Gustavus Aird
{{Short description|Scottish minister and campaigner against the Highland Clearances}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox Christian leader
| type =
| honorific-prefix =
| name = Gustavus Aird
| title =
| image = Gustavus Aird from Caithness and Sutherland.png
| alt =
| caption = Gustavus Aird from Caithness and Sutherland{{sfn|Campbell|1920}}
| church = Church of Scotland
Free Church of Scotland
| archdiocese =
| diocese =
| see =
| term =
| predecessor =
| successor =
| otherpost =
| ordination =
| consecration =
| consecrated_by =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = 28 June 1813
| birth_place =
| death_date = 20 December 1898
| death_place =
| signature=
| previous_post =
| spouse =
| children =
| religion =
| alma_mater =
| module =
}}
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.
Life
File:Creich Parish Church - geograph.org.uk - 461914.jpg
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.Ewing, William Annals of the Free Church
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.The Highland Clearances, by John PrebbleThe Life of Gustavus Aird, by Rev Alexander Macrae of Tongue, 1908{{cite web|url=http://www.abandonedcommunities.co.uk/strathcarron2.html |title=Strathcarron 2 |publisher=Abandonedcommunities.co.uk |date= |accessdate=2020-02-26}} 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.Who Built Scotland: 25 Journeys in Search of a Nation, by Alexander McCall Smith & c.
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,{{cite web|url=http://gravestones.rosscromartyroots.co.uk/picture/number16418.asp |title=Ross & Cromarty Roots | Gustavus Aird |publisher=Gravestones.rosscromartyroots.co.uk |date=2013-09-21 |accessdate=2020-02-26}} which is close to Croick. All but two families left the original congregation and followed him to Creich.{{cite web|author=NG Ross |url=http://www.croickchurch.com/parishofcroick.htm |title=the official site. A record of the infamous Scottish Highland Clearances of the mid 1800s |publisher=Croick Church |date= |accessdate=2020-02-26}} 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.
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.Free Church Monthly May 1888 He appears photographed in the Moderator's robes in 1888, and records indicate he was the only Moderator in that year.{{cite web|author=Tain Museum Image Library |url=http://www.tainmuseum.org.uk/imagelibrary/picture/number133.asp |title=Tain Museum Image Library - Reverend Dr Aird |publisher=Tainmuseum.org.uk |date=2017-01-02 |accessdate=2020-02-26}}
He died in Sale, Manchester on 20 December 1898Free Church Monthly May 1899 but is buried in Migdale Free Churchyard at Bonar Bridge. There is also an ornate memorial at Creich.{{cite web|last=Maciver |first=Allan |url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/allanmaciver/8202617642 |title=Rev Gustavus Aird DD Memorial Stone, Creich Free Church, B… |publisher=Flickr |date=2012-09-07 |accessdate=2020-02-26}}
Publications
- Religious Life in Ross
- Daorsa Agus Saorsa
- Sketch of Rev. Mr Fraser - Biography of Rev. James Fraser of Brea{{cite book |last1=Aird |first1=Gustavus |author2=Gustavus Aird's sketch is often bound with Fraser's Memoirs |title=Short Sketch of Rev. Mr Fraser |date=1891 |publisher=Melven |location=Inverness |pages=v-vi |url=https://archive.org/details/memoirsofjame00fras/page/n7 |accessdate=23 February 2019}}
- 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){{sfn|Scott|1928}}
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=
{{reflist}}
=Sources=
- {{cite book |last1=Aird |first1=Gustavus |title=Opening Address by the Rev. Dr. Aird, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, Held at Inverness on the 24th Day of May, 1888, which Has Been Printed ... |date=1888 |publisher=Free Church of Scotland |page=|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SLD-cQAACAAJ}}
- {{cite book |last1=Campbell |first1=H. F. |title=Caithness and Sutherland |date=1920 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |pages=[https://archive.org/details/caithnesssutherl00campuoft/page/158/mode/2up 158]-159 |url=https://archive.org/details/caithnesssutherl00campuoft}}
- {{cite book |last1=MacDonald |first1=Murdoch |title=The Covenanters in Moray and Ross |date=1875 |publisher=Maclaren & Macniven |location=Edinburgh |pages=[https://archive.org/details/covenantersinmor00macd/page/16/mode/2up 17]–18 |url=https://archive.org/details/covenantersinmor00macd}}
- {{cite book |last1=MacNaughton |first1=Colin |title=Church life in Ross and Sutherland, from the Revolution (1688) to the present time; compiled chiefly from the Tain Presbytery records. |date=1915 |publisher=Inverness : Printed by the Northern Counties Newspaper and Print. and Pub. Co. |location=Inverness |pages=[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.l0076947514&view=1up&seq=410&skin=2021 386], et passim |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011258091}}
- {{cite book |last=Scott |first=Hew |title=Fasti ecclesiae scoticanae; the succession of ministers in the Church of Scotland from the reformation |volume=7|page=[https://archive.org/details/fastiecclesiaesc07scot/page/52/mode/1up 52]|date=1928 |publisher=Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd |url=https://archive.org/details/fastiecclesiaesc07scot |author-link=Hew Scott}}{{PD-notice}}
- {{cite book |last1=Webber |first1=F. R. |title=A history of preaching in Britain and America, including the biographies of many princes of the pulpit and the men who influenced them. |date=1952|publisher=Northwestern Pub. House |location=Milwaukee |pages=[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3318112&view=2up&seq=399&skin=2021 395]-396 |volume=2 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3318112&view=2up&seq=399&skin=2021}}
External links
- {{Internet Archive author |sname=Gustavus Aird}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aird, Gustavus}}
Category:People from Ross and Cromarty
Category:19th-century ministers of the Free Church of Scotland