Religion

A SMALL sheet of paper gifted to Helensburgh Heritage Trust in March 2012 turned out to be a fascinating relic from local church history.

ONE hundred and fifty years of worship were celebrated at Helensburgh's St Columba Church on July 3 2011 — just weeks before its union with another congregation.

The 150th anniversary of the Sinclair Street building was marked at a packed service of thanksgiving on July 3, and the birthday came as the congregation — at its present site since 1861 — prepared to say farewell to the historic building.

The text and illustrations below are the entire contents of a leaflet compiled and published in 1955 by David McRoberts, giving the history of the Chapel of St Mahew at Cardross. The leaflet was donated to Helensburgh Heritage Trust in 2010 by Gillian George.

ABOUT a quarter of a mile to the north of Cardross village, in Dunbartonshire, lies a small parcel of land called Kirkton of Kilmahew.

THE Christmas 2010 edition of Helensburgh's West Kirk magazine announced that St Columba Church and its halls were surplus to town Church of Scotland requirements — the first public announcement of the latest change in local church history.

A long drawn out process of consultations and planning on church union was completed in the summer of 2011, and St Andrew's Kirk was chosen as the name of the new church.

LUSS Parish Church arranged a season of six weekly historical lectures to end the Year of Celebration to mark its 1,500th year.

The free one-hour lectures began in the church on Wednesdays evening November 17 2010, covering the events of the last 1,500 years around Loch Lomond. Three of the talks had to be rescheduled to January 12, 19 and 26 because of the bad weather in December.

THE founder of the Salvation Army, General William Booth, paid his only visit to Helensburgh in 1910.

The image above, which shows the General at Helensburgh pier, was supplied by Provost Billy Petrie, who received it from a relative in California, Donald Cullen, whose grandfather, Donald Brownlee, was the Salvation Army officer on the extreme right.

A MUCH loved minister from Cardross was commemorated in 2010 by the creation of a stunning memorial window in the church which was his charge for 37 years.

The picturesque South Queensferry Parish Church was packed on Sunday August 22 for the dedication of the window installed in memory of the Rev John Gilbert Carrie, BSc, BD, who grew up in the village and was a former pupil of Larchfield (now Lomond) School.

THE story of a man from a Glen Fruin farming family who became a Mormon in 1848, emigrated to America six years later, then fled from his religion was told in a book published in the United States in 2009.

Historian Polly Aird, who lives in Seattle, Washington, wrote ‘Mormon Convert, Mormon Defector, A Scottish Immigrant in the American West, 1848-61' about her great great uncle Peter McAuslan.

A HELENSBURGH man stepped into one of Scotland's top jobs on May 20 2010 . . . and on May 26 the job was done.

But while the Rev John Cairns Christie may have accepted a job which lasts for just six days the duties attached to it will go on for a full year until the next incumbent takes over the role.

A HELENSBURGH man who became a priest went on to hold two of the most important offices in the Church of England.

The Right Rev Patrick Campbell Rodger, who was born at Southcourt in the burgh on November 28 1920, the son of a prosperous family, was Bishop of Manchester from 1970-78, then Bishop of Oxford until 1986, and a leading figure in the ecumenical movement.

THE restoration of the Episcopal Church of St Michael and All Angels in Helensburgh was an eight year project successfully completed in the autumn of 2009.

The historical basis of the church's decoration is a subject not always appreciated, and is described in this article.

ON Sunday 22nd August 1841 a congregation of Scottish Episcopalians met in the room of a house in William Street, where Divine Service was solemnised by the Very Rev William Routledge.

Their first church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, opened on the site of the present St Michael's Church in 1843.