Research/Church/ASREC Paper Revised 24 July 2008
The Economics of the Scottish Disruption:
Established Church Reaction to Market Entry
John W Sawkins and Robert I Mochrie
Abstract
In May 1843 the ‘established’ Church of Scotland split over the question of the sovereignty of the church in civil matters. For thirty years, following this ‘Disruption’, religious denominations in Scotland engaged in intense competition for members and dominance of local markets. In analysing the emergence and development of competing denominations and their strategic interactions, this paper challenges the neoclassical ‘economics of religion’ approach by highlighting the importance of the particular framework of social values within which the civil and ecclesiastical authorities operated: ‘establishment’ in which church and state cooperate as partners in the provision of public services.
Acknowledgement
The authors acknowledge and thank the BritishAcademy for financial support received. All errors are the responsibility of the authors.
Affiliation of Authors
Department of Economics
School of Management and Languages
Heriot-WattUniversity
Edinburgh EH14 4AS
UK
1. Introduction
In May 1843, a large group of ministers resigned from the Church of Scotland in protest over the British government’s assertion of the supremacy of the civil courts in matters of church governance. This event, known as the ‘Disruption’, represented the culmination of a decade-long debate within the established Scottish church and between the church and the British government, over the nature of church governance and church state relations, centred on the question of patronage, i.e. the right of local patrons (often leading landowners[1]) to determine the choice of parish minister[2], and the right of the established churchto state support through capital grants.
Those quitting the Church of Scotland, approximately one third of all ministers and half of the Church of Scotland’s membership, went on to establish the Free Church of Scotland. For the next thirty yearsthere was intense competitive rivalry between these two denominations as each sought to achieve leadership in the Scottish religious market through efforts to evangelise the rapidly growing, and increasingly urban,Scottish population and thus increase market share.
In 1874 Parliament abolished patronage. This measure marked the start of a period of improving relations and growing collaboration between the two rival churches which, in 1885, together accounted for approximately 78% of all Protestant church members[3]. A series of denominational amalgamations and mergers eventually concluded in 1929 with a reunited Church of Scotland which, for the first time since 1843, claimed the religious allegiance of the majority of the Scottish population.
The 1843 Disruption has been characterised by some historians as the most important single social and political event in Scotland during the nineteenth century[4], overshadowing even the campaign leading to the Reform Act of 1832. Not surprisingly an extensive historiography has grown up analysing the fortunes of rival factions and denominations before and after the event, from social, political and theological perspectives[5]. Yet, no attempt has been made to bring the distinctive theoretical and empirical insights of economics to bear on the many questions that arise concerning the emergence and development of the competing denominations.
The aim of this paper is to extend the literature by conducting a preliminary economic analysis of the market for religious services in Scotland between 1834 and 1874. In this, particular attention is paid to strategic interactions between the established Church of Scotland and the rival Free Church of Scotland, following the Disruption. Whilst neoclassical concerns including market structure, barriers to entry and the incumbent’s response to market entry are examined, due attention is also given to the framework of social values within which the rival churches operated. Central to any understanding of mid nineteenth century social values in relation to ecclesiastical institutions in Scotland is, we believe, the concept of ‘establishment’: specifically the way in which church and state cooperated as partners in the provision of public services. By marrying neoclassical and institutional perspectives in this way, our account deepens understanding of the causes and ramifications of the Disruption.
The paper is structured in the following way. In Section 2 we briefly set the analysis within with its broader social and economic context, offering an economic characterisation of the market for religion in Scotland during the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Section 3 outlines the way in which entry to the market was threatened and deterred during the ‘Ten Years’ Conflict’, a period running from 1834 to 1843. Sections 4 and 5 describe the events surrounding the 1843 Disruption, the entry of the Free Church of Scotland and the Church of Scotland’s immediate response. Section 6 considers the way in which the rival denominations sought to secure dominance over local markets up until the end of patronage in 1874. Section 7 draws some preliminary conclusions.
- Economic Characterisation of the Market for Religion in Scotland
Scotland, in the early nineteenth century, was a country experiencing rapid population growth, urbanisation and steadily increasing prosperity. Between 1801 and 1841 its population[6] rose by over a million from 1,608,420 to 2,620,184. The great industrial cities, home to the new engineering and textile concerns, accounted in large part for this growth, drawing in numbers at an unprecedented rate. Glasgow, for example, a city of 83,701 people in 1801 saw its population rise to 281,344 by 1841. Dundee’s population grew from just 26,084 to 62,794 during the same period. The new industrial entrepreneurs accumulated large amounts of capital, and whilst the small but growing middle classes shared in this prosperity, the contrast between rich and poor became ever more apparent[7].
