Sunday School Excursion, Garlieston

Another Wigtown Sunday School outing, another game, and another beach, this time the head of Garlieston Bay on the east side.  The picture has some puzzling features.  Bathing and picnic parties normally used the level ground and beach close to the road in the centre of the photograph rather than the somewhat inhospitable ground favoured by this group.  Two presbyterian churches existed in Wigtown at this time, the United Free Church and the Parish Church.  In the late 19th century the former required the services of an assistant minister while by 1912 the population of the burgh was 1400.  The party shown here seems therefore small for either church.  It may have been connected with the Juvenile Good Templar Lodge, which certainly existed in the town a few years earlier.  (A Roman Catholic Church had been built in Wigtown in 1879.)