Gilfillan of Dundee, 1813–1878

Gilfillan of Dundee, 1813–1878: Interpreting Religion and Culture in Mid-Victorian Scotland . By Aileen Black . Dundee University Press . 2006 . xiv + 280 pp. £25.00 . The case for writing a major study of George Gilfillan is not at first sight a strong one. He has not merited notice in reference works such as the Oxford Companion to Scottish History, and his adult life was spent in the relative obscurity of Dundee. Both as a clergyman and as a literary figure he did not advance beyond second-rank status. His papers were destroyed, creating what Aileen Black coyly describes as ‘certain problems’ (p. xii) for his biographer. Nonetheless, this is a book that deserves the attention of scholars of nineteenth-century history and literature, including those whose interests lie beyond Scotland. Eschewing the form of a standard biography, Black surveys Gilfillan's life before proceeding to a thematic analysis of the features that connected him with the social, intellectual and political history of Victorian Britain: his role as a reformer of church and state; his reputation as an orator, author and literary patron; and his espousal of the ‘Unionist Nationalist’ form of national identity that prevailed in mid-Victorian Scotland. Gilfillan emerges as one of the Dissenting clergymen who played significant roles as community leaders in nineteenth-century Britain. He was a life-long member of the Secession (later United Presbyterian) Church, but he preferred the controversies of public life to the constraints of denominational orthodoxy. Arraigned for heresy, he resolutely promoted liberal forms of belief that contested the puritanical Calvinism of his early days. He was sympathetic to the Darwinian hypothesis, and his church library contained writings such as Essays and Reviews which eroded biblical fundamentalism. Gilfillan's inspiration as a speaker and writer came predominantly from his reading of English literature and the writings of Thomas Carlyle. He promoted the literary classics, very notably through his widely read Gallery (later Galleries) of Literary Portraits. A strong believer in the ennobling qualities of literature, he befriended working-class poets and made his church a centre of self-improvement and popular liberalism. Anti-slavery, the Anti-Corn Law League and Italian unification were three of the liberal crusades that enjoyed his support. Black shows the attractiveness of Gilfillan's pulpit performances for socially aspiring artisans by analysing his oratorical style – not only his ideas but also the dramaturgy of his self-presentation. She does much to rescue Victorian Dundee from its reputation as a place of unrelieved misery by showing the vibrancy of its cultural life at a time of rapid industrialization. If there is a weakness in this otherwise well-written book, it is Black's over-comfortable assumption that her research into Victorian public life has been ‘relatively straightforward’ (p. xii). For example, there are references to the ‘Anti-State Association’, presumably the Anti-State Church Association (pp. 135 and 186), that indicate an inadequate understanding of the importance of voluntarism for Secessionists. Gilfillan is said to have played a prominent part in the Anti-Corn Law agitation, but, as in the case of his antagonistic relationship with the burgeoning teetotal movement, the bibliography contains few references to the relevant secondary literature and the wider context is slight

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Biography · Dissenting opinion · Heresy · Heterodoxy · Identity (music · Literature · Nationalism · Orthodoxy · Political science · Politics · Schism · Scots · Secularism · Sociology · Classics · History · Irish and British Studies · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · Scottish History and National Identity