ST TERNAN’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, BANCHORY 1851 - 2001

An Historical Profile by Prof. John Hargreaves

This profile was originally produced in booklet form. We are grateful to the author for updating the full text in 2011 for use on the St Ternan’s website. Notes on the history of the church from 2001 onwards will be added soon.

FOREWORD

It ought not to be difficult to write the history of a church founded only 150 years ago. So far, St Ternan’s has had a relatively short life (less than twice my own) and some might expect that memories across the generations could easily be bridged. Remarkably, two faithful individuals have served as Verger over two-thirds of our congregational life: John Laird from the late 1850s until 1913, Bill Moir from 1958 until 1985 – continuing thereafter to perform some of the duties, voluntarily, into the new millennium. But in reality most human memories are short and fallible; the very name of our founder seems unknown in Banchory today, and even recent testimonies often disagree.

Because historians know this from experience, they prefer to work with documentary evidence. Yet the records of a church, even more than those of other human institutions, provide only pale and distorted shadows of the activities of their members – above all of their spiritual life. You cannot hear the music through the accounts of the Choir and Organ Fund, nor feel the quality of prayer in the texts of successive liturgies. Although the Holy Spirit has certainly been at work in St Ternan’s, historians cannot presume to plot its operation, only to trace the deeds of the humans who make up the visible church. So I regard this account as an historical profile. I have rarely felt able to penetrate beneath the surface of congregational life, and at some points I have had to rely on historical imagination.

Basically, the minute-books record how small groups of devout persons worked to maintain an Episcopal church in Banchory and to resolve recurrent crises over money or (less frequently) modes of worship. Absorbed in the details of this story, it is easy to lose sight of the plot. Historic changes in the secular world, in and beyond Scotland, and also in the wider Christian community, were not always apparent to those struggling to control the damp on the vestry wall. In my chapter headings I have tried to indicate, perhaps over-dramatically, some of the wider challenges which were facing the church beyond – and even within – the comfortable confines of Banchory.

Even such records as we have are patchy and incomplete. In the Church Hall there are some small cash books relating to the building of the church, and some very uneven notes, in the hands of successive Rectors, of Sacraments administered during our first fifty years. After 1902 there are the accounts and minute-books of the Vestry (and its predecessor, the Board of Lay Managers). The volume for 1902-30 has been deposited in Aberdeen University Library; later ones are still in our own custody. How informative such documents are depends on the expansiveness of successive secretaries; conciseness, a

Page 1 of 26 virtue in the conduct of business, may disappoint historians. But at best the Vestry minutes touch only parts of congregational life. There are passing references to the Choir, the Sunday School, Guilds, but these bodies have left few records of their own. Some important information is recorded in the Year Books and reports of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and in notes supplied to the Aberdeen and Buchan Churchman, which may be consulted in the Diocesan Library.

For the last third of the period it has been possible to derive much information and insight from the memories of living persons. I have interviewed a few of these, talked informally to many more, and from 1977 have my own imperfect memories to draw on. I am grateful to those who responded to an article in the Piper with information or photographs. As some of my informants prefer not to be named, I shall name none of them. But I thank them all, most warmly. They have added much colour and interest to the second part of this profile. Some of them would tell the story of recent years with different emphasis. But, as throughout, responsibility for errors, distortions and false assumptions is mine alone.

During the eventful years since 2001 there have been debates within the Anglican Communion, and beyond. Christian thinking and praying now has to take into account new issues about sex and gender, about ecumenical relationships and dialogue with other faiths, about responsibilities for wars and peace, and for the relief of poverty and destitution in many places. These have led to changes in liturgies, modes of prayer, governance, finance and use of buildings, many of which have been reflected in our own congregational practice. One of our earliest responses was the connection with Nadaikavoo School for Dalit children in South India, established after a brief residence here by Rev Christopher Salvomony in 2001; the portrait in the Hall of Jesus as an Indian, commissioned by Christopher after his visit is a continuing reminder.

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I wish to thank Ross Royden for suggesting I undertake this work, the Vestry for their support, and Sue Roberts for assistance during work on the records. Lisa Eunson has provided renewed encouragement in this, as in other work. Michael Price and Jeff Rogers in turn have patiently addressed my difficulties with cyber-technology. Dr Sandy Waugh provided a helpful preview of his thesis on ‘The Disruption of a Parish’.

I am also grateful to staff in the Diocesan Centre, in the Special Collections of Aberdeen University Library; and in Grampian Regional Archives. David Irvine facilitated access to the Drum archives. Commander J P P Michell provided advice on his family history, and the archivists of North Yorkshire County Record Office, the Lambeth Palace Archives and Edinburgh University responded helpfully to postal enquiries. Muriel Clark and Michael Zappert gave useful advice about the windows. Warm thanks to them all.

John Hargreaves

Page 2 of 26 1. ORIGINS

Although in full communion with the Church of England, the Episcopal Church of Scotland is historically quite distinct. After the Reformation it retained its own bishops within the Apostolic Succession, and disputed the Presbyterian claim to be the historic Church of Scotland. But after the exile of the Stuarts in 1689 it became a persecuted minority, barely tolerated by the reconstituted British state. Although the severity with which the penal laws were applied varied according to the perceived danger of Jacobitism, its property reverted to the Church of Scotland, and those of its clergy who refused to swear loyalty to the Hanoverians were forbidden to celebrate the sacraments, or to preach to gatherings of more than four people. Even those ‘qualified’ congregations which were willing to conform were obliged to seek authority from English or Irish bishops. In Aberdeenshire, however, loyalties to the historic church survived, usually under the patronage and protection of some faithful landowner. Through much of the North East the influence of Bishop Elphinstone and the University he had founded remained strong. For the most part, the Covenanting strain of Presbyterianism was less evident, and eirenical co-existence among Christians more common, than further south. The devotional teaching of seventeenth-century ‘Aberdeen Doctors’ like John Forbes of Corse, was still cherished in many hearts. The English Prayer Book of 1662 was used in most congregations, sometime supplemented by ‘wee bookies’ reprinting the 1637 liturgy, which had so outraged the Covenanters. In 1764 the bishops agreed the text of a Communion Office closer to Catholic and Orthodox tradition, which included the Epiklesis, the invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the sacramental elements of bread and wine.

As the Jacobite threat receded, tolerant co-existence became more normal. When the penal laws were finally repealed in 1739 the Scottish Episcopal Church had forty clergy, three bishops, and considerable lay support in Aberdeen, around Stonehaven, and in many parts of Buchan. But there is little record of such enduring communities on Deeside, apart from three members of the ‘English Episcopal Church’ in Banchory parish. In 1842 the Presbyterian ministers who compiled the New Statistical Account gave fuller figures of religious allegiance. In Banchory parish, where the population had risen to 2,944 since the bridging of the Dee in 1798, five out of 535 families were said to be Episcopalian. There were a further two families in Strachan parish, Campbells of Blackhall and Lumsdens of Invery; but none were recorded for Durris, Echt, Kincardine O’Neil, or Aboyne. In Birse there was Peter Gordon of Chapelstrife croft, and his son, immigrants from Buchan and pupils of the great Bishop Jolly. In Drumoak Episcopalians were a little stronger; in February 1840 the parish minister counted two families and nine individuals, though he reduced these figures before publication in 1842. Nevertheless by May 1848 a small congregation had begun to gather in an independent chapel on Mount Street (later the Masonic Hall), which was also the meeting-house of some thirty Presbyterian dissenters. For the next two years a young chaplain from Glencorse Barracks, Robert Bruce, acted as priest-in-charge.

