James Meek (minister)

Several of his ancestors had been cautioned, imprisoned and bonded, and finally had their land confiscated for Covenanting activity during the reign of King James VII.

The family lands were restored with the so-called Glorious Revolution, when William of Orange invaded England and drove King James VII from is throne.

Meek completed his education for the ministry of the Church of Scotland at Glasgow University at a time when many of the great Scottish Enlightenment figures were teaching there, or had recently retired, notably Adam Smith.

[citation needed] In 1772, Commissioners of Douglas, 8th Duke of Hamilton presented him to the living of the ancient parish of Cambuslang.

In particular, they objected that Meek seemed not to accept that faith alone made one worthy in the face of God or that Man was utterly depraved.

[citation needed] The charges were In 1774, the General Assembly ordered the Presbytery of Hamilton to proceed with Meek's induction.

Accordingly, Mr Park, of Old Monkland, served the edict upon the congregation, and summoned them to state what objections they might have to the life and doctrine of the presentee, at a meeting of the Presbytery to be held in the Manse of Cambuslang on 1 September 1774.

They declared some of the objections frivolous and unworthy of notice, others absurd and unintelligible; and all of them irrelevant, and that not a single habile (that is, competent) witness was offered for the proof of them.

Its judgement was "The General Assembly having reasoned on this affair, did, and hereby do dismiss the process... and sustain Mr James Meek, minister of Cambuslang."

The extensive entry for Cambuslang in the First Statistical Account of Scotland shows "Dr Meek" to have been a man of wide interests and a meticulous scholar with "reasonable" opinions in religion.

He consulted many Parish documents and talked to many parishioners before submitting his report to John Sinclair on the state of Cambuslang in the 1790s.

The data were also used for 20th century histories of weather, such as Historic Storms of the North Sea, British Isles and Northwest Europe, H. H. Lamb & Knud Frydendahl, CUP 1991.

At the end of each month and year there are tabulatd summaries and general remarks on weather in different parts of the country and world, notes of unusual conditions and the effects on crops, harvests, markets, etc.

[2] Extracts from Meek's observations were quoted in the Sixth (1823) Edition of Encyclopædia Britannica Vol 13 Ch IV Article on "Meteorology" Page 723.

As a court of the church, it dealt with disputes between parishes and ministers - the Orkney Grievances was a major issue that year - and various other matters of public morality.

One issue, which a previous General Assembly had referred to the Crown Lawyers related to whether the Barbers and Hairdressers of Edinburgh had profaned the Sabbath.

Apparently, not technically, or at least, legally, but the Presbytery of Edinburgh was urged to use all persuasive means at its disposal to encourage respect for the Sabbath.

Documents owned by Meek include: In the Special Collections section of the Library of Glasgow University, there is an extensive, bound manuscript of An abstract of the proceedings of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland, from 1560 to approximately the 1630s.

Meek thanks "the Faculty" for allowing him to see the manuscript and states that "About the year 1699, Mr William Dunlop Principal of the University of Glasgow, got this work transcribed from a copy that seems to have belonged to the General Assembly, which copy was lost, or more probably burnt about two years after... by a fire, 28 Oct[obe]r 1701, in the house of Mr Nicol Spense sub-clerk to the Assembly.

"Meek then reports that he has compared the document with the manuscript of David Calderwood’s History of the Kirk of Scotland (completed about 1650).

Meek is amazed at the "blanks" and "mistakes" and proceeds to list his very extensive corrections in his characteristic small, clear handwriting.

In fact it is an extensive corrigendum to this important manuscript, presumably why the University authorities were anxious that it was "securely" bound with the original document.

Meek considered that, in general, the language of this manuscript was clearer than that of Calderwood and so, with his corrections, would be a better reference point for settling legal or historical matters.