Early Days - The Chapel of Ease

For more than two hundred years after the Reformation Falkirk Parish Church was the centre of worship of a huge district stretching from Denny in the west to Polmont in the east, and from Slamannan parish in the south to the banks of the River Carron. Attendance at the Sunday service for the scattered parishioners meant traveling on foot or horseback over many miles of rough terrain and, in this respect at least, the few hundred souls who made up the village of Camelon were luckier than most. In 1797 when the Minister of Falkirk prepared a long and detailed account of his enormous parish the village earned only two short references. There were, said Dr. James Wilson, '568 inhabitants in the village' and, later, '.....there is a dwelling house and a school room provided for the encouragement of a schoolmaster, but no salary.' Despite this, the seeds of rapid growth had been sown some years before and these, within fifty years, would lead to the establishment of a separate parish with its own church, minister and congregation.

The arrival of iron smelting with Carron Company in 1759 had brought in its wake a number of ancillary industries these included that of nail making which developed in Camelon. By the end of the century there were several hundred nailers at work in the village. Camelon was given a further boost by the arrival of the Forth and Clyde canal in the 1780s and the Union in 1820. The population rose to over 800 by 1830 and by then the church going inhabitants had, like their fellows in Grangemouth, Laurieston and Bainsford, expressed a strong wish to worship within their own community. But the idea of 'chapels of ease' as such buildings were called found no favour with the minister of Falkirk who firmly opposed any development that challenged the central position of the Parish Church and of its minister. Thankfully for the people of Camelon, Dr Wilson's two immediate successors John Brown Patterson and Alexander Melville look a different view and each championed the cause of church extension during their all too brief ministries. At the same time the Church of Scotland had come to recognise the need for new churches in the growing industrial areas of central Scotland and Dr Thomas Chalmers, the leading churchman of the day had been appointed Convener of the new Church Extension Committee. Under his energetic leadership the great seven-year campaign begun in 1834 had raised over £300,000 - perhaps £30 million in today's terms - and in the end contributed to the construction of 220 churches. Camelon was destined to be one of them.

In 1835 the presbytery of Linlithgow 'most cordially approved of this attempt to increase church accommodation in the overgrown parish of Falkirk', and shortly afterwards the General Assembly itself began investigations aimed at the ultimate erection of new church buildings in Bainsford, Laurieston and Camelon. By 1838 an active Extension Committee was at work in Falkirk under Rev Alexander Melville and that year Dr Chalmers came to the town to address a large meeting in the Parish Church. The decision to build a new church in Camelon was taken and William Forbes of Callendar, the leading land-owner in the parish offered a piece of land in the west end of the village along with a donation of £300 towards the construction costs. One of Scotland's leading architects, David Rhind of Edinburgh, was commissioned to draw up plans for a building to house a congregation of around 600 and the result was a building described by one observer as 'of oblong form with an elegant porch in front.....it commanded a view of the surrounding country and was looked on as an ornament to the village.' Work started in 1839 with Galbraiths, a local firm of stonemasons, responsible for the construction. By March of the following year the new church was ready for occupation at a total cost of £1,100 of which the Extension Fund contributed the lion's share. The official opening was delayed until Sunday 23rd August 1840 when special morning, afternoon and evening services were conducted by the new minister of Falkirk William Begg )pictured on the left), the highly respected Minister of Larbert, John Bonar, and the Minister of Grangemouth William Taylor, himself the first beneficiary of church extension in the parish. The limited records of the period tell us that:

'...at each of the services the church was crowded to excess and many people could not obtain admittance. The greatest enthusiasm seemed to pervade the inhabitants of the district and we anticipate that under the Divine blessing this church will he an unspeakable benefit to this populous neighbourhood. A very liberal collection was realised'

Tradition has it that the bell which called .the congregation to worship on that first day and for many decades thereafter was the one used to in the 1830s to call workers to and from their labours when the viaduct which crosses the Union Canal was under construction.. But though it was a building with a bell it had no minister, district or constitution and the securing of all three was the next important stage in the evolution of Camelon as an independent parish.

