Scotland Open Brethren
From BrethrenPedia
Return to Scotland by Council history?
INTRODUCTION
This historical list of Scottish Open Brethren assemblies does not claim to be exhaustive. There are no central records for Brethren assemblies, and the address lists which were occasionally published were not always accurate. Assemblies were sometimes omitted, or ones that had been discontinued were included. Some assemblies were never included in a list as an assembly can be established by a small number of individuals and many were discontinued after an existence of a few years
Address lists are lists extant for the years 1897, 1904, 1922, 1933, 1951, 1959, 1970, 1983, 1990, and 1991. Both The Witness and The Believer's Magazine printed notes on the formation, discontinuation and changed locations of assemblies. Some assemblies, however, did not report their existence or changes in their location. This lack of reporting was more marked in assemblies in areas which are geographically remote (the Highlands and Islands, the south west and the Borders) from the main areas of Brethren strength in Scotland.
DATES: When a community has had more than one assembly, then they are listed in chronological order. Where no founding date is available, the earliest date by which an assembly is known to exist is given. This date has been established either from its existence being mentioned in an obituary notice or, more usually, through its first listing in an assembly address list. When a date for discontinuation is not known, then the last date at which it was known to have existed is given. When an assembly's existence is known from a single mention in extant sources, then the assembly is noted as having flourished (florit) at that particular date. Most of these assemblies were probably short lived.
CAUSES: If the cause of formation of an assembly is known and can be reduced to one main factor, then it is given. It should be noted that the use of ‘evangelism’ implies a longer process extended over several years than ‘mission’, which is used for one single evangelistic effort.
LOCATIONS: Many assemblies shifted from one village or town to another. Assemblies are always listed under their original location with a cross reference to later locations. The sources for locations are mainly the extant assembly lists or notices of removal in a Brethren magazine. A date before an address indicates the year in which the assembly was first in that location. However, because of the frequent moves that some assemblies had (particularly the case in urban areas such as the east end of Glasgow), it is not possible to be certain that each address given in the list followed the address listed previously. When no dates are available, locations are listed in known chronological order.
ABBREVIATIONS
- assy - assembly
- B.m. - Brethren migration (i.e. Brethren members moving into a district)
- c - circa (about)
- C - century
- disc. - discontinued
- E.C.- Evangelical Church
- f. - founded
- fl - florit (flourished)
- fr. - from
- n.d. - no date
- N.E.S. - Northern Evangelistic Society
- OB - Open Brethren
- trans. - transferred
Return to Scotland by Council history?
Sources
- Scottish Open Brethren Assemblies 1838-2000 by Neil Dickson
- As of May 5, 2020, Neil Dickson has given written permission for this history of Open Brethren assemblies to be shared online at discretion. There is every intent to rework this geographically in different formats with expansion as time and resources permit.
