02-07-2025
How St Mary and St Anne's became Glasgow's Tron Church
This led to a church being established at the south side of the street of St Teneu or St Enoch, to bear the name of Mary of Loretto and of St Anne, her mother.
With the consent of the patrons, one of the chaplainries of the church of St Roche's was, in about, incorporated with the Collegiate Church of St Mary and St Anne.
John Bell Minister of the Laigh Church Glasgow Museums (Image: Supplied) The Chaplain of St Roche was appointed a canon of that church, subject to the obligation to say mass and other offices in St Roche's Chapel for the souls of its founder.
The Cathedral and the Collegiate Church of St Mary and St Ann both maintained choirs in pre-Reformation Glasgow.
The Cathedral choir will have sung daily at Mass and each of the eight regular prayer times for the Divine Office.
Boys in both choirs studied at the Sang School.
(Image: Supplied) The Collegiate Church of St Mary and St Ann had an organist who directed the choir and taught the three boy choristers who studied in the Sang School where they learned how to sing plainchant and polyphony, how to sing improvised harmonies, and play the organ.
The boys were removed from their post when their voices broke, but there was provision for them to continue their education at the Grammar School for another two years.
After the Reformation, the church with its cemetery in the Trongate, fell into a ruinous state.
(Image: Supplied) It was sold by the council in 1570 and reacquired by them around 1592.
They had it repaired to be used as a Church of Scotland.
The church, which for more than a quarter of a century after the Reformation had been in a poor state, was repaired by the town and was used as a place of worship under the name of the Tron or New Kirk, sometimes known as Laigh Church.
They then needed to find the means of supporting a minister.
The old revenues of the church had been given to the magistrates of the city by Queen Mary's Act of 1566-7 to be used to fund for poor scholars at the college.
(Image: Supplied) There were allegations that these bursaries had been improperly applied to the support of the richest men's sons.
An Act of Parliament was therefore obtained in 1594, cancelled the bursaries, and instead devoted the revenues "to the sustentation of the ministry within the city of Glasgow".
The bell house of the old church seems to have been occupied till the alterations were made, as in 1593 a tenant was allowed a reduction of half a year's rent "in respect the steeple was taken down".
In 1594, the Scottish Parliament passed an act in favour of the ministry of Glasgow, referring to a gift which, after the Reformation, had been made to the magistrates of the city of the chaplaincies and emoluments of the "New Kirk of the College of Glasgow," meaning apparently the Collegiate Church of St Mary and St Ann.
A little over 10 years later, the Tron Church was repaired and restored as a Protestant place of worship and a fourth minister was introduced to the city.
In 1599, the ministers applied to the Town Council to ask that the town be divided into two separate parishes to allow each minister to know their flock.
The city agreed to this on the understanding that the citizens should not be burdened with the building of more kirks or the support of more ministers than already existed.
The Tron was as a result separated from the High Kirk.
Additions were later made to the church, and the steeple which formed such a conspicuous spot in Trongate was built in 1637/8.
In 1793, the old Church was destroyed by fire, and the Tron or St Mary's Church was built on the same site.
