St Andrew's and St George's West: The Church of the Disruption
Why is it significant?
On your right, a church with a slim needle of a spire and a columned portico stands right on the pavement of George Street, almost as if it had been squeezed in between the offices. In a way, it was.
Key Facts
| Place | St Andrew's and St George's West: The Church of the Disruption |
|---|---|
| Address | 13 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 2PA, UK |
| Geo Coordinates | 55.95410, -3.19590 |
| Part of Walk | Edinburgh's New Town: Georgian Squares, Crescents and the Plan That Built a City |
| Generated | Generated |
On your right, a church with a slim needle of a spire and a columned portico stands right on the pavement of George Street, almost as if it had been squeezed in between the offices. In a way, it was. James Craig's plan had placed St Andrew's Church on the square you just left, as a grand eye-catcher at the end of the street... but somebody rich got that site first.
So the church moved here, and it opened in 1784, built to an oval plan designed by an army engineer, Major Andrew Frazer, with the spire added a few years later. Why an oval? Presbyterian worship is all about the spoken word, and in an ellipse everyone sits close to the pulpit and everyone can hear. It was the New Town's own parish church, sober and elegant, and the last place you would expect a revolution.
On the 18th of May 1843, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland gathered here. For ten years the Church had been fighting over one question: could a landowner impose a minister on a congregation that did not want him? That morning the retiring Moderator, David Welsh, read out a formal protest, laid it on the table and walked out of the door. Behind him came Thomas Chalmers and a long column of ministers, down George Street through cheering crowds, all the way to a hall at Canonmills, where they founded the Free Church of Scotland.
It became known simply as the Disruption. Around 450 ministers, more than a third of the Church, gave up their manses, their churches and their salaries in a single day. Within a few years their followers had paid for hundreds of new churches and schools across Scotland, and families argued about it for generations.
The painter David Octavius Hill decided to record that first Free Church assembly in one huge canvas, with some 450 real faces in it. To get the likenesses he turned to the brand-new art of photography... and the painting took him twenty-three years. Now carry on west along George Street, across Hanover Street past the bronze King George the Fourth, to the pillared doorway on the left.