Gustavus Aird
Gustavus Aird (1813–1898) was a Scottish minister of the Free Church of Scotland who served as Gaelic Moderator of the General Assembly in Inverness in 1888. He was an active campaigner against the Highland Clearances.
Gustavus Aird | |
|---|---|
 Gustavus Aird from Caithness and Sutherland[1] | |
| Church | Church of Scotland Free Church of Scotland |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 28 June 1813 |
| Died | 20 December 1898 |
Life
He was born on 28 June 1813 at Heathfield in Kilmuir, Easter Ross, the youngest son of Gustavus Aird and his wife Ann Grant. He studied Divinity at King's College, Aberdeen.[2]
In 1839 he was licensed to preach by the Church of Scotland and Presbytery of Tain. In 1841 he was ordained at Croick in Kincardine parish in Sutherland. His manse stood on the Black Water. During his period here he struggled to protect his congregation against eviction by the laird, William Robertson of Kindeace House, as part of the Highland Clearances in the Tain area.[3][4][5] Despite assurances that if tenants paid their rent they could continue, the laird did not honour this promise, and the parish was greatly depopulated as a result.[6]
He left the established church in the Disruption of 1843 and joined the Free Church of Scotland. He left Croick and moved to the Free Church in the rather similarly named Creich,[7] which is close to Croick. All but two families left the original congregation and followed him to Creich.[8] The local laird died in London in April 1844 and was succeeded by his son Major Charles Robertson, formerly of the Black Watch, but this changed little in the parish. In May 1845 the tenants of Glencalvie were evicted 'en masse', despite Aird's protestation. 250 persons were so affected. They then had no house and no church within which to shelter, as the Free Church had yet to be built, and they worshipped in a field and slept under tarpaulins in the churchyard for two nights before dispersing to find new lives and new homes. Hand-etched writing on the current church east window describes their desperate plight. A further wave of clearances occurred at nearby Greenyards in 1854 at the hand of James Gillanders, son-in-law of Charles Robertson.[6]
In 1885 Aberdeen University awarded him an honorary doctorate (DD).
In 1888 he served as Gaelic Moderator in Inverness whilst the standard location in Edinburgh appears to have not been used in that year.[9] He appears photographed in the Moderator's robes in 1888, and records indicate he was the only Moderator in that year.[10]
He died in Sale, Manchester on 20 December 1898[11] but is buried in Migdale Free Churchyard at Bonar Bridge. There is also an ornate memorial at Creich.[12]
Publications
- Religious Life in Ross
- Daorsa Agus Saorsa
- Sketch of Rev. Mr Fraser - Biography of Rev. James Fraser of Brea[13]
- Searmon a rinneadh leis an ure (Glasgow, 1889)
- Farewell Gaelic and English Sermons preached in Creich Free Church, 15 Nov. 1896 (portrait) (Inverness, 1897)
- Sermon (Dingwall, n.d.)
- Sermon (Edinburgh, 1916)
- Bondage and Liberty (Edinburgh, 1917)[14]
Family
In 1861 he married Mary Sim (1818–1900), the fourth daughter of William Sim JP.
He was the maternal uncle of Gustavus Aird Murray (born 1833).
References
Citations
- Campbell 1920.
- Ewing, William Annals of the Free Church
- The Highland Clearances, by John Prebble
- The Life of Gustavus Aird, by Rev Alexander Macrae of Tongue, 1908
- "Strathcarron 2". Abandonedcommunities.co.uk. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
- Who Built Scotland: 25 Journeys in Search of a Nation, by Alexander McCall Smith & c.
- "Ross & Cromarty Roots | Gustavus Aird". Gravestones.rosscromartyroots.co.uk. 21 September 2013. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
- NG Ross. "the official site. A record of the infamous Scottish Highland Clearances of the mid 1800s". Croick Church. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
- Free Church Monthly May 1888
- Tain Museum Image Library (2 January 2017). "Tain Museum Image Library - Reverend Dr Aird". Tainmuseum.org.uk. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
- Free Church Monthly May 1899
- Maciver, Allan (7 September 2012). "Rev Gustavus Aird DD Memorial Stone, Creich Free Church, B…". Flickr. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
- Aird, Gustavus; Gustavus Aird's sketch is often bound with Fraser's Memoirs (1891). Short Sketch of Rev. Mr Fraser. Inverness: Melven. pp. v–vi. Retrieved 23 February 2019.
- Scott 1928.
Sources
- Campbell, H. F. (1920). Caithness and Sutherland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 158-159.
- MacDonald, Murdoch (1875). The Covenanters in Moray and Ross. Edinburgh: Maclaren & Macniven. pp. 17–18.
- MacNaughton, Colin (1915). Church life in Ross and Sutherland, from the Revolution (1688) to the present time; compiled chiefly from the Tain Presbytery records. Inverness: Inverness : Printed by the Northern Counties Newspaper and Print. and Pub. Co. pp. 386, et passim.
- Scott, Hew (1928). Fasti ecclesiae scoticanae; the succession of ministers in the Church of Scotland from the reformation. Vol. 7. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd. p. 52.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. - Webber, F. R. (1952). A history of preaching in Britain and America, including the biographies of many princes of the pulpit and the men who influenced them. Vol. 2. Milwaukee: Northwestern Pub. House. pp. 395-396.