The Age of Unions? Dissenting Reunion, 1847–63

Abstract

While the Disruption marked the culmination of over a century of schism within Scottish Presbyterianism, the decade followed saw a series of reunions with Presbyterian dissent. This chapter covers three major events: the 1847 ‘voluntary’ union between the United Secession and Relief churches; the 1852 merger of the establishmentarian Original Secession Church into the Free Church; and the 1857 resolutions to unite the Free and United Presbyterian churches. Though the unions of 1847 and 1852 were on the surface based on competing voluntary and establishment principles respectively, this chapter argues that a dissenting (but not voluntary) and a national (but not strictly establishmentarian) viewpoint emerged from these unions that paved the way for the albeit failed attempt to secure broader dissenting union in 1857, which would in essence create a national dissenting church to truly rival and possibly overtake the Established Church. While historians have generally tended to overlook these church unions, they offer valuable insight into the development of Presbyterian dissent after 1843. This chapter, and the section in general, places greater emphasis on inter-church co-operation within Scottish dissent between 1843 and 1863, and attempts to explain the background to the 1863 negotiations.