Samuel Haliday or Hollyday (1685–1739) was an Irish Presbyterian non-subscribing minister, to the "first congregation" of Belfast.
In 1701 he entered Glasgow College, enrolled among the students of the first class under John Loudon, professor of logic and rhetoric.
He was received by the Synod of Ulster in 1712 as an ordained minister without charge and declared capable of being settled in any of its congregations.
For some time, however, he lived in London, where he associated with the Whig faction, in and out of the government, and used his influence to promote the interests of his fellow-churchmen.
[1] Haliday introduced two historians, Laurence Echard and Edmund Calamy, in a London social meeting with Richard Ellys.
[2] In 1719 he was present at the Salters' Hall debates, and in the same year received a call from the first congregation of Belfast, vacant by the death of the Rev.
On 28 July 1720, the day appointed for his installation in Belfast, he refused to subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith, making instead a declaration to the presbytery; the presbytery proceeded with the installation, in violation of the law of the church, and the face of a protest and appeal from four members.
A resolution was, however, carried after a long debate that all members of the synod who were willing to subscribe to the confession might do so, with which the majority complied.
[1] The subscription controversy raged for years, Haliday continuing to take a major part in it, both in the synod and through the press.
To end the conflict the synod in 1725 adopted the expedient of placing all the non-subscribing ministers in one presbytery, that of Antrim, which in the following year was excluded from the body.
Mr. Gilbert Kennedy, occasioned by some personal Reflections, Belfast, 1725, and in the following year A Letter to the Rev.