The young minister of Falkirk, William Begg now emerged as the driving force behind the efforts to advance the cause of the new church and its congregation. In February 1841 he petitioned the Presbytery for their support and, with the full backing of his fellow ministers, began the process of finding a minister for the charge he was able to persuade an old school and college companion William Branks, to accept the challenge as first minister of Camelon. Mr Branks was ordained on Ist October 1841 and the two Falkirk ministers, Mr Begg himself and Mr Gordon of Grangemouth, With the support of the Presbytery, Mr Begg formed yet another committee to establish a district for the Chapel of Ease within which Mr Branks would have spiritual. After careful examination the recommendation which Presbytery approved was for an extensive district with an estimated population of two thousand. The boundaries as described in 1841 were:

'Beginning on the south bank of the Union Canal at the eastern verge of the lands of South Bantaskine, from that point bounded on the east by the lands of Callendar to the road leading to Jawcraig, and on the south east by the said road, on the south by the lands of Jawcraig and by the parish of Cumbernauld, on the west by the estate of Castlecary, on the north by the parish of Denny, Bonny Water and the Carron to the eastern verge of the lands of Dorrator on the banks of that river, and on the east by the lands of Mungall and Mungall burn on to the south east corner of Mr James Fulton of Burnhouse's garden wall, and from that point to the Forth and Clyde Canal by a water run or ditch leading to the tail of Lock No 10 on said canal, and then by the canal to Tophill Bridge, from Tophill to Glenfuir gate by (he road leading thereto, and from thence to the Union Canal by the road leading to Lock 17 '

Mr Branks met with his ministerial colleagues and together they agreed to the appointment of three prominent elders from Falkirk Parish who lived in Camelon. George Fairbairn, one of Camelon's leading nail manufacturers, Henry Smart, manager of the South Bantaskine coal-workings and Alexander Binnie, a prominent Camelon merchant were joined a few months later by Sheriff James Wardrope Dickson as first Session Clerk to form the powerful and influential Session required to establish the new church over such a wide area. One of their first acts was to approve a list of communicants, which in December 1841 numbered 169. They also appointed,

'..John Evans the Officer of the Session with a salary of£2 per annum with 6d for every baptism and they allow him one pound five shillings sterling for his past services. They likewise allow William Harrison who has previously officiated as precentor, three pounds sterling per annum and seeing that he has already received £5 they consider him obliged to continue his services till he has wrought for the above amount in money'

The following weeks and months brought a steady addition to the communion roll and, with an energetic minister and powerful Session at work, the fledgling parish congregation seemed set fair for the future. But all was not well with the Church of Scotland and Dr Thomas Chalmers whose early role in promoting church extension had played such an important part in Camelon's birth was now the indirect cause of its greatest crisis. Conscience had led nearly half the parish ministers in Scotland, to follow Dr Chalmers into the new 'Church of Scotland Free'. It was church extension on the grand scale, for Camelon, like every other town and village in the land, soon had two congregations and two church buildings with the establishment of what would later become lrving Church. Although Mr Branks (pictured below right) shared many of the ideas of the breakaway group he remained within the establishment but the very large number of vacancies created by the disruption led him later the same year to the parish of Torphichen where he remained until his death in 1879. It was an understandable move on his part for Camelon was still a Chapel of Ease within the parish of Falkirk and the greater needs of the national church to fill its major vacancies prevailed over a natural attachment to his first charge

For the congregation of Camelon this was a stunning blow. Finding a new minister was desperately difficult and it was six years before a second pastor was called to the charge. During this long vacancy responsibility reverted once more to the Minister of Falkirk though there was some missionary work done by such as James Sommers and George Morton, then classics master at Falkirk Grammar School in Park Street. Welcome as this help was to the sore tried congregation pressure for a proper settlement increased with each passing year. In 1846 Mr Begg led a deputation to the Presbytery with a petition claiming that the district now had between two and three thousand of a population fully two thirds of whom supported the established church. The population was increasing as a result of public works in the district and there was an urgent need for an active ordained minister to be settled at Camelon and a permanent endowment for the church obtained. There was already 'a neat and commodious church' in the village which was 'entirely free of debt.' But uncertainly about the provision of sufficient funds for the minister's stipend led to further delays which in 1848 led to direct action. In December of that year another petition signed by 300 residents of Camelon asked Presbytery to approve the appointment of John Oswald to the vacant charge in order to begin the dispensation of the major ordinances of the church - baptism and communion - the want of which left them 'extremely aggrieved.' Again the Presbytery declined but this time instructed Mr Begg to investigate sources of funding to provide the legal minimum stipend of £120 per annum. Within a matter of weeks he was able to report that a bond signed by William Forbes of Callendar, John Baird of Camelon, Mr Begg himself and several other leading men of the area would produce an endowment large enough to guarantee the stipend in all time coming. This time Presbytery agreed and on 14th May 1849 Mr Oswald was ordained as Camelon's second minister, a position he held until his death nearly twenty years later. After a long period in the wilderness the people of Camelon were once again on course for a long period of sustained growth under the unbroken leadership of a succession of outstanding ministers.