Rev. Kenneth Bayne

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: dnf-54490

Kenneth — Margaret Hay. Margaret was born Abt 1770, of, West Parish, Greenock, Renfrew, Scotland; died Yes, date unknown. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• FindAGrave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/179593656
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-87159
• Occupation: 1835, St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; minister
• Occupation: 1844, Knox Presbyterian Church, Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; minister
• Occupation: 1852, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; clergyman
• Residence: 1852, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Presbyterian
• Church: 1854, Doon Presbyterian Church, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; dedication of Doon Presbyterian Church
• Hall of Fame - Waterloo Region: Bef 2012, , Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada

Notes:

Ayr Presbyterian Knox United Church


Prior to 1842, Ayr members of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Galt had been meeting in a log schoolhouse on Piper Street in Ayr. The congregation decided on February 17, 1842 to build a church, which was completed and dedicated on June 1, 1843. When the Synod of the (Free) Presbyterian Church of Canada was formed in 1844 following the break with the Presbyterian Church in Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland, the congregation joined with the former organization and became known as the Free Church. It is of interest that Rev. John Bayne of Galt, who was considered the founder of the Free Church in Canada, inducted the first elders at the Ayr Free Church. Early ministers were Revs. Robert Lindsay (1849-1854) and Duncan McRuer (1854-). With the union of all Presbyterian churches in Canada in 1875 both Knox and Stanley Street churches became part of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.

The present church was built in 1887 and was opened for worship on October 9, 1888. This church was joined by Stanley Street Presbyterian Church on May 31, 1914 with the name of Knox United Presbyterian Church; it was then joined by the former Ayr Methodist Church on June 6, 1926 to become Knox United Church.

WATERLOO COUNTY CHURCHES A RESEARCH GUIDE TO CHURCHES ESTABLISHED BEFORE 1900 by Rosemary Ambrose

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Knox's Galt Presbyterian Church

This was the Rev. John Bayne's church, a Free [Presbyterian] Church which was founded by him in 1844 with a majority of the members from his former church, St. Andrew's. Dr. Bayne died on Nov. 3, 1859 and in 1861 the Synod of the (Free) Presbyterian Church of Canada of which he was said to be the founder joined with the United Presbyterian Church in Canada to become the Canada Presbyterian Church. Ministers who followed Rev. Bayne were Revs. John Thompson (April 18, 1861-March 9, 1864) and James K. Smith (September 28, 1865-c.1885). In 1875 church union created the Presbyterian Church in Canada from all remaining divisions of the Presbyterian Church. In 1925 the congregation voted 548-363 to remain a Presbyterian Church rather than join the United Church.

After Rev. Dr. Bayne and his followers left St. Andrew's Church, they worshipped in William Biggar's barn until the first Knox Church building (of stone) was erected at the north-east corner of Ainslie and Dickson Streets in 1845-1846. This church was sold to the Wesleyan Methodists in 1872 for their use. It was removed in 1879.

The present Knox's Galt Presbyterian Church was built in 1869 (the cornerstone laying ceremony was on June 18, 1869) and opened for worship on September 11, 1870. The cornerstone was laid on May 25, 1908 for a large Sunday School addition which was completed in 1909. Fire on April 16, 1989 gutted the entire Christian Education/office wing and damaged the church itself; the reconstructed wing (within the original stone walls) and the repaired church were reopened on Sunday, April 7, 1991

Waterloo County Churches A Research Guide To Churches Established Before 1900 By Rosemary Ambrose

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St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church

The first minister of St. Andrew's was Rev. William Stewart of Kenmore, Scotland, who arrived in Canada in 1831. He ministered to this congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland from 1832-c.1834. Rev. Stewart was followed in 1835 by the Rev. John Bayne. In 1844 Rev. Bayne espoused the cause of the Free Church of Scotland which had been formed in 1843, as a result of the Disruption, when a large number of clergy and laity had split from the Church of Scotland in part because of disagreement over the right of a congregation to call its own minister.

Rev. Bayne was instrumental in founding the Synod of the (Free) Presbyterian Church of Canada, in 1844. This caused a deep division in the congregation of his own church, St. Andrew's. The result was that Rev. Bayne formed a new congregation in 1844, known as Knox Free Church, which was made up of the majority of the members of the congregation of St. Andrew's. St. Andrew's remained with the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland.

St. Andrew's church building, of frame, was begun in 1833 and finished in 1835; according to Young (1880: 74) it was built on the west hill overlooking the village.

