Our History
MAYFIELD SALISBURY PARISH (Edinburgh) CHURCH OF SCOTLAND
OUR ROOTS
Mayfield Salisbury Parish (Edinburgh) Church of Scotland was formed on 7th February 1993 when Mayfield and Salisbury Churches united. Both these churches had resulted from earlier unions. Thus our congregation springs from four roots, though none began life as Church of Scotland.
Scottish Church History
A brief summary of the ins-and-outs of Scottish Church history may help to explain the denominational labels.
The question of who should select ministers sparked off the creation of the Secession and Relief Churches, which broke away from the Church of Scotland during the 18th Century. The Secession Churches then split over the question of whether it was lawful for Christians to take the Burgess Oath – hence the ‘Burghers’ and ‘Antiburghers’. In 1820 most of the Burghers and Antiburghers reunited as the ’United Associate’ or ‘United Secession’, and in 1847 merged with the Relief Church as the United Presbyterians. Meanwhile, in 1843, the Free Church had broken from the Church of Scotland at the ‘Disruption’. 1900 saw the creation of the United Free Church by a merger of the United Presbyterians with most of the Free Church. Finally, an Act of Parliament (1921) freed the Church of Scotland from state control and paved the way for reunion with (most of) the United Free Church.
Hope Park Church
The oldest of our roots was the ‘New Association Congregation’, a breakaway (1792) from Edinburgh’s first Antiburgher church. The dispute was over choice of minister. They erected a meeting house in a courtyard off Potterrow and worshipped there until 1867. The site is now occupied by the Edinburgh Mosque & Islamic Centre.
The carved stone now standing in our halls entrance commenorates the founding of the Potterow Meeting House. The Meeting House was reached by a close or pend leading off Potterow, the site now occupied by the msoque.
In 1867 Potterrow United Presbyterian. Church, as it had become, moved to an elegant new church on the corner of Hope Park Terrace where its tower was a prominent landmark.
Hope Park united with Newington South in 1940 bringing with them their minister, Revd. Robert Taylor, and more than doubling the congregation worshipping in what became Salisbury Church.
Newington South Church
In December 1847 three young United Presbyterians purchased Duncan Street Baptist Chapel, and by March 1848 a United Presbyterian congregation was officially formed to serve the growing suburb of Newington. The new congregation prospered, and by 1863 moved to its new church (Newington, later Newington South, later still Salisbury) at the corner of Grange Road and Causewayside.
In 1877 some members helped to establish Rosehill Church (now Priestfield). Newington South Church employed a ‘missionary’ to work among the slums of Causewayside. James Goodfellow, missionary from the 1850s to 1890s has written of his experiences in a book ‘The Print of His Shoes’. Following union with Hope Park in 1940, the congregation used the Newington South building. In 1959 the name ‘Salisbury’ replaced ‘Newington South & Hope Park’. The mission hall (95 Causewayside), acquired from St Catherine’s in 1942, was sold in 1980 to the Scottish Society for the Mentally Handicapped.
Faced with maintenance of a large building and a declining membership, Salisbury united with Mayfield in 1993. The buildings were sold to a local businessman and are currently (2010) a lighting showroom.
Fountainhall Road Church
This congregation originated in 1828 when 75 members left old Bristo (Burgher / United Associate) Church in a dispute over the appointment of Revd. William Peddie as successor to his father. Presbytery allowed them to become a separate congregation at first called ‘Society of Worshippers in Bethel Chapel’. Later that year the fledgling congregation purchased the very large Cowgate Episcopal Chapel, and lumbered themselves with a huge debt that was not cleared for 40 years.
Cowgate
Chapel, shown in the photograph, is now St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church.
The move to a smaller and more economical building (Infirmary Street) took place in 1856.
INFIRMARY STREET UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Migration of the city centre population to the suburbs and limited space available for expansion seem to have prompted the move in 1897 to a new church in Fountainhall Road.
Congregational numbers suffered from the curtailment of its hinter land following the opening of Reid Memorial Church in 1935.