During the 1840s the religious map of Scotland was changing. In 1843 the established church split over the rights of congregations to choose their

Page 3 of 26 ministers; and during the following years its public responsibilities for poor relief, and later for education, were gradually taken over by the state. Hitherto most landowners had attended the parish church, not least because, as ‘heritors’, they were committed to support it financially; now they felt freer to choose their place of worship. Few had felt attracted to the small congregations of enthusiastic dissenters; but now that two Presbyterian churches were disputing the spiritual leadership of Scotland, Episcopalianism offered many an attractive alternative. As the Union of 1707 became more widely accepted, its beliefs and liturgies moved closer to those of mainstream Anglicanism, especially in the southern cities. In 1806 its Bishops accepted the 39 Articles; and many Scots with family or educational links across the border came to treasure the English Prayer Book.

The initiative in providing a place of Anglican worship in Banchory was taken by John Michell, heir to a family who owned an estate in Forcett Park, near Darlington. His father, also John, had been a student at Marischal College between 1806 and 1809. During these years the Rectorship of the College was rotating between three lower-Deeside lairds – Alexander Forbes Irvine, 19th laird of Drum, Sir Robert Burnett of Leys, and Alexander Baxter of Glassel. The young student seems to have been welcomed into this country elite, and in 1816 married Catherine Niven of Thornton, a relative of the Baxters. But he died in 1822, aged 34, leaving his four-year-old son John to be brought up by his mother. In time John junior married successively into two north-eastern families: Farquhar of Carlogie and Farquharson of Haughton. In 1841 he succeeded his grandfather at Forcett, and during the later 1840s he also inherited the Glassel estate through his mother’s family.

We know little of John Michell as a person, though since he sponsored a special Eucharist, with five clergy, to celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation in 1851, we may assume that he was influenced by the Tractarian movement. But he was clearly determined that the Banchory congregation should have a worthy church building, and in October 1850 he bought, for £300, an irregular quadrilateral of land, extending northwards from the Deeside turnpike, as site ‘for a Church, Parsonage, Schoolhouse and Garden’. Its narrow frontage restricted the size of any church with an eastern orientation; but an Aberdeen architect, William Ramage, prepared plans with a seating capacity of 166. On 29th October 1851 what is in essentials the present building was dedicated to Saint Ternan, the Celtic missionary believed to have brought Christianity to Banchory between the fifth and seventh centuries. The chestnut tree which still shades the porch was also planted at this time. In March 1852 the whole property was conveyed to William Skinner, Bishop of Aberdeen.

Michell’s generosity was remarkable. According to the rather scrappy cash- books which survive, the total cost of the new church (including the land, and £37 10s 0d for altar plate) was £1,191 7s 10d. A subscription list, opened by donations of £50 by Michell, and ten guineas from his wife, eventually raised £447 12s 6d. Much of this sum came in gifts of five or ten pounds from sympathetic landed families (including W E Gladstone), some of whom may have subscribed out of neighbourly solidarity rather than theological conviction. But about twenty donations of three shillings or less suggest that

Page 4 of 26 Episcopalianism also had support among less wealthy folk. The remaining deficit appears to have been paid off by Michell himself, making his total contribution about £800. In addition he continued, until 1855, to provide about half the Rector’s annual stipend of £60 (since congregational offerings averaged little more than £20).

Smaller contributions to this deficit, combined with faithful support for the work of the church, were made by Alexander Forbes Irvine and his son, who succeeded as twentieth laird of Drum in 1861. Both men were lawyers, struggling to restore family fortunes depleted by civil war and consequent litigation. The family’s initial contribution to the building fund was a modest £1 10s 0d, augmented at Christmas by an additional £14 0s 0d. But thereafter the younger Irvine assisted with the augmentation of stipend, acted as Treasurer, and accepted appointment as Trustee, along with Michell and the incumbent Rector. The Irvines were an old Episcopalian family, who had embraced the teaching of the Oxford Tractarians as a renewal of their heritage. In 1857 Alexander the younger began to restore the chapel in the castle grounds in memory of an infant son, with an Anglo-Catholic fervour which still impresses visitors. But next year he became Chancellor of the diocese of Brechin, where Bishop Alexander Penrose Forbes’ Puseyite doctrine of the Eucharist was arousing fierce controversy. The voluminous correspondence about the theological and legal issues involved, which fills twenty-five bundles of papers in the Drum archives, must have prevented Irvine from maintaining his activity in St Ternan’s. After the consecration of St Devenick’s, Bieldside in 1894, many Irvines resumed their allegiance to the Aberdeen diocese; both the Cross (1894) the Lectern and the pulpit (1900) are gifts to St Ternan’s in memory of family members.

Page 5 of 26 2. A RESPECTABLE MINORITY

In 25th August 1850 twenty-three members of the new congregation received Communion from the Reverend Philip Carlyon of Dundee, and from Christmas 1850 regular services seem to have started under the first incumbent, William T Grieve, a young alumnus of Edinburgh University. When the new building was consecrated on 29th October 1851 there were twenty-nine lay communicants (including Michell and the younger Irvine) and nine clergy, including the Primus, William Skinner. Thereafter the principal services were Matins and Evensong, according to the English Prayer Book. The Eucharist was celebrated more or less monthly, probably according to the Scottish liturgy; the average attendance was nine (including Grieve and his wife), rising to about twenty at Christmas and Easter. The most prominent members were local landowners, notably the Irvines and the Innes family of Raemoir; Michel himself was rarely present, probably because he was spending more time at the Forcett estate. Later the church attracted retired military officers from England, and Scots who had attended English public schools, thus creating perceptions of an ‘English church’. After the Deeside railway reached Banchory in 1853 professional men from Aberdeen came into residence, including T S Sinclair-Spark, a lawyer who was to give long service as Secretary and Treasurer not only of St Ternan’s but of the Diocese. But there were also less affluent members. Among the most regular communicants were Mrs Reid and Mrs Barr, both modest contributors to the building fund; the tailor John Laird, confirmed in 1857, was to serve as verger for more than half a century. And in February 1852 Grieve and his wife travelled to Birse to take communion to old Peter Gordon, dying at the age of 85.

In June 1858, a few months before leaving Banchory, Grieve summarised some fruits of his ministry. During the preceding year 331 Communions had been made by 78 persons, and there had been thirteen Confirmations, at two ceremonies. During his seven years Grieve conducted nineteen baptisms: six of these were of his own sons. Clearly he was establishing family roots in Banchory, and it is not clear why he left at this time. On appointment Grieve had built himself the handsome gothic villa of Dungeith, behind the church; as his family grew he may have realised that he had stretched himself financially, and tried unsuccessfully to sell Dungeith to the church as a permanent rectory. His next appointment recorded was not until 1861, as Curate of Clewer in Somerset. But there is no suggestion of ill-feeling; the congregation subscribed to buy a paten as a ‘token of love and gratitude’ for his ministry. Grieve died in 1882 from a chill caught while visiting in his London parish, leaving his wife and large family unprovided for. In 1947 ‘a small pocket font’ with which he had conducted baptisms in extremis was returned to St Ternan’s through a priest in Salisbury.

