Fornication, rebuke and absolution...tales from the kirk sessions

Remember how I found William Roy I’s baptism in the Auchtergaven parish register? It said:

1811, May 12 - James Roy, Glack, had a child in fornication by Anne Peddie, baptised, named William. 1

To find out more about this, I needed to consult the Auchtergaven kirk sessions. The kirk sessions were the local church courts, comprising the Minister and the elders of a congregation. Their meetings, decisions and records were documented by an elder who was appointed session clerk (often the local school teacher). The kirk sessions also had responsibility for poor relief and education. 

The minute books contain a record of hearings of any disciplinary cases on social and moral offences, and the decisions taken at those hearings, as well as a multitude of other lists or records, varying from parish to parish.2 

One of the roles of the kirk sessions was to uphold exacting moral standards, so they investigated and punished offences of ‘sexual deviance, drunkenness, quarrelling, doctrinal controversy, and breaches of the sabbath’.3 One of the more commonly investigated offences was ‘fornication’ by unmarried couples.4  So, I suspected I would find out more about James and Anne if I could read the kirk sessions. 

However, the records of the kirk sessions could only be viewed in person in the National Records of Scotland’s search rooms in Edinburgh - which was a slight obstacle to a researcher across the other side of the world. 

Until last year…

On 16 March 2021, more than 6,000 Church of Scotland kirk session, presbytery and synod records were made available via the Virtual Volumes system on Scotland’s People. It was a bonanza for locked-down genealogists all over the globe - suddenly we had free access to pages and pages of kirk session records (viewing the pages is free, downloading a page incurs a cost). I wasted no time in exploring the Auchtergaven kirk sessions and what I uncovered was very enlightening.  

Given I knew that William Roy I had been baptised in 1811, I started with Auchtergaven's 1810 kirk session minutes and worked forward. It can be a laborious process as the minutes are not indexed, so I needed to scan every individual page for any mentions of ‘James Roy’ or ‘Anne Peddie’. Plus of course, the entries are all handwritten in the ‘running hand’ script of that era. To assist in my deciphering and understanding of these records, I did a short on-line course from Glasgow University on Early Modern Scottish Paleography via the Futurelearn website (which, by the way, I recommend to anyone starting out with reading Scotland’s old records).

Helpfully, the Auchtergaven session clerk at the time (James Scott - more about him later...) kept fastidious records, with margin notes of the names of the parties.  A couple of pages in, I spotted the first mention of this case in an entry dated 24 March 1811:

Auchtergaven kirk session, Minutes (1808-1855) and Proclamations (1855-1861), Session 15th, 24 March 1811, National Records of Scotland, CH2/22/2, Image 00007.

I’ve transcribed this entry below:

Session House of Auchtergaven March 24, 1811
Session 15th
Case of James Roy & Anne Peddie

Which day the session met after divine service, and was constituted by prayer. The Minister reported that Anne Peddie sometime servant to John Fisher in the Glack of this Parish accused of being with Child, was summoned to appear before the session this day, but in consequence of her not being able to attend Herself, Her mother, who resides in the Parish of Little Dunkeld waited on him and stated that she was directed by Her Daughter the said Anne Peddie to inform Him that She was with Child and that She gave up James Roy in the Glack of this Parish as the Father of Her Child, also that the said James Roy has confessed that He was guilty of fornication with Her. The session closed with prayer.

James Scott, Session Clerk.5

Then, on 12 May 1811 (the same day that William Roy I was baptised), James was called to account in the very next entry on the same page of the kirk sessions:

Session House of Auchtergaven May 12, 1811
Session 16th
Case of James Roy

Which day the session met after divine service, and was constituted by prayer. Compeared the aforesaid James Roy, guilty of fornication with Anne Peddie, and was suitably rebuked by the Minister for his offence. He was then absolved from the scandal of it.  The session closed with prayer.

James Scott, Session Clerk.6

(Note - ‘compeared’ is an old Scots word which means to appear before a court as a party.)7

Finally, on 23 June 1811, Anne had her day in court:

Session House of Auchtergaven, June 23 1811
Session 20th
Case of Anne Peddie

Which day the session met after divine service, and was constituted by prayer. Compeared Anne Peddie of Little Dunkeld residing, formerly a few years in this place, guilty of fornication with James Roy of the Glack in this parish, being suitably rebuked by the Minister for her offence, she was absolved from the scandal of it. The session closed with prayer.

James Scott, Session Clerk.8

As a totally unrelated but interesting aside - the handwriting of the Auchtergaven kirk session minutes changes in 1815. The session clerk who recorded James and Anne's matter, James Scott (who was also the parochial schoolmaster) was himself before the kirk session, confessing that he 'had got his servant maid Ann Stewart with child' and a pro tempore clerk was appointed to record the ensuing and very involved proceedings. He was stripped of his session clerk duties and was temporarily suspended as schoolmaster, before he and Ann Stewart were finally 'rebuked and absolved' in January 1817.9    

So what did I learn from the entries regarding the case of James Roy and Anne Peddie? 

1. Anne Peddie had been a servant of John Fisher at a place called the Glack, and had been there ‘a few years’
2. James Roy was also from the Glack
3. Anne was no longer living at the Glack and was now at Little Dunkeld
4. Anne's mother was also from Little Dunkeld
5. William Roy I was born sometime between 24 March and 12 May 1811

Once again, this raised a host more questions for me…for instance, what does rebuking and absolving involve? how would this have affected their lives? what happened next with James and Anne? where or what is ‘the Glack’?

All questions to be explored in future posts here on The Roys of Auchtergaven!

Confused about how these characters fit into the family tree? Or where this action is occurring? You can always check  The Family Tree and Map pages for visual clues. 

Footnotes

1. Parish register entry of baptism of William Roy, 12 May 1811, Auchtergaven, Perthshire, Scotland, National Records of Scotland,  330/10/185.
2. Scotland's People, 'Kirk session records', https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/record-guides/kirk-session-records, accessed 28 January 2022.
3. University of Glasgow, ‘The Kirk Session’, Notes from Early Modern Scottish Paleography course on Futurelearn, https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/ems-palaeography/0/steps/30838, accessed 28 January 2022.
4. National Records of Scotland, Tracing your Scottish Ancestors: The Official Guide, 7th edn, Birlinn Ltd, Edinburgh, 2021, p.52.
5. Auchtergaven kirk session, Minutes (1808-1855) and Proclamations (1855-1861), Session 15th, 24 March 1811, National Records of Scotland, CH2/22/2, Image 00007
6. Auchtergaven kirk session, Minutes (1808-1855) and Proclamations (1855-1861), Session 16th, 12 May 1811, National Records of Scotland, CH2/22/2, Image 00007.
7. 'Compear v.', Dictionary of the Scots Language, Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd, 2004,  https://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/compear, accessed 28 Jan 2022. 
8. Auchtergaven kirk session, Minutes (1808-1855) and Proclamations (1855-1861), Session 20th, 23 June 1811, National Records of Scotland, CH2/22/2, Image 00009.
9. Auchtergaven kirk session, Minutes (1808-1855) and Proclamations (1855-1861), National Records of Scotland, CH2/22/2, Images 00011-00025.