After union with Mayfield in 1957 the buildings were used as a Christian education and training centre, then demolished to make way for the Newington Library in 1975.
Mayfield Church
Established in 1875 as a Free Church congregation in the developing suburbs of Newington, the nearest Free Churches to the north being Buccleuch and Newington (now the Queen’s Hall).
MAYFIELD FREE CHURCH
Now Mayfield Salisbury Parish Church
The congregation first met in Clare Hall School at 18 Minto Street, in what is now our Lower Hall (opened 1876). The church itself opened in 1879, but the spire was not completed until 1895. Known as ‘Mayfield North’ from 1929 to 1957, then ‘Mayfield & Fountainhall’ till 1968, it became Mayfield Salisbury in 1993.
(The above information and photographs are taken from the booklet entitled Parish Guide which was prepared by Andrew Bethune and published by Mayfield Salisbury Church in 1996)
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100 YEARS OF HISTORY 1875 - 1975
This booklet was produced in 1975 to mark the centenary of Mayfield Church. It was entitled
MAYFIELD 100 1875-1975
A selection of historical notes, recollections and illustrations to record the Centenary of Mayfield Church.
It was edited by J.A.R.Moffat and published by the Publications Committee, Mayfield Church, Edinburgh 1975. It can be download and read in its entirety by clicking HERE (PDF 8.52 MB) .
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MAYFIELD MODERATORS OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTAND
Two of our former ministers have been Moderators of the Church of Scotland. The profiles given below are taken from The Church of Scotland Year Book (St Andrews Press) 1988 and 1989.
THE MODERATOR 1989
The Right Reverend WILLIAM J. G. McDONALD MA BD DD
By the Revd Ralph C. M. Smith MA STM Edinburgh
The Moderator disapproves of this Year Book! Not at all that he is a judgemental sort of person. But he hates the fact that it prints the statistics of congregational income and membership; because these can encourage false assumptions about the nature of church ‘success’. Of course his own congregation, Mayfield in Edinburgh where he has ministered for thirty years, is revealed as being quite exceptionally ‘successful’ in these terms; and his innate modesty would eschew any suggestion that the credit for this should go to him.
The visitor to Mayfield is struck by several things, if he came early enough to find a seat.: the crowds of children and young people; the relaxed and warm welcome from office-bearers; and, as he returns over the weeks, he notes the conduct of worship is always fresh, often unexpected, yet always right and ungimmicky; and that the congregation is made up of folk of many different theological persuasions. The latter are held together because worship embodies the centralities without being needlessly divisive.
Such leadership comes, of course, from the top – from the man of rare fluency, perception and wit, allied to a self-effacing sensitivity to the needs of those around him. It is remarkable that Bill McDonald should have succeeded as Moderator the man whom he succeeded at Mayfield, James Whyte. (James had left for a University chair, Bill might have done the same.) Remarkably again, Bill had followed James Whyte as dux of Daniel Stewart’s College, his Edinburgh school. Later he was commissioned into the Royal Artillery, and served in south-east Asia, obtaining there an understanding of Islam. On returning to Edinburgh he took a first in classics, followed by a BD with distinction, with post-graduate study with Jeremias in Germany.
Bill married Patricia Watson in 1952, a lady as lively and full of fun as himself. They have three of a family – Sheena, Roderick and Alison.
Bill shares his family’s enthusiasm for theatre and music. His preaching is an embodiment of the arts: an attempt not to explain the mysteries but to deepen them with a true sense of the numinous. His horizons are as wide as his taste in music – from Bruckner to Beiderbecke. And fresh air invigorates his relaxation – hill-walking and cycling around the parish (a practice developed long before it was ecologically fashionable, as witness the age of his bike!)
Bill has an effective ministry on radio also, thanks to a lively, informed mind, an arresting lightness of touch, and a generous spirituality.
Bill has served the Church in its big Committees and the Assembly Council. Now he takes very seriously the privilege and responsibility of representing the Church nationally and internationally. Afterwards he will return happily to the midst of the life and people of his parish.