During the seventeen years after Grieve left, St Ternan’s had seven different incumbents. With one exception, all were graduates of Oxford, Cambridge or Durham who had been ordained in the Church of England, and returned to parishes there after a few years. The exception was George Sutherland from Pitsligo, who graduated from King’s College Aberdeen in 1856, trained at Glenalmond, and was inducted in Banchory in 1861. During his ministry plans

Page 6 of 26 were made to build Christ Church, Kincardine O’Neil, which was consecrated in 1866. Sutherland took some responsibility for what was called the ‘Kincardine Mission’; during 1862 he celebrated there twice, with a total of 17 communicants (compared to 68 in St Ternan’s). But in 1866 he moved to Tillymorgan, and visiting clergy celebrated until June 1867. The other clergy have left even fewer records. Christopher Tweddle (1868-71) used Scottish and English liturgies alternately; H A Noel (1872-75) baptised three of his own sons, and when he left the congregation presented him with a desk. But none of these priests seems to have left a lasting impression on the small congregation.

A possible reason for these short incumbencies was the absence of a parsonage; Grieve’s successors must have been housed in rented accommodation, or even as lodgers. Since the church was only gradually building financial reserves, the need could only be met by personal generosity. In 1874 Rosebank, in Watson Street, was bought with an interest-free mortgage for £390 in the name of four members of the congregation, including Sinclair-Spark. Three years later responsibility for the church finances was defined by the appointment of four additional Trustees: Newell Burnett of Kylachie (1803-78), a former Clerk of Supply for Aberdeenshire; John Michell the third (who died next year, at the age of 31); Major-General R W Disney- Leith, tenant of Glassel; and Sir Robert Burnett, eleventh baronet of Crathes. This began the close connection with St Ternan’s of the Burnetts of Crathes Castle, long pillars of the established Church of Scotland. Robert’s father, Sir James, and his stepmother, Lauderdale Ramsay, had been occasional communicants since 1860, perhaps encouraged by Lady Ramsay’s famous kinsman Dean Ramsay of Edinburgh, a frequent guest at Crathes. Robert, who inherited in 1876 after a successful business career in California, gave committed support until he was afflicted by a brain tumour (which on one occasion is said to have caused him to remove his clothes during worship).

The first and only occupant of the new Parsonage was James Chalmers Deane Fraser (1851-1906), an alumnus (though not apparently a graduate) of Edinburgh University. Fraser was a man of some literary gifts, who as a student won prizes for an essay and a poem, which he apparently published. In 1881 he also published four Easter sermons, all based on texts from the Book of Numbers, as panegyrics for the recently deceased Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield. After his arrival at St Ternan’s in 1875 Fraser appears to have addressed himself to the wider needs of the parish, including its poorer members, serving on the School Board, and as an elected member of the Burgh Council. His scrappy records note baptisms in private homes, including some in extremis for members of other churches, and one, in December 1895, for the infant daughter of an unmarried ‘pedlar’ and his ‘vagrant’ companion. During 1893 he conducted funerals for a medical student who had committed suicide on Scolty, and for an illegitimate baby. Possibly such compassionate outreach was not approved by all his flock; in 1890 he reported to the diocese only 35 communicants, and a total congregation of 55. By 1901 these numbers had more than doubled. But next year Fraser announced his conversion to Roman Catholicism, and departed to the Benedictine Abbey at Fort Augustus.

Page 7 of 26 It was a stormy departure; forbidden to preach the farewell sermon he had planned, Fraser set out twelve complaints about the state of the Anglican Communion in a bitter pamphlet entitled From the Strife of Tongues. Fraser declared that he now felt more sympathy for the Presbyterianism of his youth than for a church which had neglected the cult of the Virgin, the sacrament of Extreme Unction, the practise of fasting: which sanctioned clerical marriage, and where congregational participation in the Chalice had become a source of ‘scandal and irreverence’. More broadly still, the ‘Higher Criticism’ was encouraging widespread scepticism: ‘no enthusiasm, no zeal’. As a final desecration, the crucifix which he had placed in St Ternan’s had been torn down, Fraser insinuated, to satisfy ‘lords and their ladies, and richly clothed men and women and their dependants.’

Undaunted, twelve members of the congregation met on 24th October 1902, with the Rector of Ballater as representative of the Bishop, to consider filling the charge. But when the Bishop nominated William Hawdon, Rector of Fyvie for the past seventeen years, they discovered a problem. Since all the lay Trustees appointed in 1877 had died, the incumbent had become solely responsible for financial business, and Fraser’s accounts required clarification. It was now realised that the congregation had no legal constitution; so who was to guarantee Hawdon’s stipend? Eventually the congregation offered a stipend of £170 (the same as Fraser had received); Sir Thomas Burnett and J T Hay of Blackhall (a retired jute merchant from Leith) each personally guaranteed 40% of this sum for five years, while Sinclair- Spark and Alex Murray guaranteed 10% each. In the event congregational giving was more than maintained, and these guarantees were never called on. The basic stipend was augmented by £60 from the Diocesan Clergy Sustentation Fund (to which St Ternan’s annual contribution was £62 10s 0d). At the same time a constitution was adopted, and Burnett, Hay, and J M Tracy were elected as a Committee of Lay Managers.

They still had to address the problem of a rectory. Fraser had clearly given little attention to the house and garden at Rosebank, which were judged to require repairs to the value of £250, and Hawdon was unwilling to live there. So Rosebank was sold for £335; Ellangowan, at the corner of Corsee Road, was rented from the builder, George Gordon; and in 1909, after some hard bargaining, it was bought from him for £800. The 1874 mortgage of £390 on Rosebank was cancelled by Sinclair-Spark, only surviving creditor, but the purchase price had to be made up by supplementing the money for Rosebank by £500 from Endowment Funds, which were thus reduced to £424. Hawdon agreed to pay interest on this £500 in addition to the rates and feu on Ellangowan – a total charge on his stipend of about £35. He thus began his ministry with the financial foundations of the church apparently assured by the generosity of its wealthier members. But during the next half-century the comfortable security of rural communities like Banchory, as throughout most of Europe, was to be seriously challenged.

Page 8 of 26 3. THE CHALLENGES OF WAR AND DEPRESSION 1902-45

These challenges took some years to become apparent. Meanwhile the congregation responded positively to Hawdon’s appointment. Soon after his installation Alex Murray sponsored the cleaning and painting of the church; and in July 1903 a meeting of the congregation agreed to consider enlarging the sacristy and purchasing an organ – to replace the harmonium on which Miss Gordon and Miss Shaw had been providing music for a surpliced choir. The latter suggestion was enthusiastically received; Burnett and Hay each promised £100 towards the estimated cost of £450, and the ladies of the congregation agreed to arrange a bazaar. Andrew Carnegie was also asked for a donation. By 1904 over £600 had been raised, the organ installed, and the schoolteacher Archibald Gullett appointed organist at a salary of £20. He served until about 1920, when he was succeeded by Miss Ogston, a music teacher. In 1905 a concert raised £11 10s 6d to start a Choir and Organ Fund. But the organ virtually emptied the Improvement Fund, and the sacristy remained unenlarged.

