James Alexander Haldane

Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia

James Alexander Haldane (July 14, 1768 - February 8, 1851) was a Scottish Congregationalist itinerant preacher and independent church leader.

After a considarable naval career on various East Indiamen he abruptly decided to leave the navy for a religious life. Back in Scotland he founded a non-sectarian organization for tract distribution and lay preaching, which became known as the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at Home in 1797. 1799 we see him and his older brother Robert Haldane among the founder members of the new Scottish Congregational Church.

That same year Haldane travelled the whole of Shetland together with his fellow pastor William Innes. The arrived in Fair Isle on July the 10th 1799 and two days later at Quendale. The same evening he preached at the Dunrossness manse following an invitation by the Rev. Mr Mill, who after the service stood up and, in a commanding tone, warned the people to take heed of the words heard, ....^[1]

For some time separating the two clergy visited the whole of Shetland with Haldane himself doing most of his missionary work on Northmaven, Unst, Yell, Westmainland including Papa Stour and Foula with Whalsay ^[2] being the only place, where they were rejected. Before they returned to Dunrossness they spent another five days in Lerwick preaching twice daily and being watched by a respectable number of people. They arrived back in Dunrossness on the 8th of August before they left from Quendale on the 18th of August due to weather conditions. They missed Fair Isle in the night and landed the next morning in Orkney.

Back in Edinburgh Haldane considered the religious state of the people to be deplorable and stated that not more than two or three of the twelve Shetland ministers preached the Gospel.

Despite their successfull campaign, Haldane and Innes did not found any congregational church or branch in Shetland. That task was left to the Shetlander James Tulloch and his fellow Rev. George Reid in 1805 and later - at a time when Haldane had converted to Baptism (1803).

References

↑ according to Haldane's journal
↑ in fact it seems it was the laird only who rejected Haldane and his religious approach but not the people of Whalsay