Aberdeen Unitarian Church

HISTORY

THE CHRISTIAN UNITARIAN CHURCH
209 GEORGE STREET

1840 - 1905 Aberdeen Unitarian Church owes its existence to a small group of liberal thinkers who in 1833 invited the Rev. Archibald MacDonald of Greenock to conduct Unitarian services in the city. These were enthusiastically received and a Congregation was formally established on Sunday 13th October, 1833.

An architect, J.S.Simpson, was commissioned to produce a plan of a new church building, which was subsequently dedicated as a "Christian Unitarian Church" on 9th August, 1840. It was "an elegant building, in every way fit for public worship". Its interior dimensions were 50 x 43 feet and 133 members took "sittings". The building cost £859 and much of this sum was raised by the minister, Rev. J. Cropper, who travelled widely in England and Ireland, seeking financial help for the Aberdeen cause.

This building was the home of the Congregation until 28th May, 1905, when it was sold to a firm of undertakers for £2000. When the Rev. Alexander Webster embarked upon his second Aberdeen ministry he dedicated himself to creating a more comfortable and commodious building. By 1906 his dream had been fulfilled.

Nothing now remains of the facade of this original church. The site is now occupied by a men's wear shop.

THE REV. ALEXANDER WEBSTER'S CHURCH
SKENE STREET

1906 - 1987 The Congregation took possession of its new building at the corner of Skene Street and Rosemount Viaduct in July 1906 and the service of Dedication took place on 23rd September, 1906. The architect was D.& J.McMillan and the building and its furnishings cost £7370, of which £1720 had been raised personally by the Rev. Alexander Webster on extensive fund-raising tours of the United Kingdom and of the United States of America.

The building consisted of a large, spacious church with gallery and organ upstairs and a fine hall, smaller rooms and kitchen, downstairs. The church boasted some fine woodwork, including a vaulted pitch-pine ceiling, an impressive pulpit and fine panelling.

In this new home the Congregation flourished, enjoying an enlarged membership (189 in 1906), increased prestige in the city, and during the ensuing years, some very distinguished ministries. It had proved to be everything its founder, Alexander Webster, had hoped it would be, a worthy home for a vigourous, free-thinking Congregation.

However, the financial burden of maintaining a large granite building in need of renovation was beginning to tell on the Congregation in the 1980s, and so the decision was made to seek a less costly building. Eventually an exchange was agreed with the Jehovah's Witnesses who owned a more compact and more modern building in the next street. Thus the Jehovah Witnesses moved into the Alexander Webster building in 1987, renaming it Kingdom Hall.