Robert Buchanan (1802-1875) was Glasgow’s leading Free Churchman and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, 1860.
Buchanan was ordained in 1827 and became minister of the Tron Parish Church in 1833. He was one of the leaders of the Disruption in May 1843 when the anti-patronage evangelicals withdrew from the Church of Scotland and established the Free Church. He later wrote a history of the Disruption.
Buchanan was a crusading evangelical and led church missions into the wynds near the Tron Church, setting up church schools in Miller’s Place and Old Wynd. In 1857 he transferred to the Free College Church. He was a convenor of the Free Church’s Sustenation Fund for twenty-eight years, and his influence within the church led The Bailie’s caricaturist to depict him as its puppet-master. Buchanan died in Rome.
Reference: Mitchell Library, 920.04BAI
Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning
Keywords:
church schools, Disruption, evangelicals, Free Church College, Free Church of Scotland, Free College Church, moderators, Trinity College, Tron Parish Church