Otherwise the offerings of its wealthier members enabled the church to pay its way without great difficulty. During the first quarter of the century its ordinary revenue stabilised around £250, seat rents accounting for about £100. Although it had been agreed that any surplus revenue might be used to supplement the stipend, Hawdon did not claim this until he became liable to pay the charges on the Rectory in 1909. After the First World War the practice of presenting an Easter offering to the Rector was adopted; the congregation responded generously and Hawdon received an extra £40 or so, bringing his income to about £270. Otherwise there is surprisingly little evidence of any impact on St Ternan’s of the Great War of 1914-18. The cenotaph besides the church records the names of 94 Banchory men (nearly 10% of the total male population killed in the war; but only four names are repeated on the choir stalls. After the war congregational life quickly resumed a familiar pattern. The Easter offerings seem to have reflected appreciation, both of Hawdon’s ministry, and of the many forms of support which Mrs Hawdon gave to congregational activities. When Canon Hawdon (as he became in 1919) retired in 1925 £101 11s 6d was collected, and £25 of this was allotted to his wife. Hawdon remained in Banchory until he died on 12th September 1932, and the St Ternan window is dedicated to his wife’s memory.

When Hawdon retired a new constitution had just been adopted, replacing the Committee of Lay Managers by a Vestry of seven elected lay members. Bishop Deane consulted it about a successor, and in May 1925 reported that his offer of the charge had been accepted by Alexander Penrose Forbes Erskine, younger brother of the 12th Earl of Mar, and a missionary at St Barnabas, Transkei. Sadly, Erskine died before returning to Scotland, and Bishop Deane renewed his search. Eventually the charge was accepted by Edwin Ferguson (born in Old Deer), an Oxford graduate serving in a Berkshire parish, whose gentle ministry in Banchory seems to have been well appreciated, if uneventful.

The new Vestry in effect functioned as a self-renewing oligarchy of devout

Page 9 of 26 gentlemen who accepted responsibilities for maintaining Anglican worship in the town. Sometimes it met only once a year, to receive the accounts and present them immediately to the Annual Meeting, at which the Vestry members present were augmented by one unnamed ‘representative member of the congregation’. Retiring members were invariably re-elected; only death or migration offered opportunities to introduce new blood. Among many long- serving Rector’s Wardens one of the most popular was Walter Guy, Baron Bentinck (1864-1957), a retired officer with a distinguished record in South Africa and a Dutch title; he recruited boys for the choir and ‘read lessons beautifully’. During the first half of the century the duties of Secretary and Treasurer continued to be performed by Aberdeen lawyers who held similar appointments in the Diocesan office, which until 1971 was responsible for the actual payment of stipends: T Edmund Sinclair, William Sutherland and Miss E I Reid. For their services to St Ternan’s each received an annual honorarium of ten guineas. Later these duties were gradually devolved to local officers.

While the gentlemen of the Vestry assumed responsibility for maintaining the fabric of the church and the stipend of the incumbent, when deficits were threatened they turned to the ladies to organise bazaars or jumble sales. But women also made some modest contributions to good causes beyond the parish, by annual collections or through work groups. A pattern for such activities had been formed before the war. The Church Women’s Association for Foreign Missions engaged in the embroidery of vestments; in 1911, for example, it had sent work which it valued at twelve pounds to Kaffaria (then the infelicitous name of the Transkei Mission). This sum included £4 5s 0d in cash and £1 18s 6d in donated materials, the balance made up by the labour of the members.

A Home Mission Association contributed small sums to Diocesan and Provincial funds, and sometimes sent work to the Aberlour Orphanage, the House of Bethany, or other causes beyond Banchory. On Ferguson’s arrival, a group of ladies volunteered to hold a Café Chantant (later down-sized into another Sale of Work) which raised £70 for Home and Foreign Missions. But overall the congregation does not seem to have been deeply committed to the wider church; as one Rector later put it, they were not ‘diocesan-minded’.

St Ternan’s own finances were becoming precarious. There were attempts to establish an Endowment Fund; in 1929 Charles Cox, a businessman of strongly conservative views who later became People’s Warden, offered the grounds of Inchmarlo House (with the Chalet, where a former owner had conducted evangelical missions) as venue for a ‘Gipsy Sale’ which raised £160 for this. But with the onset of the Depression the regular revenues of the church began to run into deficit. In 1925 a Free Will Offering scheme was introduced, in hope of building up reserves to cover extraordinary costs for repairs and maintenance. But soon these offerings were needed to meet deficits in general revenue, and in the Choir and the Clergy Sustentation funds; by 1930 the accumulated reserve was reduced to £1 4s 9d. From time to time the Vestry appealed for wider and more generous participation in the scheme. In 1933 the treasurer reported fifty-five pledges, amounting to £222;

Page 10 of 26 but this restored only temporary solvency. Bills for the maintenance or improvement of ageing property kept coming in – for the installation of electricity in the church and rectory; for the Council’s repairs to Corsee Road.

At the outbreak of the Second World War the congregation nevertheless seemed in good heart. Ten young people were confirmed in December 1940; at Easter 1941 there were celebrations at 7.00 am and 8.00 am as well as midday; the revenue account at last showed a tiny balance. But Ferguson was now a sick man, and he died on 9th May 1941. For the next two years the Reverend AT Faber (a nephew of FW Faber, a leading Tractarian, who had retired to Banchory) acted as Curate-in-charge at a salary of £200, while the Rectory was let to Major CN Thomson for a rent of £35 a quarter. But this financial saving masked a continuing deterioration in congregational finances. Free Will Offerings, reduced by death or migration, now realised only two- thirds of the sums promised in 1932, thought this decline was masked by a rise in collections, partly from servicemen stationed in the town.

For this war was changing the population of Banchory in many ways. Although most of the evacuees from Dundee did not stay long, St Margaret’s School remained in occupation at Blackhall (whence some girls cycled to St Ternan’s, watched by admiring choirboys). Highlanders of the 52nd Division, with Polish and Norwegian units, trained in the area for the invasion of Europe; Canadian foresters, Land Army girls, and Italian prisoners, all helped to enhance the social experience of those local people who were not themselves absent on war service. Older members of St Ternan’s complained when they found the family pew occupied by these strangers. Although battle casualties were generally lighter than in 1914-18 – 31 names on Banchory cenotaph, as against 94 – eight members of St Ternan’s were killed, twice as many as in 1914-18, including three Russell brothers, to whose memory new choir stalls were later dedicated.

Members of a reconstituted Women’s Guild now began to play more active roles in the life of the church. In 1943 the Annual Meeting was opened to the congregation for the first time, and substantial numbers attended. The Sunday School, suspended for lack of teachers, revived. In 1944 the Vestry decided it needed a woman member, and Mrs George Davidson of Durris, was nominated. However, there was no vacancy. The AGM suggested that elected members should retire after three years service; but as this would have required a constitutional amendment the retiring members were re-elected as usual. The constitution was eventually amended in 1947, but only in 1953 did the first women join the Vestry; Mrs Harvey Cochrane and Mrs Hewitt.