THE MODERATOR 1988
The Right Reverend JAMES A. WHYTE MA LLD
By The Reverend George D. Wilkie OBE BD
James Aitken Whyte grew up in the years between the wars in the Trinity district of Edinburgh. Along with his brothers (on elder and one younger) he was educated at Daniel Stewart’s College where he was Dux in 1937. During his school years a major influence on his life was the Scottish Schoolboys Club, which sought through Easter Camps and Sunday Discussion Groups to help boys ‘to discover for themselves and for the world the full meaning of the Christian Faith’.
By the time he went to Edinburgh University the idea of entering the ministry of the Church of Scotland was very much in his mind. He studied Philosophy under the twin giants of their day, Professor Kemp Smith and A.E. Taylor, obtaining in 1942 a First Class Honours degree. He was a keen member of the Student Christian Movement, and much of his understanding of the faith was hammered out in S.C.M. conferences, meetings and study groups. Indeed his contact with S.C.M. has been maintained throughout the years, in particular through the Presidency of the Christian Education Movement – the schools offshoot of the S.C.M.
After three years’ study in New College, where he was President of the Theological Society, Professor Whyte became a chaplain in the Scots Guards and was stationed with the 1st Battalion in Italy. In 1948 he was called to Christ Church Dunollie in Oban, moving in 1952 to Mayfield (then Mayfield North) Church in Edinburgh. In 1958 he was appointed to the chair of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology in St Mary’s College, St. Andrews. He was principal of the College from 1978 to 1982, and in 1981 received the honorary degree of LL.D from the University of Dundee.
James Whyte is no cloistered academic. He sees theology as essentially practical and, while properly to be studied within the discipline of a university course, it must at the same time be firmly related to the needs of ordinary Christians and of the Christian Church. As well as fulfilling his pastoral responsibilities within the student community in St Andrews Professor Whyte has always found time to address elders’ meetings, lead Bible study, and speak to numerous conferences where lay people are to be found struggling with the issues of life and faith. He has also served on numerous Church committees and was Convener of the Inter-Church Relations Committee from 1974 to 1978.
The Moderatorial Year has been overshadowed by the tragic death of Mrs Whyte a few short weeks after the close of the Assembly. Although she had undergone major surgery in the months leading up to the Assembly, Mrs Whyte carried out all her duties – including the generous hospitality of the Moderator’s flat – with characteristic courage, cheerfulness and goodwill. In this she was surrounded and supported by her daughter and two sons and their young families. Mrs Whyte also played her part in the visit to the Irish Assembly immediately following our own, and indeed was actively supporting her husband a few days before her death.
In spite of this very great loss Professor Whyte has continued to fulfil all his major engagements with the graciousness, wisdom and friendliness which are the hallmark of the man. The Church expects a great deal from its Moderators nowadays and James Whyte has a quiet determination to fulfil all the duties of the office to which the Church has called him.
THE REVD DR JOHN ROSS (1842-1915)
Korean Missionary and Elder in Mayfield United Free Church
The Revd Dr John Ross (1842 – 1915) was born on 6th July 1842 on a farm in the parish of Chapelhill, Nigg in Easter Ross. The son of a tailor, he studied at the United Presbyterian Divinity Hall in Edinburgh 1865 – 1869. He was licensed in 1870. Though attracted to the Gaelic ministry, he accepted the call of the UP Church’s Foreign Mission Committee to serve in Manchuria.At the time of decision, a friend said to him, ‘Better to be a spark in China than a flame in the Highlands.’ Ross took the advice of his friend.
Ross’s work involved itinerancy and the training of an indigenous evangelistic and pastoral ministry. Significantly, he held that Christian teaching did not conflict with Confucian (his first school provided free teaching, using only Chinese classics), asserted the existence of a monotheistic strand in ancient Chinese religion, denied that Chinese ancestral rites were idolatrous (while insisting that adjudication on traditional customs was the local church’s province) and believed Buddhist ascetics to be the most earnest seekers and, when converted, the most dynamic evangelists. Ross commented, ‘The role of the missionary was not to change customs but to renew the heart.’
