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The Secession cause took hold in Dumbarton as early as November 1739 when several residents of the parish acceded to the Associate Presbytery, there is no mention however of service having taken place in Dumbarton until 1761, when the Antiburgher Congregation of Balfour petitioned the Presbytery of Glasgow with a request for occasional sermon to be provided here. Supply ministry was accordingly granted which continued until 1764 when the congregation was annexed to Paisley. The Antiburgher cause is believed to have been reduced to a handful of adherents from this time until 1820, when a Secession church congregation, which had been established in Renton during the previous year, was removed to Dumbarton and in 1827 the Secession Church adherents of Dumbarton were formed into a congregation. A church to house Dumbarton United Secession Church had been built during the previous year in the High Street and Andrew Sommerville, the first minister of the congregation, was ordained in 1830. In 1847 Dumbarton United Secession congregation became part of the United Presbyterian Church and in 1873 a new church was erected on the site of the previous building. Following the union of the United Presbyterian Church and the Free Church of Scotland, Dumbarton United Presbyterian was renamed Dumbarton High Street United Free Church, and upon the 1929 union between the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church of Scotland, Dumbarton High Street United Free became Dumbarton High Street Church of Scotland. The congregation, which had sat within the Presbytery of Dumbarton throughout its existence, was dissolved in 1956. |