Meanwhile Miss Ogston seems to have maintained a choir of twelve boys until 1943, when the Vestry agreed that girls might fill vacancies in the choir stalls, wearing white surplices, and receive the same remuneration as boys – ten shillings at Christmas. But though they congratulated Miss Ogston on her successful work, they continued to turn down her annual requests for an increase in salary on financial grounds, granting only an occasional small bonus if there should be a surplus. She retired, perhaps discouraged, in 1946.

Page 11 of 26 The congregation joined in various patriotic endeavours. In July 1941 Sir James Burnett opened Crathes gardens, and raised £107 for the Gordons’ Comforts Fund; vegetables were collected to supply minesweepers, ladies assembled in the Town Hall to darn soldiers’ socks. In 1944 the Women’s Guild invested £200 in National Savings, in order to ‘Salute the Soldier’, and they represented St Ternan’s in planning the town’s welcome to returning servicemen. In August 1945 the bell was rung to celebrate victory in the war against Japan.

In June 1943 the Vestry accepted the nomination as Rector of LA Templeman Speer, who had taken orders in 1934 after eighteen years as a regular army officer. Father of a young family, but temporarily unfit for service as a Chaplain, Speer is recalled as having ‘raked in the young people’, as well as the servicemen. Sometimes the church was full, with seats in the aisles. He paid two-thirds of the cost of a Rectory telephone, persuaded the Vestry to join the Scottish Film Society and partly met the cost of blacking-out the church so that winter Evensong could be held at the usual time. Speer was a High Churchman, who raised funds to install an aumbry for reservation of the Sacrament, and formed a Guild of Communicants, to complement the Women’s Guild. Choirboys were surprised by his ‘bowing and scraping’, and his use of sung prayers; and such signs of High Churchmanship also disturbed some senior members of the congregation.

The same people disapproved of Speer’s interest in the new trends in Anglican social thinking inspired by Archbishop William Temple. They could accept the growing emphasis on practical ecumenical co-operation; when Bishop Hall refused permission for Speer to participate in a combined service, 90% of the congregation was prepared to protest. But there was great disquiet when Anglican bishops, with support from other Christian leaders, circulated an Encyclical entitled, ‘the purpose of God and Social Life’, following a call by the 1941 Malvern conference for the church to re-examine its attitude towards evils and injustices within contemporary society. The Vestry smelled Socialism, and on Cox’s motion declined to refer the document for study by a committee ‘because it was of a political nature’. Speer, who had been holding Friday evening discussions in the Rectory, protested that it was political only in the sense that Jesus was political, and sent copies of the text to every household. But in February 1945 he tendered his resignation, saying that he was now physically fit for harder work than Banchory could provide, and left for a Glasgow city parish.

Page 12 of 26 3. THE CHALLENGES OF SECULARISM,1945-89

Canon P M Buchanan, a Glaswegian who had been Rector of Longside for the last twelve years, proved a less controversial appointment. Although his suggestion, at his first Vestry meeting, of acquiring ‘a Church Hall or mission hut’ was not carried through, the congregation did develop some new activities. Young people graduating from Sunday School continued to meet in the Rectory for discussion or recreation, and the St Ternan’s Guild also gathered there. In 1951 ‘Snow White’ was performed in the Town Hall. From the mid-50s the Rector’s son Percival began to arrange recitals of classical music on the new LP recordings, and in March 1956 ’The Dream of Gerontius’ was played in the church. Earlier, there was an experiment in showing religious films in place of Evensong, a service at which attendances were continually declining. There were more signs of outreach towards the Church overseas. A group called the ’Lightbearers’ paid school fees for an Indian boy in the Chanda mission; in 1949 it was decided to make four collections annually for overseas missions; in July 1958 there was a visit from the Bishop of St John’s, Transkei; in 1960 the Women’s Guild donated £50 for refugees.

But finance remained an ever-recurring worry. In 1947-8 the introduction of Covenants brought an immediate improvement in the general account, but the old Free Will Offering fund ceased to meet the claims even of the Choir and of Clergy Sustentation, and lapsed into desuetude. In 1953 electrical heating was installed; the church became slightly warmer, but at a cost. Diocesan demands were also becoming more insistent - for a Bishop’s residence, for an increase in minimum stipends - and the dreaded word ’Quota’ began to appear. Sales of Work remained an essential standby, but the congregation maintained a principled objection to raffles, or other mild forms of gambling. When Buchanan retired in March 1959 the Vestry faced heavy bills for repairs to both Rectory and organ.

There was a nine-month delay in filling the vacancy, partly because of negotiations with an American candidate. Services during the interim were taken by Canon Edward Millar, recently retired as Rector of Montrose, whose family have left warm memories in Banchory. His daughters, Audrey and Marion, assisted Mrs Lawson (widow of a naval officer) in the Sunday School, which met before Matins in the still unreconstructed sacristy. Two classes, about a dozen children in all, were crowded into this small space, whose fewsty atmosphere pervaded the books of Bible stories which they studied. Mrs Buchanan, who succeeded Miss Ogston as organist, had for a time greatly improved the standard of church music, recruiting an adult choir (male voices provided by her own family). In 1950 the Vestry had raised her salary to £52.10s 0d. But during the 1950s numbers in the choir declined - like the congregation at large it was always liable to depletion by migration or death - and by 1959 it was sustained only by two young brothers, Peter and Robin Lattimore.

There had been periodic discussions about building a new Rectory on the land which John Michell had provided for this purpose, but it remained a vegetable garden, leased to the Douglas Arms for five pounds a year. In 1937

Page 13 of 26 Miss Ogston asked if a Guide Hut might be built there, but it was ruled that this would breach the terms of Michell’s donation. In 1948 an offer from the Town Council to buy part of the land for a storeroom was rejected (with a complaint about the proximity of their new public lavatories). There was more sympathy for a 1959 proposal to use the site for old people’s housing; but the Council’s offer of £80 was unacceptable, and the Bishop ruled that the land should not be sold. A new building would avoid heavy costs for decoration, plumbing and carpentry at Ellangowan. The fireplaces needed replacement; there were only two power plugs in the house. The garden was in even worse shape, requiring ploughing rather than spadework; walls were crumbling beneath the ivy, the greenhouse was unserviceable. But its sale would not cover the cost of a new building, and in any case the new Rector, Harold Bembridge from Dundee, preferred the old house to a five-room bungalow.

Bembridge seems to have been another energetic High Churchman. He was meticulous in observing Saints’ days, and during Holy Week 1960 provided a very wide range of services, including a three-hour Good Friday meditation, and opportunities for auricular confession. In 1962 sung Eucharist temporarily replaced Matins on third Sundays. But his hopes of starting a Youth Club did not materialise, and much energy still had to go into fund-raising. Bembridge began the practice of sitting in church to receive donations on St Ternan’s day in June, and in 1962 the response to a diocesan stewardship appeal enabled the congregation, exceptionally, to pay its full Quota. But some members had misgivings about Bembridge’s bachelor life-style, and in May 1964 he moved to a working-class parish in Manchester.

