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history |
Edinburgh, Portsburgh Associate Congregation began with a group of 'Smytonites' (that is, rigid opponents of the 'lifting' of the elements in the communion ordinance). They occupied a church in Lady Lawson's Wynd from about 1789 and in 1791 petitioned for sermon to the Burgher Presbytery of Edinburgh. The petition was granted, but because of the location of neighbouring congregations they were required to move to Portsburgh, where the first minister was ordained in 1793. A second church was built at Portsburgh in the late 1820s, but in 1859 the congregation moved to Lauriston Place. It passed successively to the United Presbyterian and United Free Churches, in the latter case as Edinburgh Lauriston Place, and to the Church of Scotland, as Edinburgh Lauriston. The Church of Scotland charge, which was in the presbytery of Edinburgh and the synod of Lothian and Tweeddale, united with Edinburgh Chalmers as Edinburgh Chalmers Lauriston in 1958. |