Superintendent of Police for the City of London 1885-90, and Commissioner 18901901, C.B. 1869, K.C.B. 1897, born 15th Dec. 1835. Publications - Two Discourses preached before the Presbytery of Edinburgh (1844); Sermon (preached before the Governors of George Heriot's Hospital) (1854); The Sunday Question (Edinburgh, 1865).

THE TOLBOOTH CHURCH (Q.S.).

[By the Annuity Tax Abolition Act, 23 & 24 Viet., cap. 50 (1860), the whole rights of administration and custody of fifteen churches in Edinburgh, of which the Tolbooth was one, were transferred from the Magistrates and Town Council to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. It was also enacted that the Annuity Tax which had been levied for the maintenance of the ministers of these churches should cease to be imposed, and that the Commissioners should, out of the moneys to be received by them in terms of the Act, make payment of stipend to one minister of each of thirteen of the churches above referred to. The Tolbooth was not one of those so provided for. The right of patronage or presentation of ministers to five of these churches (of which the Tolbooth was one) was also transferred from the Magistrates and Council to the Commissioners, it being left to their discretion, on a vacancy occurring, to make a presentation or appointment either ad interim or permanent, or to make no presentation or appointment and to allow any charge becoming vacant to lapse and become extinct, as to them should seem most beneficial and expedient. On the death of Dr Smith in 1866, the Commissioners made no presentation or appointment of a minister to the Tolbooth either ad interim or permanent. The parish, however, remained intact, and the Commissioners sanctioned a temporary arrangement whereby two licentiates, in succession, undertook the duties of the charge. These were Alexander Webster, afterwards min. of St David's, Edinburgh; and Joseph Hunter, afterwards min. of Cockburnspath.

By the Annuity Tax Abolition Amendment Act, 33 & 34 Viet., cap. 87 (9th Aug. 1870), it was provided that it-should not be competent to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to nominate or present a minister to any of the five churches referred to above, and that these churches or charges should not be provided with ministers or "otherwise maintained as churches or charges endowed by law." A proviso was, however, inserted in the Act, that nothing contained in it should prevent the Tolbooth from being provided with a minister of the Church of Scotland, who should be paid or endowed from voluntary sources, and in the case of a permanent endowment from voluntary sources being obtained and provision made for maintaining the church, all in such manner as to warrant the erection and constitution of a church and parish quoad sacra, the Commissioners were authorised and required to concur so far as might be necessary on their part, in the proper proceedings before the Court of Teinds to attain that object. In this state of matters the Edinburgh University Missionary Association volunteered, under the energetic leadership of Professor Charteris, to carry on the parochial work and to furnish a considerable part of the salary if the Presbytery would agree to the appointment of a licentiate to act as missionary. The Presbytery agreed, and appointed Professor Charteris to administer the sacraments. Peter Thomson (afterwards min. of Dunning) was chosen as parish missionary, and was succeeded by George Wilson (afterwards min. of St Michael's, Edinburgh). In 1873 the Tolbooth was erected a parish quoad sacra, and as now constituted contains the greater part of the old parish.]

1873 GEORGE WILSON, first min. of the parish quoad sacra, ord. 25th Sept. 1873; trans. to Cramond 11th July 1878.

1879  THOMAS NICOL, trans. from Kells, and adm. 30th Jan. 1879; res. 25th Oct. 1899, on app. as Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism in Aberdeen Univ.