Latest news with #FreeChurch
The National
15-07-2025
- General
- The National
The Scot who who suggested schoolchildren be given free milk
Garlanded with honours during his long career, Boyd Orr was knighted in 1935 and created a life peer as Lord Boyd Orr in 1949. A tall, distinctive man with 'penetrating blue eyes' and 'astonishing' bushy eyebrows and who smoked a pipe, his family affectionately referred to him as 'Popeye'. Unsurprisingly, much has been written about Boyd Orr. Yet few of these narratives make mention of the driving ideological force behind his endeavours: humanism. READ MORE: Rarely seen Millais artworks to be displayed in Scotland for the first time While readers might associate humanism with celebrants who conduct wedding, funeral and naming ceremonies for the non-religious, it is, and has been, a considerably more expansive moral, ethical and rational life stance. Historian Callum Brown reassesses this aspect of Boyd Orr's career in his forthcoming book, Ninety Humanists And The Ethical Transition Of Britain. For Brown, Boyd Orr was: 'A humanist scientist whose ethical commitment drew upon humanitarianism, the autonomy of the human being and internationalism. He was devoted to a simple cause – ending hunger as a means to ending war.' Humanism and Humanitarianism BOYD Orr was born in Kilmaurs, Ayrshire, in 1880. His hostility to organised religion, Brown writes, was 'shaped in his youth and crafted an adherence to rationalist science and humanist ethics'. Boyd Orr's family home was 'strictly religious'. His Free Church father, 'enveloped the family in a regime of nightly prayers, puritan morality and Sabbath observance'. As Boyd Orr recalled in his memoir, 'promiscuous dancing' was considered abhorrent, and he did not dance until he was nearly 30. After this, he rarely missed a ceilidh. He discarded the faith of his family, although, rather confusingly, not before he had published a book on theological debate. He eschewed church, apart from a visit to a Quaker Meeting House, where he approved of the lack of ornamentation, doctrines and freedom of conscience. Reading the work of Charles Darwin led Boyd Orr, Brown argues, to break from the hold of biblical interpretation. In Glasgow, he was much affected by the deprivation he witnessed in the city's slums, then among the worst in western Europe. His experience, which included several years as a teacher in the east end, gave him an 'intense hatred of unnecessary hunger and poverty'. After a complex career of study, in which he came to specialise in nutrition, Boyd Orr graduated as a medical doctor in 1913, joining a new research centre in Aberdeen, the Rowett Institute. Following the outbreak of the First World War, Boyd Orr served as a senior medic in the Royal Army Medical Corps, rescuing the wounded at the Battle of the Somme, for which he was awarded the Military Cross. He also used his knowledge to improve the diet of soldiers. Nutrition BROWN demonstrates that Boyd Orr's humanitarian drive to understand and counter the malnourishment of the poor, and children in particular, was a constant driver in his research. Convinced of the nutritional benefits of milk, Boyd Orr was appalled it was wasted when poor families could not afford it, and that his proposals for a government scheme to supply free milk to schools were ignored. He conducted large-scale experiments in the mid-1930s which conclusively showed the benefits of milk consumption among Scottish children and was reported widely in the press as having shown that around one-third of children in Britain and Northern Ireland were malnourished. By the 1950s and 60s, the free milk in schools scheme was the eventual result of such campaigning. It was, according to Brown, the simplest and most effective mass system to improve physical health ever devised. Boyd Orr was at the forefront of an ethical movement for dietary improvement, which drew the admiration of humanists such as Julian Huxley and fellow Scot Naomi Mitchison. Throughout the 1930s and 40s, he persistently lobbied government to improve the diet of the population, advocating that food supply be subject to state intervention. In 1943, he appeared in a documentary, World Of Plenty, which presented in simple terms his argument that the world was shifting from food scarcity to plenty. The same year, he was elected to Parliament as an independent MP representing the Scottish universities. World Government BOYD Orr's ethical ambitions were greater still. In the years following the Second World War, his mission was to achieve world peace by transforming the supply of food across the globe. In 1946, acclaimed by fellow nutritionists the world over, he was appointed the first director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. Three years later, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Receiving the award, he stated there would be: 'No peace in the world so long as a large proportion of the population lacks the necessities of life and believes that a change in the political and economic system will make them available. World peace must be based on world plenty.' Humanists such as HG Wells had long dreamed of utopian schemes which would create international institutions to ensure prosperity and to prevent conflict. With Boyd Orr appointed to the United Nations, such dreams seemed upon the cusp of becoming reality. Yet his plans for a World Food Bank, and a huge international project to boost agricultural productivity, lacked political support. 'Boyd Orr,' Brown argues, 'proclaimed the power of science to transform the world, to quell racism, to feed the millions and thereby to end war, travelling the world telling this story to intellectuals, medics and scientists.' On Boyd Orr's death in 1971, aged 90, an extensive obituary lauded him as 'one of the truly outstanding Scotsmen of the age'. Charlie Lynch thanks Callum Brown for providing him with a preview of his forthcoming book, Ninety Humanists And The Ethical Transition Of Britain: The Open Conspiracy 1930-80, which will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in November
BBC News
21-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Church of Scotland to stop printing Life and Work magazine
The Church of Scotland says it can no longer afford to print its 146-year-old magazine, Life and Kirk's General Assembly in Edinburgh was told on Tuesday that publication of the monthly magazine would end later this readership and a "growing" financial deficit was blamed for the magazine is editorially independent of the Church of Scotland. Lynne McNeil, who has edited Life and Work for 23 years, said many print publications were struggling due to a market of "diminishing returns".She said the magazine's core audience was among the 68,160 worshippers on average who attended church on number of worshippers before the Covid pandemic was about 88, McNeil said that Life and Work lost sales every time a church Jim Stewart, convener of the Life and Work advisory committee, said the magazine had "enhanced and strengthened" the Church of Scotland's national are expected to be put to next year's assembly about a new General Assembly is an annual gathering of the Kirk's 2023, it heard warnings that hundreds of churches would have to close due to falling membership and dwindling income. 'Long way short' The Free Church has also said it would end publication of its magazine, The Record, in the coming Alasdair MacAulay, chairman of the Free Church communications group, said 100 years ago it would sell 10,000 copies but readership had fallen to about 1, told BBC Naidheachdan: "That's a long way short and it's continuing to fall all the time unfortunately."The Record is published every second month.
Press and Journal
29-04-2025
- Business
- Press and Journal
Former Wick church on North Coast 500 route to go under the hammer
An impressive former church on the NC500 route will go under the hammer at auction this week. The substantial building – once the town's Free Church – sits on Wick's Bridge Street has been given a guide price of £115,000. It will go up for sale in a timed online auction on Thursday. Auctioneers from Future Property Auctions will open bidding at £107,000 as developers battle it out. The former church has been earmarked as having 'enormous potential' for redevelopment into apartments. The property faces onto the town's main thoroughfare to John O'Groats, which forms part of the North Coast 500. Comprising two floors, the town centre building is said to be in excellent condition. Pictures taken of the building's interior highlight several key features, including the stained-glass windows and a stage. The church dates back to the 1800s and was designed by William Johnston Gray of Berwick and is Gothic in style. The church was decommissioned as a place of worship and has since been utilised as a retail space. Alterations have been made to the building's interior to create open plan spaces. Most recently, the Bridge Street property has housed the town's Jack's furniture and flooring sales business. Bidding for the Caithness property will begin at 10am on Thursday.