In 1874, he saw the possibilities of Christian mission in the closed neighbouring land of Korea. Persuading Korean visitors to Manchuria to be his first teachers, he worked at the language, produced a primer in 1877 and a grammar in 1882. He directed the first Korean translation of the New Testament. Not permitted to travel into Korea himself, a Korean friend and Korean traders carried the Scriptures over the border. Ross chose to translate the Bible into the language of the common people rather than Chinese, which was the language of the educated and upper classes. It has been argued that Ross’s ‘decision to use only the language of the common people was the most important event in the entire history of the Korean Church.’ Produced at a time when no standard Korean grammar was available, the Ross translation ‘seems to have formed the basis of a new vernacular literature.’ Ross himself noted that, ‘the translation goes to the women of that country, and to the lowliest and illiterate poor, to speak to them plainly, in the language which all understand and employ in daily life, of the wondrous love of Him who is Saviour of the world.’
John Ross retired in 1900. He came to Edinburgh and became an Elder in Mayfield United Free Church of Scotland (now Mayfield Salisbury). In addition to his translation of Scripture, Ross also wrote on East Asian history and culture: Chinese Foreign Policy (1877), History of Corea (1879), The Manchus (1880), The Boxers of Manchuria (1901), Mission Methods in Manchuria (1903), The Original Religion of China (1909) and the posthumous Origin of the Chinese People (1916). He received the DD from Glasgow University in 1894. Ross died in 1915 and is buried in Newington Cemetery. A plaque in his honour was unveiled in 2006 at this church.
The service of dedication was attended by staff and students of New College, including several Korean postgraduates and their families.
South Korea has a population of 40 million and a Christian Church numbering over 12 million members. The dramatic growth of the Korean churches over the past one hundred years is directly linked to the spread of the Scriptures in the language of the people. John Ross was not permitted to enter Korea yet over 12 million Korean Christians know his name.
MAYFIELD SALISBURY PARISH CHURCH
1975 onwards– Some more recent history
As described above, Mayfield Free Church was established in 1875, and the above histories give details of the many changes which ocurred up until the centenary in 1975.
The following article gives brief details of some more recent changes
It was in January 1993 that Salisbury Church joined with Mayfield, under the present name of ‘Mayfield Salisbury Parish Church". The Salisbury building, on the corner of Grange Road and Causewayside, was sold, but the Salisbury War Memorials were installed in the North Transept of Mayfield Salisbury, and their Morris window placed and illuminated in the South Transept. They also brought with them their fine Victorian Communion table, lectern and font, all of which have been recently restored and are now back in use. The money raised from the sale of Salisbury church and manse was used partly to provide help in housing the former Salisbury minister, the Revd Brian Casebow, who with his wife retired to Cupar, The remainder became ‘The Salisbury Fund’.
In recent years there have also been changes in the original Mayfield buildings. The original manse on West Mayfield, ‘Church House’, the ground floor of which is used as meeting rooms with the Church Officer’s flat above, has had the flat extended to make it more suitable for family living. In the church itself an Allen 3-manual digital organ replaced the pipe organ in 1996. In 1997 a new extension and vestibule were constructed for the entrance on West Mayfield. In 2000 the church kitchen was upgraded.
2009, however, was the big year. An ambitious programme of ‘Renovation and Renewal’ was undertaken. For five months the congregation worshipped at the Methodist church in Nicolson Square while the sanctuary at Mayfield Salisbury was completely refurbished. It was rewired, relit and the sound system updated. The pews were removed, shortened, cleaned, and replaced so as to allow wider aisles. The whole interior was re-painted, the flooring sanded and re-varnished, and the aisles re-carpeted. The apse ceiling was re-boarded and painted in traditional dark blue with gold stars. The stained glass windows are a particular feature of the building and a rolling programme of restoration on them was begun. In 2010 Dr Elizabeth Cumming collaborated with others in putting together a most beautiful book, ‘Thy Story in Glass’, detailing their history and biblical significance. This is available from the church office, price £10, all profits going to the Renovation Fund. The lower hall, which had been the first worship space from 1875-79, was also rewired, re-lit, re-painted and new radiators were installed. Then in 2010 the manse received a much-needed restructuring of the kitchen and rear ground floor area, new bathroom and shower room, and was repainted inside and out. All this work was accomplished with remarkable efficiency and as near to time and budget as anyone could hope for. Credit is thus due to members of the congregation who supervised, and organised, were hands on, and gave of their time and skill voluntarily to what was a most successful project.
