Historic Free Church painting to go on display
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
An historic painting, marking the momentous occasion when the Free Church of Scotland was formed in 1843, is the showpiece for a new exhibition at Tate Britain in London.
Finished in 1866 having taken 23 years to complete, the showpiece by David Octavius Hill is the first painting to draw from photographs.
Fittingly on the 150th anniversary of its completion, it will hang in Tate Britain as part of the ‘Painting With Light’ exhibit until the end of September, kindly loaned by the Free Kirk.
It will be the first time the work will be shown alongside some of the original photographs that inspired it, celebrating the relationship between painting and photography.
Free Church of Scotland curator Colin Morrison said: “This is only the fourth time The Disruption Painting has been displayed outwith the Free Church of Scotland offices – it was displayed in Edinburgh in 1866, before the Free Church purchased it; in 1888 it was taken up to Inverness for the General Assembly; and on the centenary of the death of the artist it was displayed in Edinburgh and London.
“David Octavius Hill was present at the Disruption and, with the encouragement and approval of the founding fathers of the Free Church, set to work on a painting to capture this momentous occasion.
“With his partner Robert Adamson, they took calotype portraits of almost all the people who are featured in the painting, and, after 23 years, Hill finally finished this incredible picture – as Adamson had died in 1848.”
Mr Morrison added: “There are over 450 faces in the picture. From Scottish aristocracy, to Newhaven fishermen; and from Scotland to the rest of the world, the painting really captures how huge an impact the Disruption had in 1843.
“It features many people of note from the Victorian era, from the well-known Free Church ministers such as Thomas Chalmers and Thomas Guthrie; influential missionaries like Alexander Duff and ‘Rabbi’ Duncan; and many other important figures such as Sir James Young Simpson (discovered the use of chloroform as an anaesthetic), Hugh Miller (geologist and writer) and Henry Duncan (founder of the first savings bank).
“There is also the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe, a nephew of Robert Burns, and the inventor of the kaleidoscope!
“Both Hill and Adamson are featured in the painting too.”
With the 11ft wide painting resident on the second floor of a busy city centre office in the capital, the loan involved a delicate removal process to get it into a specialist lorry before the 400-mile journey south.
Thousands of visitors from around the world have taken the opportunity to come to Presbytery Hall to stop by and see it.
The Free Church of Scotland was formed in 1843 when most of the evangelical ministers in the Church of Scotland resigned because of state interference in its internal affairs.
Under a system known as Patronage, landowners could nominate and present ministers to congregations, irrespective of whether those ministers were evangelical or even whether the congregation wanted them. This was regarded by many as totally unacceptable.
They understood the historic position of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland to be that the Church and State were independent in their own spheres and that they ought not to interfere in each other's business, but rather help one another for the Christian good of Scotland.
The result was that in 1843, in what became known as The Disruption, a new denomination was formed. This was initially called the Church of Scotland, Free, but later became The Free Church of Scotland.
Present-day, the Free Church has over 100 congregations across Scotland, and has seen some modest growth in Sunday attendances over the past few years.
The Free Kirk’s Moderator Rev David Robertson will be attending a private viewing tonight (Monday 9 May) before the exhibition is open to the general public on Wednesday (11 May).
Although it is not the first time the Disruption Portrait has made its way south of the Border, having been on display in the UK capital’s Royal Academy in the 1970s, it still presents an historic occasion and is only one of a handful of times it has actually left the Free Kirk’s Edinburgh headquarters.
