Alexander Beith

Alexander Beith (1799–1891) was a Scottish divine and author who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland 1858/59. Early life and education He was born at Campbeltown, Argyllshire, on 13 January 1799. His parents were Gilbert Beith and Helen Elder. Beith's father was a land agent and farmer in the Kintyre district of Argyleshire, and was a man of wide reading, especially in theology and church history. After the usual course of education at Campbeltown, young Beith entered the Glasgow University, on 20 November 1811, with a view to the ministry of the church of Scotland. He was a student of William M'Gill. After some time spent as a tutor, he was licensed as a preacher, by the presbytery of Kintyre, on 7 February 1821. He delivered his first sermons — both in Gaelic and English — in Campbeltown the following Sabbath. But although he spent so many years in Gaelic-speaking parishes, Alexander Beith was not fluent in Gaelic in his young days. Campbeltown, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was a town of two languages. Beith is said to have been helped by a servant girl as he sought to improve his Gaelic. In Oban In March he was elected minister of the Chapel of Ease in Oban, where he rapidly became popular and successful. He laboured there until November 1824, when he was transferred to Hope Street Church, Glasgow. Alexander Beith was married to Julia Robson, whom he had met in Oban when at the age of fifteen she became a communicant member of his congregation. Four years later she became his wife." In Glasgow Staying there for two years, he ministered to a large congregation. In 1824 the fourth Gaelic Chapel in Glasgow, Hope Street, was constituted. It was established to meet the demands of people with Argyllshire Gaelic who felt that they were not being properly catered for. Those wanting a new chapel had stated in their petition, "the difference between the dialects of the West and North Highlands is so great that the natives of the one frequently do not understand at all the language spoken in the other." Alexander Beith became the first minister of Hope Street Gaelic Chapel, and although his ministry was a short one, no doubt his Argyll dialect was acceptable to this new congregation.