Pulpit – and the Details of Five Heads

The magnificent pulpit, of the finest Caen stone, was the gift in August 1889 of Captain & Mrs W Disney Innes of Cowie House. The first edition of Miss Elizabeth Christie’s book, “The Haven under the Hill”, tells us that William Disney Innes was Captain of the company of Kincardineshire Artillery Volunteers founded by his father; and eventually promoted to Major; after which he was ordained, and built St Peter’s, Torry, whose rector he became. Stonehaven golf course was his gift, and he built the club house, giving the paddock as a cricket ground. He was chairman of the boards of both St James’s Episcopal school and Dunnottar school some eighty yards away; of the district committee; of the Conservative club, and of the model-yacht club. He was a member of the county council, and a Freemason; and he died in 1927. His nephew was Sir Thomas Innes of Learney, Lord Lyon King of Arms.

Designed by Arthur Clyne of Aberdeen (who also designed the Chancel and sanctuary), and carved under the superintendence of James Bremner of Broughty Ferry, the pulpit is octagonal in shape, with boldly relieved moulding above the base course, giving way to a course of richly carved foliage below a course of five panels with finely carved heads of dignitaries presenting the consecutive existence of Christianity in that part of the Mearns with which the See of Brechin and the congregation of St James’s are especially connected. The green marble balls at the angle of the panels above and below come from Egypt, and the red ones from Victoria in South Africa, At the top is inscribed the text from St Matthew 25:35, “Heaven and earth shall pass away; but My words shall not pass away”.

It was installed in August 1889, some 8 months after the church was dedicated.

St Ninian, 397 – 432

St. Ninian is a shadowy figure in history. He is acknowledged as Scotland’s first saint with the date 397AD celebrated as the beginning of his mission to his people.  There is very little that we know about him. No written references to St Ninian from the period he was alive have been found. We can only refer to works written many years after his death

He was Bishop of Candidacasa (or Whitehouse, on the A 83 near its junction with the A 8001; on West Loch Tarbert in Kintyre, where he landed); and he brought Christianity to the north-east of Scotland;

In the 8th century a Latin poem ‘Miracula Nynie Episcopi’ was written by a monk at the monastery at Whithorn. In the 12th century Ailred of Rievaulx wrote his “Life of St Ninian”. Some stories in the books tell of the life, good works and goodness of the saint and some tell of cures and conversion of people to Christianity. Churches and altars across Scotland and further away in Europe were dedicated to St Ninian.

St David, King of Scotland 1124-1153

David was born on a date unknown in 1084 in Scotland.  He was probably the eighth son of King Malcolm III, and certainly the sixth and youngest born by Malcolm’s second wife, Margaret of Wessex.  He was the grandson of the ill-fated King Duncan I.

Historical treatment of David I and the Scottish church usually emphasises David’s pioneering role as the instrument of diocesan reorganisation and Norman penetration.  Focus too is usually given to his role as the defender of the Scottish church’s independence from claims of overlordship by the Archbishop of York and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

David was at least partly responsible for forcing semi-monastic “bishoprics” like Brechin, Dunkeld, Mortlach (Aberdeen) and Dunblane to become fully episcopal and firmly integrated into a national diocesan system

He founded the See of Brechin.

Bishop John Sinclair

He was last Bishop of Brechin before the Reformation of 1565 – 1566.

He was the fourth son of Sir Oliver Sinclair of Roslin (died after 11 April 1510) by his spouse Margaret, daughter of William Borthwick, 2nd Lord Borthwick.  John was a younger brother of Henry Sinclair, Bishop of Ross.

In December 1537 he was Prebendary of Corstorphine, then Rector of Snaw.  He was afterwards appointed in 1542 as Dean of the Church of St. Mary of Restalrig, a valuable benefice stated to be £60 sterling.  He succeeded his brother Henry as Lord President of the Court of Session.  Shortly after July 1565 he was promoted to the Episcopal See of Brechin, but did not long enjoy the dignity.  In April 1566 the Bishop of Brechin “was seized with fever” and died.

Alexander Penrose Forbes, Bp.

Alexander Penrose Forbes, Bishop of Brechin: The Scottish Pusey, by Dean William Perry (1939, SPCK), describes its subject as “one of the greatest liturgical scholars since Mabillon” [Jean Mabillon: 1632-1707: was the most erudite and discerning of the Maurists], and as “the most beloved Scottish bishop sine the Reformation”. As one studies his beautiful face (especially that at the age of 19, facing page 14), one can see why.
Born on 6 June 1817 into a distinguished family with seven girls and three boys, The Honourable Alexander had an unusual childhood and youth; dogged by illness (as he was throughout his life); apparently sipping at the Pierian spring, and yet imbibing more learning than might have been thought possible. From the age of eight till the age of 15, he attended Edinburgh Academy, studying English, Latin, Greek and mathematics.
At 15, he was sent to a highly successful tutor: The Revd Thomas Dale (later Vicar of St Pancras, and Canon of St Paul’s): where John Ruskin was a fellow-pupil. At 17, rather than to Glasgow University, he was sent to Haileybury College to fit himself for the service of The Honourable East India Company, studying English, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Arabic, mathematics and political economy. After a term, he headed the list of those commended for English. In his second session, he gained “great credit” in English; and prizes in all his other subjects. At the end of that session, he won a medal in four subjects, and a prize in the fifth, plus a medal in law (being described by his professor as the best student he had ever taught).
At 19, he set sail for India; but, at 21, after producing a digest of lndian law at the behest of his employers, illness dogged him to such an extent that he was sent home for two years to recuperate. At 22, rather than let time pass without profit, he went up to Brasenose College, Oxford, where, unexpectedly, he spent the next five years; at 24, gaining the Boden Scholarship in Sanskrit, and graduating at 27 with honours.
The religious life of Oxford affected him so deeply that he forged lifelong friendships with the most spiritually minded men of the day: Dr E B Pusey, Dr John Keble, Dr J H Newman, Canon Henry P Liddon; the hymn-writer, John Mason Neale, and the Prime Minister: WE Gladstone. On graduation (aged 27), he was ordained by the Bishop of Oxford: Dr Richard Bagot: and for five months (June to October) served as assistant curate in the parish of Aston Rowant, some ten miles north-west of High Wycombe, where he learned the truth of The Revd Sidney Smith’s observation, “To me, the country is a kind of healthy grave”.
A more congenial assistant curacy was found for him in October 1845 at t parish of St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford; but, in February 1846: before his 29th birthday: his mother died, and he returned home to Edinburgh.
The Bishop of Brechin, Dr Moir, had been so perturbed by the drunken incompetence of John Ramsay, minister of St James’s chapel, Stonehaven, as to suspend him from duty in 1845. In May 1846, a few weeks before his 29th birthday, The Hon Alexander offered Dr Moir his services for a short time at St James’s chapel, where the congregation of 300-400 could raise but £60 per annum, and needed The Church Society to make that sum up to the diocesan minimum of £80. The Hon Alexander reached his new charge at the end of June; serving for nine months as priest-in -charge: preparing 20 candidates for confirmation; and receiving, not the expected £60 for three-quarters of a year’s service, but £40.
He discovered that the founder of new Stonehaven: Robert Barclay: his mother, Mrs Barclay (after whom two of the streets of Stonehaven are named); The Lord Torrance, and Mr Duff of Fetteresso: were all loyal to John Ramsay despite his ejection for contumacy and neglecting to attend when summoned. St James’s chapel at this time was a mean building, “devoid of any Christian symbol”, in which the canticles and psalms were said, and the priest wore no surplice.
Gradually, The Hon Alexander won the respect and affection of his flock, and attended so carefully to their stories as six years later to write his only novel about the imprisonment of clergymen in. the Tolbooth under a title which uses the Gaelic name for our town: The Prisoners of Craigmacaire (“the rock of the fort”). He was a firm believer in the use of communion-tokens (see those mounted on slate in the form of a cross in the Baptistry), and kept up the practice to the end of his life.
Dean Perry says:
It was a far cry from Oxford to the little town of Stonehaven, in which the majority of the population were fisherfolk, with a sprinkling of shopkeepers; while society was limited to a few respectable families and (inland) two or three lairds.
A proportion of the fishermen could neither read nor write. They were a class by themselves; hardly speaking to another soul, save when they went to a shop to buy food or clothes. Their houses consisted for the most part of a but [the outer room of a two-roomed house], with earthen floor which, when swept, was sprinkled with sand from the shore, and served for bedroom, sitting-room and kitchen; and a ben, usually provided with a bed, but seldom occupied save on Sundays and special occasions.
When the family was large, additional sleeping accommodation was found in a low attic under the roof, reached by a ladder, and lit by a skylight.
In this part of the town, every house smelt offish. Outside the door, the ground was covered with small heaps of fishy garbage and litter which stank more odiously than the small rooms inside. No wonder that Forbes, in a letter home, was obliged to style the town sordid, and the people ignorant. Nevertheless, there were a considerable number of loyal church-people in Stonehaven; for the congregation had maintained its continuity unbroken since the disestablishment of the Scottish Church in 1689.
On 15 May 1847, three weeks before his thirtieth birthday, The Hon Alexander left for St Saviour’s, Leeds, where he was installed as Vicar at the end of the month. In August, on the death of Dr Moir, Mr Gladstone suggested The Hon Alexander as Bishop of Brechin; and, on 21 September, The Revd D K Thorn (himself one day to become rector of St James’s) persuaded the electors to accept Mr Gladstone’s proposal.
From this point, The Hon Alexander really got into his stride, despite suffering a heresy-hunt at the age 43; making a unique contribution to the Scottish Church, and founding our diocese more securely: serving as “minister of St Paul’s chapel in Dundee” (so-called: in fact, the upper floor of Castle Street bank); showing his care for quality of architecture by getting Sir Gilbert Scott to design St Paul’s cathedral there, and (a year after the death of his father, The Lord Medwyn) consecrating it for worship in 1855; showing that same care for quality of architecture by getting Sir Robert Rowand Anderson: 1834-1921: to design, and himself laying the foundation stone of, the new St James’s church on 21 September 1875, before dying at the age of 58 on 8 October.
The third face on our pulpit; a British bulldog, if ever there was one: thick- browed; fat-cheeked and pugnacious: was thought till recently to be that of Dr Forbes. Most photographs of the saintly bishop show a much more sensitive and sorrowful face than this (which is, as we have said, that of John Sinclair); but the fifth of these heads on the pulpit (said by an earlier writer to be that of Bishop Keith of Uras) is indeed Dr Forbes at the age of 33 (facing page 41 in Dean Perry’s book), as The Stonehaven Journal for 26 August 1886 makes clear.
Not only does the portrait in his book fulfil Dean Perry’s analysis of a face “slimly built, with dark curly hair; dreamy, penetrating eyes; a nose with the faintest of bridges on it; a smiling mouth with lips which could be firm and determined at will, and a dimple in his chin” (p 14), but it has side-whiskers, which Dr Sinclair has not. In fact, when we look at the picture of Dr Forbes at the age of 33, the similarity is so great that one can see that the stone head has been carved from it; and we are not surprised that The Stonehaven Journal deems it “an admirable and skillfully executed likeness of the bishop”.
Of Dr Forbes’s 33 publications, his Explanation of the Thirty-nine Articles is particularly worth quoting as revealing his outlook; from words on Article XXXVIII on Christian men’s goods:
God permits the existence of property; but only as a necessary evil, to avoid a dead level of unprogressive barbarism.
He allows one man to have; another to want: but, in allowing this apparent injustice, He corrects the disparity by the sense of responsible stewardshi The children of the Kingdom must have nothing selfish about them. Th citizenship being in heaven, they must use what God has given them for His glory, and for the benefit of His creatures.
As he wrote, so he lived.
On learning of Dr Forbes’s death, Dr Pusey wrote to Canon Liddon:
What strikes me most about the dear Bishop in looking back are his great love; tenderness; simplicity, and self-forgetfulness; and his sensitiveness about whatever bore on doctrinal truth.
His happiest time was that he spent in hospitals by the sick, or in the alleys of Dundee, if he might so minister to souls or bodies.  Then there was his utter want of self-consciousness. He had, as you know, brilliant conversational talents; yet one could never detect the slightest perception that he was aware of it.  So as to his theological knowledge. He had a large grasp of mind; devoted loyalty to truth; sorrow for those who had it not; tender feeling for them: but, for himself, utter unconsciousness of his gifts. It was all a matter of course.  Of his humility to God, I can only say that the Day of Judgement will show how deep it was.
We learn from The Right Revd Frederic Goldie’s Short History of the Episcopal Church in Scotland that His Majesty King George IV was particularly struck by the venerable appearance of Bishop Jolly; and that his fellow bishops were “greatly perplexed about the wig of their brother prelate”: to such an extent that The Primus believed that “it would convulse the whole court”.

Alexander Jolly, Bp.

Now, the second of the mitred heads is bewigged; and we know from the oil- painting in Coates Hall, Edinburgh, that it is that of Alexander Jolly, who was born in Stonehaven High Street on 3 April 1756; became Bishop of Moray, and died on 29 June 1838.
Bishop Jolly’s mentor: Bishop Petrie of Aberdeen: used his house at FolIa Rule (on the A 9001, almost midway between Colpy and Oldmeldrum) as a theological college. Bishop Jolly carried on the work of the college while serving as priest at St Peter’s, Fraserburgh, where one of his parishioners: Miss Panton: made a bequest of such generosity as to enable the college eventually to be moved to Coates Hall, Edinburgh, where its principal is generally Pantonian professor of theology. Bishop Jolly’s library is preserved in the college to this day.
The first Pantonian professor was Dr James Walker; eventually Bishop of Edinburgh; who (Bishop Goldie tells us) “spent his early years under the pastoral influence of the saintly Bishop Jolly”.
In 1804, Bishop Jolly addressed a convocation of Scottish Episcopal clergymen at Laurencekirk on the 39 Articles and their interpretation; to such effect that it vas agreed to subscribe to them for want of a public confession of faith, and to require subscription to them of all candidates for the sacred ministry; which paved the way for reunion with the Qualified chapels such as that in Cameron Street.
Says Bishop Goldie:
Bishop Jolly observed the strictest discipline of time and food, so that he might give every available hour to his studies and prayers. His daily readings included selections from the Torah; the Greek New Testament; and the Apostolic Fathers. Dean Stanley called him “a choice specimen of the old Episcopalian clergy”; and Dean Hook referred to him as “the venerable, primitive and apostolic Bishop of Moray”.
When Dr Hobart, Bishop of New York, visited Aberdeen in 1824, and met Bishop Jolly, he was so impressed that he described him as one of the most apostolic and primitive men he ever saw.
By his great learning and saintly life, Alexander Jolly brought considerable prestige to the Church he loved so well and so greatly adorned.

The pulpit, a gift of  Captain and Mrs Innes of Cowie, who were prominent members of the congregation, was first used on Sunday 22nd August 1889.