised in Ryrie, Vision Pursued, 6-10.
[60] Teale, Six Sermons, l-li; Kelso Mail, 22 August 1844.
[61] W. Walker, Three Churchmen. Sketches and Reminiscences of the Right Rev. Michael Russell … Right Rev. Charles Hugh Terrot … and George Grub (Edinburgh, 1893), 75; quoted in G. White, “New names for old things: Scottish Reaction to Early Tractarianism”, in Renaissance and Renewal in Christian History, ed. D.
Baker (Oxford, 1977), 333.
[62] SRO, GD 40/9/399, Marchioness of Lothian to Caroline Talbot, 19 August 1844.
[63] Ibid., The Gladstone Diaries, iii, M.R.D. Foot and H.C.G. Matthew (Oxford, 1847), 28 August 1847.
[64] C.P. Miles, An Address to the Members of St Jude’s Congregation, Glasgow (Glasgow, 1844), 42-45, 52-3. 58.
[65] H.-R. Hitchcock, Early Victorian Architecture in Britain, i (London, 1972), 114-15.
[66] R. Foskett, “The Drummond controversy, 1842”, RSCHS, xvi (1967), 99-109.
[67] The Scotsman, 17 August 1844, reviewing W.G. Ward, The Ideal of the Christian Church; Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, xi (1844), 294-302.
[68] Kelso Chronicle, 29 March, 12, 19 & 26 April 1844.
[69] SRO, CH 2/198/18, Jedburgh presbytery minutes, 11 December 1844, 5 January 1845.
[70] SRO, CH 2/552/13, Jedburgh kirk session minutes, 27 October 1844.
[71] W. Perry, Oxford Movement in Scotland (Cambridge, 1933), 45; quoted in A.C. Ryrie, A Vision Pursued, 5.
[72] Cf. Maclean, “The Scottish Episcopal Church”, 48.
[73] J. Alexander, The church against the world. Sermon preached at the consecration of the church of St Mary, Dunblane, on 28th May 1845 (Edinburgh, 1845), 3, 7-29, 31-45; The church in danger, in consequence of the recent uncanonical introduction of the Scottish Communion Office, and of other innovations, into St Paul’s Chapel, Carrubber’s Close, Edinburgh (Edinburgh 1845), iii- 23.
[74] SRO, GD 40/9/406/4, Marchioness of Lothian to Schomberg Kerr. 5 July 1851; GD 224 1025/1, the Rev A. Tarbutt to Duke of Buccleuch, 5 October 1853; DXB. v, 1082-3, & xxi, 203.
[75] SRO, GD 224/1025/1. the Rev. A Tarbutt to Duke of Buccleuch, 16 February 1855; St John’s Church records. Printed proposal for extension to church. 1854.
[76] C. McWilliam, The Buildings of Scotland, Lothian (London. 1978), 155.
[77] MacLean, “Scottish Episcopal Church’’, 47-8.
[78] Kelso Mail, 22 August 1844.
I am grateful for timely assistance in preparing this article from the Rev. Sandy Ryrie and the Rev. Roger Watts, respectively past and present Rectors of St John’s, the Very Rev. Allan Maclean, Provost of Oban Cathedral, and from Ian Gow of RCAHMS, who shared his knowledge of D.R. Hay. I also owe my thanks to the staff of the National Library of Scotland and the Borders Library, and to my colleagues in the Scottish Record Office. The Lothian Papers are quoted by permission of the Keeper of the Records of Scotland, and papers from the Buccleuch muniments by kind permission of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry.