Church Elder Embarks on Tour of Scotland to Make Silver Inventory
Episcopal News Service. April 10, 2003 [2003-079-5]
Kirkpatrick Dobie, a Church of Scotland elder, has started a 10-year project to personally visit all 1200 congregations in Scotland to record every item of communion and baptismal ware.
The project was launched by the church's general assembly because of the importance of the collection for Scotland's national heritage. 'It is by far the most important body of silverware for the 16th and 17th centuries,' Dobie told ENI. 'With Scotland's turbulent political history, most of the secular articles vanished [to raise money for fighting].'
Communion and baptism are the only two sacraments recognized by the Kirk, as the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland is known. It has about 600,000 members.
A specialist in silver, the 62-year-old Dobie is semi-retired, and he works on the project one day a week. He has found the value of communion and baptismal ware--in silver, pewter and electro-plated nickel silver--ranges from 'practically nothing' to over US$150,000 per church. In one church he discovered a pair of rare 18th century cups that no one knew about. Dobie said the nationwide inventory might be completed sooner if someone with the time and specialized knowledge could work with him.
Douglas Galbraith, secretary of the Kirk's committee on artistic matters, said congregations faced with pressing maintenance needs sometimes wanted to sell their silver, which needed approval from church authorities. 'They are not very pleased with us when the church says no,' he told ENI. 'But the financial benefit from selling an asset is transient.'
Among notable communion articles owned by the church is a pewter plate from the American Revolutionary War period of the late 18th century, produced in Glasgow and inscribed, 'Success to the USA.' A silver plate from the 17th century shows somebody kneeling beside the communion table--an apparent reference to an unsuccessful attempt by King James VI of Scotland (who also ruled England as James I) to enforce the Anglican practice of kneeling. Among the Kirk's greatest treasures is the silver 'Mary Cup,' a communion cup traditionally associated with Mary, Queen of Scots, who was crowned queen of Scotland in 1543, but was executed by English monarch Elizabeth I in 1587.