Since 1866, 140 years ago this year, the Disruption Painting has been hanging in the Presbytery Hall in the Free Church Office building in the Mound. Measuring 12 feet by 4 and a half feet, it is an impressive item. It is important because it was the first work of art painted with the help of a camera, and has an important place in the history of photography. But its prime importance is commemorative, celebrating the greatest event of the nineteenth century: the Disruption of 1843.

The painting was the work of David Octavius Hill; the photographer was his friend Robert Adamson. Hill expected the work to take two or three years, and in the Witness of 24 May 1843, the first advert to that effect appeared. In fact, it would be almost twenty-three years before the work was completed.
Some 1500 attended the first General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland (variously named at the time as the Free Presbyterian, or Free Protesting Church of Scotland, until the snappier name was fixed on), and the 457 people who appear in Hill’s painting are a representation. Many of them were actually present, but some were not – their appearance in the painting is purely representative. Hill’s painstaking work was based on individual calotypes, or photographic negatives, taken by Adamson, built up into a collage which became a fitting memorial to the stand for Christ’s sovereignty in the church which we know as the Disruption.

It is important, of course, that Free Church people know their history, and I know of few better books to introduce them to it than this one. We have produced our history before, of course, but the story is told in this volume side by side with the story of the picture itself.

John Fowler does not write out of a conviction of the truth of Free Church principles. His interest is journalistic, and he obviously has had a long interest in the Disruption painting. But this book does capture the drama of the events leading up to May 1843, as well as the momentous and moving events of the day itself.

The chapter ‘So many kent faces’ is a good introduction to some of the individuals who appear in the painting, including Hill and Adamson themselves, Rabbi Duncan, William Cunningham, James Young Simpson, Adolph Saphir, and so on. The book is enhanced by a fold-out reproduction of the Disruption painting.

So, for a good introduction to the birth of the Free Church, and an interesting account of how the event came to be celebrated in canvas, as well as retained by the Free Church, read this book. Better still, if you are visiting Edinburgh, why not arrange to see the actual painting? It’s been hanging around for 140 years, and I’m sure is not being viewed by as many people as it should.. I, however, know of fewer things that endear me to the Free Church of Scotland, its history and its principles, than to step inside the Presbytery Hall on the Mound. If you can’t, then at least read Mr Hill’s Big Picture!