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Mr John Snodgrass, Preacher of the Gospel, George Steel, John Beatson, and Others, v Mr John Logan and Others. [1772] Mor 7374 (16 June 1772)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/scot/cases/ScotCS/1772/Mor1807374-095.html Cite as:
[1772] Mor 7374
Mr John Snodgrass, Preacher of the Gospel, George Steel, John Beatson, and Others, v. Mr John Logan and Others
Date: 16 June 1772 Case No. No 95.
Where the patronage of a kirk is lodged in a collective body, which having differed in choice, divides into two parties, and each party gives a separate presentation, the Court is competent to decide which shall be preferred.
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By decree of the Court of Session, pronounced 3d August 1759, it was found, “That his Majesty has no right to the patronage in question; and found, in respect it is agreed that the pursuers, (the Incorporations of South Leith, being the shipmasters, maltmen, trades, and traffickers), and the kirk session of Leith, have been immemorially in the use to concur in presenting the second minister of Leith; that thereby these two bodies have secured to themselves the right of patronage of the said benefice, jointly, and that they fall to exerce that right jointly in time coming; and found that, in time coming, the said right shall be exerced as follows, viz. the two Magistrates of Leith for the time being, shall each, ex officio, have a voice, and that the judge-admiral of the town or Leith, appointed by the Council of the city of Edinburgh for the time, shall also have a vote, and that each of the four incorporations, the pursuers, shall chuse four delegates, making in all sixteen, for representing the incorporations, and that the kirk session shall chuse fifteen delegates, who, with the colleague minister, who is to have a vote ex officio, shall represent the session; and found, that the right of presenting shall be vested in the said thirty-five persons, or major part of them, at a meeting to be held for that purpose, the time and place of their meeting to be publicly intimated. from the pulpit, or from the reader's desk, three weeks before the meeting at least, on a Sabbath, when the congregation is assembled, and before it is dismissed.”
Upon occasion of a vacancy of the charge of second minister of South Leith, Mr Snodgrass and Mr Logan were set up as candidates; and the constituent members of the collective body, in whom the patronage vested, having split into two parties, the delegates from the kirk session, and the delegates from the shipmasters, chosen at a meeting on the 6th of August 1771, voted for Mr Snodgrass. The delegates from the maltmen, the trades, and the traffickers, and another set of delegates from the shipmasters, chosen the 27th August, the admiral-bailie, the two resident bailies, and the first minister, voted for Mr Logan; and these several parties signed different presentations to the respective candidates for whom they voted.
Mr Snodgrass, and the voters on his side, brought a process of reduction and declarator against Mr Logan, and his adherents, before this Court. Mr Logan and his party repeated a counter-process of a similar nature.
It occurred to some of the Judges, that there was a preliminary question, viz. touching the competency of this Court to try the merits, in respect that here there was but one patron, and the question is only with regard to the mode of presenting; but it carried that the Court had jurisdiction, for that it resolved into a point of civil right, which of the two presentees was legally elected? and, after a long litigation, the final interlocutor of the Court (18th November 1772), was as follows:
“Repel the reasons of reduction of the presentation in favours of Mr John Logan, and assoilzie him and others from the conclusions of reduction and declarator at the instance of Mr John Snodgrass and others, and decern; sustain the reasons of reduction of the presentation to Mr John Snodgrass, reduce, decern, and declare accordingly.”
Act. M'Queen et M'Laurin.Alt. D. Dalrymple et Solicitor Dundas.Clerk, Ross.
Fol. Dic. v. 3. p. 343. Fac. Col. No 14. p. 35.
N. B. The above recited judgment on the merits proceeded on circumstances; chiefly on the irregularity of the meeting of shipmasters, 6th August, and of the proceedings therein.——See Patronage.
