Communion cup, Burnhead Relief Congregation, Penpont, 1801
On 26 November 1798
parishioners from Penpont made a complaint against the minister of
their church. They requested a Relief minister to preach to
them. This request was granted by the Relief Presbytery of
Dumfries and a new congregation was formed. In 1800 they
built a church and in 1801 received new communion cups, presented
by Mrs Milligan of Cleughhead.
The Relief Church
was formed in 1761 by Thomas Gillespie, who had been deposed as a
minister in the Church of Scotland for disagreeing with the
appointment of a minister to a parish whose parishioners opposed
it. The Relief Church grew rapidly as congregations who were
dissatisfied with their ministers left the Church of Scotland to
join. In 1847 the majority of Relief Churches joined with the
United Secession Church to form the United Presbyterian
Church.
This cup is one of a
pair and would have been in use in the church for many years.
Joseph Thomson, the explorer, was born in Penpont in 1858. He
attended the United Presbyterian Church which had formerly been the
Relief Church, and would have taken communion from one of the
cups. Thomson led six expeditions to Africa regarding
Thomson's Falls, which was named after his father, and the
Thomson's gazelle, named after Joseph Thomson. The pair to
this cup was presented to a church in Thomson's Falls, Nyahururu,
Kenya in the mid 20th century.
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Accession number :
DUMFM:2005.56.1
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