Despite these dramatic socio-economic developments, the framework of social values within which communities in Scotland functioned and individuals related to one another,exhibited considerable resilience and continued its steady evolution during the early nineteenth century[8].Thus, for example, the political dominance of the landed gentry lessened only gradually, despite the significant extension of the electoral franchise in 1832[9]. One part of the framework was, however, about to be stressed and ultimately reshaped quite markedly. This was society’s understanding of the relationship between church and state, in other words what was meant by ‘establishment’.
Establishment
An important part of the political inheritance that Scotland brought with it to the Union of the Scottish and English Parliaments in 1707 was its understanding that within every polity there existed two kingdoms, the spiritual and the temporal. The temporal was neither superior nor inferior to the spiritual; each was sovereign within its own ‘sphere’ – hence the label, ‘sphere sovereignty’[10]. The Act of Security (1706) passed by both English and Scottish Parliaments before Union, and subsequent Articles and Acts of Union embodied this idea, and safeguarded the Church of Scotland – the ‘established’ church - and its Presbyterian governance in perpetuity. According to Fry (1993),
“If, in the novel environment of the Union, it [the Church of Scotland] was to rely on secular legislation, that did not amount to an admission by it of civil supremacy, any more than to an assertion of its supremacy over the state. The admission was rather by the state, at the moment of its birth, that it accepted the Kirk’s view of its own situation…wherever else this sovereignty might extend, in Scotland the sphere of religion, morals and welfare was to be yielded to the Church. There was of course bound to be some argument about the delimitation of the two kingdoms. It arose, however, not out of assertions of supremacy by one over the other, but rather out of the problems of co-ordinating them.”
[Fry, in Brown and Fry (eds) 1993, p 33]
Thus a clear distinction could be drawn between the Scottish understanding of sovereignty in which the church enjoyed inalienable rights, and the English understanding in which the church only enjoyed those rights which the Crown in Parliament chose to cede to it.
The state however, soonappeared to be following the latter interpretation of sovereignty in Scotland through Parliamentary enactments relating to the toleration of episcopacy and the reintroduction of patronage in 1712. Notwithstanding these transgressions, state and ‘established’ church, i.e. the Church of Scotland,operated more or less contentedly in their separate spheres throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Theestablished Church’s parish system was used as the basis for local government, education and poor law administration; its ministers combining both civic and religious functions in administering and ordering parish life throughout the country. And whilst the parish system itself came under increasing strain particularly in the rapidly growing urban areas[11], in many rural areas it operated more or less effectively in delivering the ordinances of religion alongside education and poor relief.
The Market for Religion
Having sketched the socio-political backdrop to the analysis, we offer an economic characterisation of the ‘market for religion’ in Scotland during the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Borrowing the vocabulary of economic analysis we start, in the conventional way, with a description of the ‘product’ and the ‘technology of production’.
The product offered in the market was the ordinances of religion, by which was meant collective or public acts of Christian worship and associated pastoral care. The technology of production required both labour and capital inputs. Labour inputs took the form of an individual minister, or pastor, who was responsible for leading public acts of worship, typically every Sunday, atypically at other times during the week, and having pastoral oversight of people living within a geographically defined area. Pastoral oversight at this time involved visitation, instruction in matters of the faith and the conduct of baptisms, weddings and funerals. Capital inputs included a building or church, whose purpose was to be the venue for public acts of worship and associated activities, and a manse or ministerial residence. Although not always provided, the services of a manse and an associated glebe of land were generally part of a minister’s remuneration package. Where a manse was not provided a sum of money was generally given in lieu.
A revealed preference for religion, specifically the ordinances of the Christian religion, expressed itself as demand for the product. In order to consume the product individuals attended public worship in person and enjoyed the pastoral care services of the minister in an individual capacity. Individual utility was raised, however, by consuming the services collectively i.e. in community. Demand was expressed locally and because religious services could not be consumed ‘remotely’, local markets set up. The local markets were separated from one another geographically because the distance that could be travelled by individuals wishing to attend worship was limited by the costs of time and transport.
Religious organisations (church denominations) organised in order to supply the religious services demanded by individuals. The largest church denominations were organised nationally, but delivered services locally in geographical areas defined by administrative fiat. These local markets, or ‘parishes’, were areas around a church for which a priest or minister had responsibility for spiritual matters. Historically, many of the Scottish parish boundaries were of ancient origin and were recognised for the purposes of civic as well as ecclesiastical administration.
The churches trained, licensed and employed ministers, who themselves identified with, and discharged their functions under the auspices of, a particular denomination. Networks of church buildings were owned and managed by church denominations. The locus of ownership and management varied however, and the capital used to fund church buildings came from two main sources, state funding and voluntary giving. Growing religious toleration meant it was possible in theory for any church denomination to operate within any individual local market[12].