After the war, St Ternan‘s gradually became more socially inclusive. Members confirmed in Ferguson’s time described how ’working-class’ members used to sit on the right of the church, while the landowners, lawyers and retired officers had their private pews on the left. Only a few of these would recognize their fellow-worshippers in the street; the exceptions included ‘the Baron’, and the Falconer family, who hosted rehearsals for Nativity plays in Roscobie House. Such a division, it might be thought, merely reproduced class distinctions in Scottish rural society generally. But it cannot be accepted too literally, for there were farmers, businessmen and tradespeople who did not conform to either group. In 1938 Johnnie Marr, a popular postman who drove an old box-car, was elected to the Vestry; when in 1944 he became Peoples’ Warden he was joined by Archie Coutts. And after 1970 regional growth fuelled by the oil industry, and the growing popularity of commuting, brought a more diverse middle-class element to St Ternan’s, including university teachers and petroleum managers.

The congregation also continued to grow more ecumenically-minded, and more aware of the material needs of the former colonial world. In 1958 Mrs Lawson, the former Sunday School superintendent, became Banchory’s first woman provost, and the kirking of the Town Council took place in the church. In September 1963 Bembridge invited members of the East and West churches to Evensong, and in April 1967 St Ternan’s was full for the first of many joint services for the Women’s World Day of Prayer. By 1969 it was on the rota for the Scouts and Guides Thinking Day services. In 1965 Mrs J R

Page 14 of 26 Matthews instituted regular collections for OXFAM, which in 1969 were redirected to Christian Aid. Liturgically, the congregation was still conservative. The eleven members who attended a special meeting in May 1967 did not favour the reading of Epistle or Gospel in modern translation, but thought the Old Testament lesson might be omitted when it did not serve any evident moral purpose. The congregation of these years was little inclined to reconsider its traditional modes of worship.

Bembridge’s successor, S Jeffries Bonney, was a former Welsh Methodist, who had served parishes in Edinburgh, Eyemouth and Ellon. A devout and kindly man, diligent in pastoral duties, Bonney was much loved by the congregation, though a severe asthmatic condition increasingly restricted his activities. But from the 1950s the Scottish Episcopal Church, like most others in Western Europe, began to lose members as prevailing cultures became increasingly secular. Church statistics suggest that at St Ternan’s and other churches in Banchory the decline may have been less marked than elsewhere; at times they even suggest increases, though this may be related to the increasing movement of new families into the area. But regular Evensong was abandoned in 1978; the Sunday School, reduced to ten in 1970, ceased to meet. Early Communion was attended by a faithful few, but the main Sunday service was Matins, and when worshippers remained in their seats, expecting a scheduled Eucharist to follow, this sometimes caused surprise. In 1979 the Reverend Bill Nicholson of the East Kirk suggested an ecumenical Mission to Banchory, but the suggestion was not pursued.

The sense of a losing battle, however gallantly fought by many, is reflected in the financial accounts. During the 60s smaller and smaller contributions were offered towards the annual Quota which the Diocese required in order to meet its own growing needs. The great inflation of the 1970s afflicted all branches of the church. In 1971 the Vestry not only withheld Quota altogether but received Augmentation of £300 from Provincial funds, though Banchory could not be considered an impoverished area. As its Treasurer noted six years later, ‘St Ternan’s has the worst record on Deeside for giving per capita.’ Much of its giving was concentrated on domestic needs. In 1971, despite the failure to pay Quota, £400 was found for another overhaul of the organ; and although £17 was collected for Christian Aid, Shelter’s request for a donation was refused.

Meanwhile the rectory continued to deteriorate. In 1969 plans were drawn for a new building, but the Vestry refused to contemplate bridging an expected deficit of £14,000, and it was five more years before they resolved to proceed. Ellangowan was sold better than expected, for £28,513; and in January 1976, after a brief interval as guests of the Fosters in a cottage at Park, the Bonney family moved into a new Rectory behind the church. This signaled a slow improvement in the fortunes of the church. Small contributions to Quota resumed in 1973, and two years later the Vestry resolved to dispense with Augmentation.

Incidental financial relief also came when the Vestry, after much anguished discussion, reluctantly agreed to a formal linkage of the parish with Christ

Page 15 of 26 Church, Kincardine O’Neil. This was celebrated in a joint communion service on Whitsunday 1978; next year the two congregations held a joint Harvest Supper. The linkage however placed an increased strain on Canon Bonney. To some degree this was relieved by the licensing as Lay Reader of Walford Hughes of Aberdeen College of Education. Fred Blacklaws, music teacher at the Academy, also began to officiate at this time, though at first unlicensed. After dedicated service through the 1980s Fred was ordained Deacon in 1990. Despite this relief, Canon Bonney was a very sick man when in December 1980 he retired to Dysart, where he died on 22 January following.

Page 16 of 26 5. THE CHALLENGES OF PROSPERITY.

When on 28 March 1981 Gerald Mungavin, a former RAF chaplain serving parishes in mid-Buchan, was instituted as Rector of the combined parishes, Banchory had already begun to grow in population and prosperity. Many who were working in responsible positions related to the great expansion of the North Sea oil industry found lower Deeside a desirable place to live, and some of them were already active members of other branches of the Anglican communion. The new Rector could thus call on much support within a growing congregation. Gradually St Ternan’s became a more lively place, helped by quiet acts of lay leadership too many and too diverse to mention. Communion was now the main morning service on the first, third and fifth Sundays of each month, and was also celebrated in mid-week. Within two years Mungavin could report to the Diocese that the congregation had almost doubled, and that the total number of Communions made had increased by 150%.

An early priority for Gerald Mungavin, and his actively energetic wife Margaret, was to broaden the religious education of young families. Sunday School had already been revived on the initiative of Walford Hughes, in response to the demands of young parents among the incomers; a total roll of twenty-five was divided between the sacristy and a room in the rectory. On 27 June 1982 a meeting of the congregation enthusiastically supported the idea of building a Church Hall. The Vestry showed financial caution, estimating the cost at £20,000; when only £8,800 had been promised by the end of 1982 they felt unable to proceed. The West Church generously offered to accommodate St Ternan’s children in their Sunday School classes, but teachers feared this would inevitably lead parents to transfer their own membership. During the next two years various expedients were discussed - the use of Portakabins, the construction of a free-standing wooden building - but none seemed really satisfactory. Yet there was also an urgent need to improve the condition of the old sacristy and to install toilet facilities, which would mean substantial expenditure in any case, for unsatisfactory results. Meanwhile inflation was raising estimated costs still further. But in January 1985 Rosalind Eames produced an estimate for £16,900 from a Strachan builder, and Neil Bayfield and Walter Johnston proposed that a start should be made in faith. It was no longer a matter of space for the Sunday School alone; many felt the congregation needed improved opportunities to meet together for coffee after service, for discussion, or for communal meals. The architect James Hammond drew new plans, which for the first time incorporated the new hall with the existing building, and fund-raising resumed with new enthusiasm. The District Council awarded £1,000 (half of it ear-marked for the memorial window, designed by Tina Hammond, which became a memorial to Barbara Bayfield); members of the congregation offered interest-free loans, and provided their own labour (some skilled, some very unskilled). On St Ternan’s day, 1985 the laying of the foundation stone by Mrs Foster was celebrated by Festal Evensong in the presence of Bishop Frederick Darwent.

