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.