At a national level, the religious services ‘industry’ before 1843 comprised a single dominant firm, the established (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland, and a competitive fringe of church denominations including the United Secession Church, the Relief Church, the Reformed Presbyterian Church, the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Roman Catholic Church, Congregational churches, the Baptist Church, the Methodist Church, and various independent groups. The Church of Scotland, however, was the only denomination with national coverage[13], whilst rival denominations enjoyed numerical strength in particular parts of the country[14].
Although no comprehensive quantitative data relating to church affiliation exists for this period, estimates[15] suggest that in the period immediately prior to the Disruption approximately 1.5 million people adhered to the Church of Scotland[16], 0.5 million to dissenting denominations and the Roman Catholic Church (together), and the remaining half million had no church connection at all. This suggests an overall national picture of a single dominant denomination with a number of much smaller competitors active in particular localities.
Barriers to Entry
Dominance of this order suggests the existence of significant structural or strategic[17] barriers to entry, which at first sight, might be attributed straightforwardly to the Church of Scotland’s historic establishment status. The particular barriers underpinned by establishment were not, however, constitutional, political or legal in nature as might first be assumed.
Since the 1690 Restoration of Presbyterianism, attempts by the Church of Scotland to assert its religious monopoly had met with little success. Although the rights of the Presbyterian establishment were guaranteed at the 1707 Union of Parliaments, the 1712 Toleration Act signalled at an early stage that it was not the state’s intention to coerce individuals into affiliation with the established Church. Repeal of the penal laws relating to Scotland’s Roman Catholics in 1793 and full emancipation with the right to sit in Parliament in 1829, merely underlined the policy position. Thus despite widespread public antipathy towards Episcopalianism and often violent antagonism towards Roman Catholicism – i.e. to the suppliers of two of the rival religious products - by the early 1840s no significant constitutional, political or legal obstacles stood in the way of these or other rival church denominations wishing to compete simultaneously with the Church of Scotland in any one of the country’s local markets[18].
Instead, the greatest barriers to entry faced by the non-established denominations aspiring to national coverage were economic and financial in nature. These related to capital and labour inputs into the production process, and the various marketing advantages attaching to a supplier with a national presence.
In terms of capital the established Church of Scotland was in possession of a national endowment, consisting of a network of church buildings and manses – one in each and every parish throughout the country - and the rights to funding for their maintenance. Historically the construction of these buildings had been variously funded by Crown, Parliamentary and burgh grants, as well as voluntary giving. Responsibility for ongoing maintenance however, fell neither to the church, nor the generality of its parishioners, but to local landowners, or ‘heritors’, who possessed immovable or heritable property in a parish. In addition to the maintenance of church, manse, church-yard and glebe, heritors were also responsible for local assessments for poor relief and the provision of schools. By the early 1840s church capacity across Scotland was adequate to accommodate those wishing to attend worship, except arguably, for certain areas within the rapidly growing towns and cities. A rival wishing to enter the market nationally would therefore need not only to fund the building of a duplicate network in the face of incumbent excess capacity, but also to devise the means by which the maintenance of the network could be secured financially in perpetuity.
In terms of labour, the established Church required properly educated ministers, licensed to operate under its own discipline, to deliver the ordinances of religion to people resident within a particular parish. The education and training of Church of Scotland ministers was undertaken in the ancient universities of Scotland, the costs of which did not fall exclusively on the Church. As with church accommodation there wasan excess supply of labour with many more ministers trained or in training than there were church vacancies. Ministers without a church, disparagingly labelled ‘stickit ministers’, often took up a school teaching career.
Crucially, from a church finance point of view, ministerial stipends were not funded by voluntary giving, but throughlocal land levies called ‘teinds’, and through burgh and Exchequer grants.Teinds were ancient financial burdens on the ownership of land originally paid in grain or fish by teind-holders. By the early nineteenth century financial payments were made in lieu of agricultural produce in accordance with a schedule of prices[19], set annually, to reflect local market conditions. The stipends for ministers of burgh churches were generally derived from local levies or from a burgh’s common good fund. The Exchequer was responsible for stipend payments relating to the 42 churches in the Highlands and Islands established through a 1824 central government grant which had extended the parish network in some of the most sparsely populated areas of Scotland.Thus a rival wishing to enter the market nationally would need to fund the training, but not the general education, of its own ministers at a private theological hall, and to secure a stream of voluntary giving sufficient to fund ministerial stipends.
In addition to the economic and financial benefits relating to capital and labour inputs outlined above, the established Church enjoyed the marketing advantages associated with national coverage and its claim to be the church historically established and, in some sense, continuing to embody and project the idea of Scottish identity or nationality. Whilst the Episcopalian and Roman Catholic denominations aspired to challenge these pretensions, neither was in a position to overcome the immense economic and financial barriers to entry. Barriers which were maintained to the advantage of the dominant denomination, it should be noted, without the benefit of a central financial bureaucracy of any size or significance.