The music on this occasion reflected a remarkable renaissance of the choir. Its revival had begun when Canon Bonney’s son Norval was organist, and Jill Pritchard Choirmistress; in 1978 she combined both offices. Though

Page 17 of 26 somewhat taken aback by a request from the Vestry ‘to keep the music simple and compatible with a country church choir’ she raised the quality of music far beyond this, and the choir became a major contributor to music in the diocese and in the town.

The new Hall proved a great asset to the common life of the congregation. Sunday School numbers rose to 32 by 1991, and dedicated teachers introduced new programmes of instruction. Not only did Sunday morning coffee afford opportunities to meet and to greet visitors, but Harvest Suppers and other social gatherings took place more often. The Wives’ Group (which became a wider Church Fellowship) and ecumenical study groups found it a splendid meeting place, as did some organisations outwith the church, which not only provided a modest income but made St Ternan’s more familiar to the wider Banchory community.

The finances, which had caused so much heart-searching over the Hall project, also began to improve. In the early 1980s the accounts had shown modest surpluses, chiefly thanks to buoyant investment income and timely legacies. But in 1984 return on investments began to decline while the claims for Quota relentlessly increased, and the surplus was down to £9; it became clear that giving was not keeping pace with inflation, and that repairs and improvements to organ, church and rectory were being deferred. The new building was an act of faith, involving temporary dependence on bank overdrafts, and some favourable disposition of investments. But the growing prosperity of north-east Scotland was now at least partly reflected in members’ giving. By 1990 the Hall Fund was liquidated, the overdraft was negligible, and the accounts again showed a small surplus.

Moreover, since more of the congregation had experience in the world overseas, there were signs of some outreach beyond the parish. In 1986, when the Christian Aid collection reached £246, it was resolved to merge St Ternan’s contribution in the annual Banchory-wide campaign. Special collections were made for such causes as Rumanian orphanages and Action Aid. From 1989 the Diocese was formally linked in Companionship with the Diocese of St John’s, Transkei, thus renewing a former missionary link of the Scottish Episcopal Church. In May 1994 Bishop Jacob Dhlamini preached in St Ternan’s, and next year there was an inspiring visit from the Reverend Warren Bada, Rector of the Parish of Epiphany (which consists of sixteen churches, up to 55 kilometres apart). An informal partnership was established, and over the next two years there were exchanges of gifts, greetings and congregational news.

Another sign of new activity was the spontaneous growth of house-groups, some inter-denominational, meeting informally for prayer and Bible Study. Mungavin appears to have been worried that, without supervision by clergy, these might become sources of heresy, but no sign of this was apparent to the congregation. St Ternan’s seemed to be in good heart when Mungavin retired, to be succeeded, in January 1993, by the Reverend Ross Royden.

Royden had been chaplain and lecturer at Bedford College, and St Ternan’s

Page 18 of 26 was his first parish. He did not have an easy start. Some members felt that his talents for teaching and out-reach were practiced at some expense in pastoral care and visitation. Moreover his wife, Sally-Ann, was a lawyer with her own career; though she did become active in many branches of church life there were those who were reluctant to recognise that modern clergy brides might no longer accept the traditional role of ‘Rector’s wife’. Others were wary of liturgical innovation; there was some disquiet when in 1994 Ross confined the service of Matins to the second Sunday of the month, instituting on those days an evening Eucharist according to Rite A (later, the Scottish liturgy of 1982). The introduction of more modern hymns also met some resistance. Membership figures declined sharply at first - though this was largely due to more rigorous editing of the records on which the return to the Diocese was based. But the total number of Communions made soon increased again, reaching a record of 4075 in 1999.

Royden’s hope was to make St Ternan’s ‘inclusive, tolerant, and outward- looking‘; these aims reflected a Mission Statement which the Vestry, in dialogue with the congregation, adopted in 1995. Twelve members of the congregation, under Ross’s leadership, participated in ‘Mission 21’, a Provincial project designed to ‘prioritize goals’ in a concerted effort to increase membership of the church. In 1999 this was followed by ‘The Whole People of God’, a course which used the texts of the Lectionary as a means for the Christian education of both children and adults. Two, later three, house groups followed this in weekly meetings for study and prayer. One of these was led by John Duthie, who after moving to Banchory from Peterhead became a Lay Reader in 1999, and ten years later was installed as Rector at Insch.

The common life of the congregation became more diverse. Soon the Sunday School overflowed into the Town Hall; by 2000 it numbered about fifty, in addition to infants in a creche, held in the old sacristy. Discos and barbeques were arranged for young children, and there were family camps in Strathspey at the end of the summer holidays. Senior members enjoyed parish meals, rural walks, dances, concerts and wide-ranging discussions over wine in the Church Hall. All these were maintained by enthusiastic volunteers, too numerous to name. In 1999 Sue Roberts was appointed part-time Parish Co- ordinator, and her office equipped with the help of a grant from the Diocese.

Overall the 1990s remained a prosperous time for lower Deeside, and the expanding congregation was largely drawn from those who shared that prosperity. Many of them were actively concerned with the needs of Church and communities beyond Banchory; there were no more quibbles about meeting the Diocesan Quota, and the Vestry resolved to donate four collections annually to charitable causes at home and abroad. But regular giving still failed to meet the requirements of a growing church. On 3 March 1998 the AGM was warned that St Ternan’s was still not paying its way; the accounts for 1996/7 showed a deficit of £5,628. The congregation responded by setting up an ’Enterprise Group’ of members with business experience. John Williams, who was elected to the Vestry at the same time, energetically encouraged more covenanted giving, and pursued the recovery of Gift Aid.

Page 19 of 26 But, despite an anonymous donation of £12,500, it remained necessary to rely on bazaars and jumble sales. Later John became leader of a Buildings committee, which besides carrying out urgent structural repairs, carried through the installation of an Induction Loop in the church in 2001.

Ross Royden’s gifts as a teacher were exercised both inside and outside the church building. He became a well-respected figure to pupils and staff in both Primary School and Academy, and in the wider Banchory community. His election as Chairman of the Banchory School Board, however, diverted some of his energies into a contentious planning dispute with the District Council. He also organized, and chaired, election hustings in the hall for candidates in the Westminster election of 1997 and the Holyrood election of 1998. In church, it was his custom to deliver short addresses at all services, including 8.00 Communion, which generally linked the Biblical text to some issue of the contemporary world.

Ross encouraged those who were prepared to review traditional Anglican liturgies and teachings in light of new evidence, and of participation in ecumenical – and, more tentatively, inter-faith – dialogue. Willing to address controversial issues of sex and gender, and of socio-political relations in the world, he was anxious to lead the congregation to become more inclusive and tolerant, open to reconsider traditional Anglican teachings and liturgies in light of developing scientific knowledge and insights and of experience (including that of families who had worked in other countries) of ecumenical and even inter-faith dialogue and co-operation, Readiness to join in prayerful discussion of on-going debates about Christian attitudes and responsibilities towards questions of sex and gender, and towards issues of poverty and injustice in the contemporary world increased after Ross invited the controversial Bishop Richard Holloway to address the congregation’s Christmas dinner of 1999.

