Wee Frees
Sir: It is right to point out (Diary, 12 November) that the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, to which the Lord Chancellor belongs, is not the 'Wee Frees'.
But the church from which the Free Presbyterians broke away in the early 1890s was not the Wee Frees either — it was the Free Church of Scotland, the body that broke away from the established Church of Scotland at the time of the Disruption in 1843,
The Free Kirk, the wee kirk, The kirk without the steeple
leaving behind
The Auld Kirk, the cauld kirk, The kirk without the people.
When the Free Church united with the United Presbyterian Church in 1900 to form the United Free Church, the minority which dissented and stayed out (and was ultimately awarded most of the assets of the Free Church by the House of Lords) became known as the 'Wee Frees' (see the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, OUP 1958).
Alastair Ross
48 Mount Pleasant Road, London W5
Previous page