The Church, of course, is people. So above all, who have been and are the people here? The roll call is far too long to list. What follows are just some of the more conspicuous names.
Ministers The Very Revd Dr William J G McDonald (Bill), who was the Moderator of the Church of Scotland in 1989-90, following his immediate predecessor at Mayfield, the Very Revd Professor Jim Whyte, was minister here for 33 very distinguished years, from May 1959 until his retirement in November 1992. More details can be found of both these men in the articles which follow this one.
He was followed by the Revd Alexander W Young (Sandy). Born in Stirling in 1959, Sandy graduated from Glasgow University in 1986. He joined us with his wife, Pamela, and their 2 daughters, from Ardrossan in September 1993, as the first minister of the newly created Mayfield Salisbury Church, and the union was fused very amicably under his guidance.
In 1999 Sandy Young left to become Hospital Chaplain to the principal Edinburgh hospitals and the present minister, the Revd Scott S McKenna, arrived in 2000, and through preaching and leadership is conducting an outstanding teaching and spiritual ministry.
There have also been many Assistants and Associate Ministers over the years: Vernon Stone, Bill Henney, Alistair Heron, Douglas Aitken, Alison Matheson, John Wells, George Munro; and Pastoral Assistants including Joe Ritchie, Jean Cochrane, Hamish McIntosh, Nancy Mills, Margaret Nuttall, Fergus McPherson, Sheila Wallace, and most recently Philip Hacking. The congregation continues to be particularly well served by our pastoral staff. In many years also there have been students for the ministry attached for short periods; several of whom have gone on to notable ministries of their own.
The church has also always emphasised the importance of children and young people. Youth specialists have numbered Fiona Fidgin, Bruce Sinclair and Angus Adams.
Organists since 1969 have been: Norman Shires, Philip Hacking, Methven Aitken, Damien Mason, and today Dr John Willmett. Their work has been supplemented by Choir Directors: Marjorie Turkington, Christine Bethune, Hugh Macdonald, and today Walter Thomson (the well-known conductor of the Jubilo Choir, and founder of "the Show Stoppers").
Session Clerks normally aim to serve for 5 years each. These hard workers have numbered Robin Brown, Robert Bartholomew, James Moffat, Ewan Brown, Peter Brand, Eileen Watson, Marjorie Grant, John Graham, Frank Spratt, and now Christine De Luca . The Session, now a Unitary Court, has over all these years held regular study days for its elders and for the congregation.
Church Officers have been Robert Turnbull, Wilfred Batty, David Stewart, Robert Nicoll. Today's Officer is William Mearns whose new title "Church Manager" indicates that his function has extended well beyond the role of "the minister's man". Today the church office is high-tech, where William prints out beautiful material which demonstrates that the church is a thoroughly modern and professionally run organisation Quite a change from 1980, when the gift of an overhead projector for Sunday School use drew gasps of admiration when demonstrated to the Kirk Session!.
The Mayfield Radio Unit has also been described as ‘a highly professional Church-based organisation working in the community’
The Congregation continues to be outward looking. It shares its Sanctuary and facilities with the Edinburgh Chinese Evangelical Church. It contributes to overseas mission partners in Thailand and Kenya and Tanzania, offers help to neighbouring congregations when the need arises, and is generous in responding to international emergencies. It exists to serve.
Ralph Smith, 25/09/10
MEMORIES OF MAYFIELD
By Sheriff Nigel Thomson C.B.E. (1926-2011)
NIgel Thomson's fascinating booklet of recollections and photographs of earlier times at Mayfield Church can be downloaded and read in its entirity by clicking HERE.