Some members, it must be noted, were less happy about such critical approaches to the beliefs and liturgies they had inherited, and would have preferred a more traditional approach to pastoral responsibilities. But when he moved in August 2000 to a charge in Hong Kong Ross Royden left an active and devout congregation, mostly well-educated and well-to-do, more anxious than before ‘to be open and welcoming to all in a non-judgemental way’. St Ternan’s prepared to welcome David Berryman as its new Rector, and to celebrate its 150th anniversary, with much hopeful expectation. But it could not yet claim, any more than its predecessors, to be fully inclusive of the Deeside community it had committed itself to serve.

Page 20 of 26 APPENDIX 1: A FEW FIGURES

Statistics can be misleading, unless they are consistently collected on a constant basis of reliable data. After some thought, I have decided not to attempt to compose full tables, of Church membership or of Church finance. Not only would the data be very incomplete, in both respects; it could be misleading. As far as finance is concerned, the figures are presented in subtly different ways from year to year; income was classified differently, expenditure allocated to varying sections of the accounts; the value of money changes, income is affected by legacies, or changes in investment. An elaborate table might merely embellish a picture which I have tried to draw in the text: a congregation perpetually alternating on the cusp of annual solvency, regularly embarrassed by unexpected demands for maintenance, repairs or improvement, equally regularly seeking salvation by bazaars and jumble sales. Sadly, despite occasional acts of spontaneous generosity, for most of the period such a table would not reveal large contribution to the needs of the church beyond Banchory, even to the extent required by Diocesan quotas.

The problem with numbers of members and communicants is rather different. From the later years of the nineteenth century, regular returns were made to the Diocese, and reproduced in the Episcopal Church Yearbooks. But it is not clear how membership was calculated, or whether Communion rolls were maintained. Often figures remain suspiciously constant from year to year’ probably only the figure of total Communions made is truly reliable. However, the following sample figures may offer some guide to the changing health of the congregation (see over page).

Page 21 of 26 Year Members/ Communicants Total Sunday Adherents Communions School 1857/8 79 331 1861 61 381 1890 55 35 1891 76 57 1901 139 83 1932 120 94 1,004 20 1939 125 90 c. 20 1951 177 117 1960 120 94 905 20 1962 103 87 1,222 Nil 1968 [134] 104 758 Nil 1970 140 116 756 Nil 1975 166 127 905 1978 221 171 1,139 - 1980 244 199 1,084 25 [1981] 1985 265 216 2,751 24 1990 273 220 3,724 32 [1991] 1995 250 150 3,697 1999 400 148 4,075 40+

Page 22 of 26 APPENDIX 2: RECTORS OF ST. TERNAN’S

1848-50: Robert Bruce (priest-in-charge) 1850-58: William Thomas Grieve 1858-59: James Annand Sellar MA. Aberdeen 1859-61: William Thomas Barry BA, Cambridge 1861-65: George Sutherland MA, Aberdeen 1866-67: William Boycott MA, Oxford (priest-in-charge) 1868-71: Christopher Tweddle, MA, Cambridge 1871-72: Edward Burch Field LlB, Cambridge 1872-75: Henry Anthony Noel BA, Durham 1875-1902: James Charles Dean Fraser 1903-25: William Watson Hawdon BA, Durham 1926-41: Edwin Augustus Ferguson BA.,Oxford 1941-43: Arthur Travis Faber BA, Oxford (priest-in-charge) 1943-45: Lionel Arthur Templeman Speer 1945-59: Percival Montague Buchanan MA BD, Glasgow 1959-64: Harold Bembridge 1964-81: Stuart Jeffries Bonney 1981-92: Gerald Clarence Mungavin 1993-2000: Ross Eric Royden, BA, M Th, Nottingham 2001- William Arthur David Berryman, BD, London.

Page 23 of 26 APPENDIX 3: CHURCHWARDENS

Year Rector’s Wardens People’s Wardens 1926 Baron Bentinck Duncan Deans 1934 CS Howard (d. 1935) 1936 Douglas G Hay 1939 CT Cox 1947 James Davidson 1948 Sir James Burnett John P Marr 1953 Major Foster 1961 Mr. Hampton 1962 Brigadier de Winton 1964 Major Foster John P Marr 1966 Mrs. Wright 1967 John P Marr 1971 L Dobson 1983 Philip Knight 1984 Walter Johnston Stuart Nelson 1985 James Hammond Patricia Willetts 1987 Ryan Bond 1989 Peter Redman Neil Bayfield 1992 Boffin Plunkett 1993 Didie Leslie-Melville 1995 Patricia Willetts 1997 Stanley Wilkinson 1999 Dora Holmes

Page 24 of 26 APPENDIX 4: THE WINDOWS

Above the altar. The Good Shepherd. Memorial to the Hay family James T Hay, formerly a jute merchant in Leith, bought the Blackhall estate during the later nineteenth century. As one of the Board of Managers elected in 1902 he guaranteed 40% of the stipend.

The Light of the World: Memorial to Anne, Baroness Bentinck (d.1934) Anne Elizabeth Burnett-Ramsay married Walter Guy, Baron Bentinck (1866- 1957), CMG, CBE, DSO A churchwarden for 32 years, and an active and popular member of the congregation.

The Good Samaritan. Not dedicated

South Wall of Chancel. Memorial to Pilot-Officer Harry Wright, killed in action 7/8 February 1945, and son of Colonel Wright of the Gordon Highlanders.

South Wall of Nave. Saint Michael and Saint George. Memorial to John Alexander Stuart CB CMG (1841-1908) Colonel, 3rd Gordon Highlanders.

David. Memorial to Lieutenant Alexander Berowald Innes (1873-1915), killed at Festubert, 18 June 1915. The Innes family of Raemoir had been associated with St Ternan’s since the 1850s. This window was designed by Douglas Strachan (1878-1950), one of Scotland’s finest stained glass artists, who designed windows of the Scottish National War Memorial, Edinburgh.

Saint James Major. Memorial to James Russell Clyne of Knappach (1840- 1928) James Clyne, who was related to the Haldane family, bought Knappach after the First World War. He was elected to the Vestry in 1936. Window designed by A R Nicholson of London.

North Wall Saint Ternan. Memorial to Mrs Mary Hawdon. Mary Hawdon was the wife of Canon William Hawdon, Rector of St Ternan’s 1902-25, to whom there is a memorial plaque below this window. She had been particularly active in the work of the congregation, not only in Banchory but in their previous parish of Fyvie.

Saint Francis Memorial to Charles Thomas Cox, d.12 April 1948 C T Cox, who bought the Inchmarlo estate, probably during the first world war, was elected to the Vestry when it was constituted in 1925 and served until 1947, from 1939 as People’s Warden.

Page 25 of 26 Saint Margaret. Memorial to George W Herdman and his wife Mary George Herdman, a friend of the poet Charles Murray, retired to Banchory after working as a civil engineer in South Africa. Mary Herdman was a great- niece of James Giles RSA (1836-1926) Their daughter Margaret (Maybee), who taught Sunday School in St Ternan’s, donated 48 works by Giles to Aberdeen City Art Gallery.

IN THE CHURCH HALL

Memorial Window to Barbara Bayfield, first wife of Neil Bayfield, People’s warden 198x-xx This window was designed by Mrs Tina Hammond, and made by Kinellar Stained Glass.

I am grateful to Muriel Clark and to Michael Zappert for their help in compiling this list.

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