The 2019 Memorial Lecture

The 2019 Memorial Lecture was delivered in Irvine Town House by Professor Ian Campbell.  His subject was "Galt and the Kirk" and, with particular reference to The Ayrshire Legatees and Annals of the Parish, he showed how Galt described both the extent of the influence the Church wielded in small Scottish communities and how and why that influence was eroded as the eighteenth century gave way to the nineteenth.  The lecture was very well received by an audience which included a visiting party from Guelph, the city Galt founded in Ontario and which included 2 actors and musicians who entertained the company before the lecture with a dramatised performance relating to the founding of the city and the issues which colonisation raised.  We are again grateful to North Ayrshire Council for their generous hospitality in hosting this event.