Thomas Chalmers, The Great Divine

At the top of North Castle Street is a statue of Thomas Chalmers D.D. D.C.L although very few people will know who Chalmers was (certainly I had never heard of him until I had to take a photo using the word DIVINE as inspiration).

Chalmers was one of the most important Scottish men of the early part of the nineteenth century. Before the age of 25 he was a serious contendor for the chair of natural philosophy at the University of St Andrews and for the chair of Mathematics at Edinburgh University. In 1832 he gained the highest honour Scotland could give him when he became moderator of the Church of Scotland. Chalmers attention to church reform caused him to break with the Established Church of Scotland, an in 1843 he headed an important movement in Scottish political and social history known as 'The Disruption' when a section of the Scottish clergy and congregations disagreeing on matters of patronage and spiritual independence, formed the Free Church of Scotland.