parish division and church building failed to keep pace with sharp rises in population. Lady Glenorchy had in 1775 explicitly rebuked the Edinburgh Presbytery over the failure of the establishment to cater for the religious needs of the city’s poor. Her chapel was intended to address those needs and was, despite her arguments, a rival to the existing parish churches. And, although herself neither preacher nor priest in her chapel, she could be regarded as equivalent to a bishop, or overseer, at least in the exercise of some of the supervisory and authoritative functions of that office. It was by buying the land on which to build a chapel that Ladies Glenorchy and Maxwell were able to claim the right to religious authority over the build-ing, because this accorded with the authority over private chapels which had always been legitimately exercised by female aristocrats. The Countess of Huntingdon used the same argument to justify the building of many chapels in which she retained the right to appoint clergy of her own choosing, arguing that she was merely appointing private chaplains. That Lady Huntingdon’s argument finally collapsed, obliging her to remove her connexion from the Church of England and license her chapels as Dissenting places of worship, was due to the greater scale of her religious activity in comparison to other female patrons. But it is significant that she avoided this outcome for so long. Her first chapel was built in 1761, but only in 1783, when she possessed over 60 places of worship, was she finally forced into separatism.

doi:10.4324/9780203166505-50

Chapter

parish division and church building failed to keep pace with sharp rises in population. Lady Glenorchy had in 1775 explicitly rebuked the Edinburgh Presbytery over the failure of the establishment to cater for the religious needs of the city’s poor. Her chapel was intended to address those needs and was, despite her arguments, a rival to the existing parish churches. And, although herself neither preacher nor priest in her chapel, she could be regarded as equivalent to a bishop, or overseer, at least in the exercise of some of the supervisory and authoritative functions of that office. It was by buying the land on which to build a chapel that Ladies Glenorchy and Maxwell were able to claim the right to religious authority over the build-ing, because this accorded with the authority over private chapels which had always been legitimately exercised by female aristocrats. The Countess of Huntingdon used the same argument to justify the building of many chapels in which she retained the right to appoint clergy of her own choosing, arguing that she was merely appointing private chaplains. That Lady Huntingdon’s argument finally collapsed, obliging her to remove her connexion from the Church of England and license her chapels as Dissenting places of worship, was due to the greater scale of her religious activity in comparison to other female patrons. But it is significant that she avoided this outcome for so long. Her first chapel was built in 1761, but only in 1783, when she possessed over 60 places of worship, was she finally forced into separatism.

Chapter

parish division and church building failed to keep pace with sharp rises in population. Lady Glenorchy had in 1775 explicitly rebuked the Edinburgh Presbytery over the failure of the establishment to cater for the religious needs of the city’s poor. Her chapel was intended to address those needs and was, despite her arguments, a rival to the existing parish churches. And, although herself neither preacher nor priest in her chapel, she could be regarded as equivalent to a bishop, or overseer, at least in the exercise of some of the supervisory and authoritative functions of that office. It was by buying the land on which to build a chapel that Ladies Glenorchy and Maxwell were able to claim the right to religious authority over the build-ing, because this accorded with the authority over private chapels which had always been legitimately exercised by female aristocrats. The Countess of Huntingdon used the same argument to justify the building of many chapels in which she retained the right to appoint clergy of her own choosing, arguing that she was merely appointing private chaplains. That Lady Huntingdon’s argument finally collapsed, obliging her to remove her connexion from the Church of England and license her chapels as Dissenting places of worship, was due to the greater scale of her religious activity in comparison to other female patrons. But it is significant that she avoided this outcome for so long. Her first chapel was built in 1761, but only in 1783, when she possessed over 60 places of worship, was she finally forced into separatism.

ABSTRACT

It is clear that such individuals were able to exert authority in religious matters, even over leading male clergy, precisely because they did not step outside the bounds of propriety which circumscribed female activity. There was nothing which could draw suspicion upon the heads of ladies who appointed private chaplains of their own choosing, opened their homes in a spirit of charity to those who wished to hear good preaching, or paid for students of a godly character to train for the ministry. Whilst the public-private dichotomy is too inadequate a model to represent entirely the realities of any woman’s life in the eighteenth century, its language can in some measure elucidate what was happening here. These women were pursuing private activities in a public way – using private spaces, such as their own chapels and homes, for what became public gatherings: in other words, making the private, public.