After the departure of Rev. Bayne, St. Andrew's was served by Revs. John Malcolm Smith (1848-1850), Hamilton Gibson (1850-1860), Robert Campbell (1862-1866), James B. Muir (1867-1874), and William Masson (from 1874 until his resignation in October 1879). Rev. Smith and Rev. Gibson also travelled to Woolwich once a month to preach to the congregation of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Winterbourne.

On May 18, 1880 St. Andrew's and Union Presbyterian Churches joined together to form Central Presbyterian Church; the St. Andrew's Church building was taken down in 1889.

[Note: the present-day St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Galt dates from c.1917, the outgrowth of a Mission School of Central Presbyterian Church which had its beginnings c.1891. (A. Taylor, WHS 1950(38): 37-38.)]

Waterloo County Churches A Research Guide To Churches Established Before 1900 By Rosemary Ambrose

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Doon Presbyterian Church

The Minutes of the 1852 Annual Meeting of the Presbyterian Church of Canada refer to a joint charge of the congregations of Woolwich and Doon Mills in the Presbytery of Hamilton. In 1853 and 1854 Doon Mills was a charge with New Aberdeen. Formal organization of the Doon congregation was on July 9, 1853 by Rev. Dr. John Bayne of Knox's Presbyterian Church in Galt, who had held the first church service in Doon just two days before. The present church was built in 1854 on land donated by Mr. Robert Ferrie. Dedication services were held on December 31, 1854, with Rev. Bayne conducting the morning service and Rev. Duncan McRuer of Knox Presbyterian Church, Ayr preaching in the afternoon.

The congregation was placed on a two-point charge with New Hope (Hespeler) on October 25, 1855 with Rev. Thomas Isaac Hodgskin as missionary. A first communion service was held on February 25, 1856. Later that year (October 16, 1856), Rev. Hodgskin was inducted as minister; he later resigned from the Presbyterian Church. (The Minutes of the 1863 Annual Meeting of the Canada Presbyterian Church recorded that effective June 24, 1862 Rev. Hodgskin was considered no longer to be a minister or member of the Church.) Rev. Malcolm McKenzie arrived in the Fall of 1861 and was ordained and inducted to the service of both churches on February 12, 1862. Rev. George Haigh became Minister to Doon, Preston and Hespeler on April 24, 1876. On March 20, 1883 Doon and Hespeler were made into a pastoral charge under Rev. Haigh and were separated from Preston, which became a Mission Station.

The congregation later, in 1893, became a second charge to Preston, when Hespeler called its first full-time minister. In the same year, Rev. Herbert Francis Thomas became minister to the two-point charge of Doon and Preston. However, it was not until 1972 that Doon became independent. An ordained minister was appointed in 1976 and a manse was purchased in 1977. A new addition was constructed in 1980 and dedicated on November 9, 1980. The congregation of Doon Presbyterian Church became self-supporting as of July 1, 1982. Ten years later, another addition was completed, and officially opened and dedicated on Sunday, September 27, 1992.

Waterloo County Churches A Research Guide To Churches Established Before 1900 By Rosemary Ambrose

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The men who took the most prominent part in organizing the first library in the village were: Rev. Dr. Bayne, Alexander Burnet, James Cowan, John Gowinlock, William Trotter, H. G. Barlow, James Harris, Andrew Elliott, Francis McElroy, Francis Hogg, Andrew Moscrip and Walter H. Benn. These men have long since passed away, but they all did good work in their day in laying the foundations of a progressive and moral community; to the older generation of Galtonians their names call up a crowd of memories of the days that are no more.

First Annual Report of the Waterloo Historical Society, Berlin 1913, pg 17

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BAYNE, JOHN, Presbyterian minister; b. 16 Nov. 1806 in Greenock, Scotland, son of the Reverend Kenneth Bayne, minister of the Gaelic Chapel, Greenock, and Margaret Hay; d. unmarried 3 Nov. 1859 in Galt (Cambridge), Upper Canada.

After attending the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, John Bayne moved to Edinburgh in 1827 and was licensed to preach in the Church of Scotland by the Presbytery of Dingwall on 8 Sept. 1830. It was about this time that he refused an offer of a church in South Carolina, evidently preferring to remain at home in the hope of receiving a call from a Scottish congregation. While in Edinburgh he acted as assistant to various ministers. The drowning of two sisters in the spring of 1832 seems to have had a lifelong effect on Bayne's work and character. Although death had been no stranger to his family (he had already lost his parents, a brother, and a sister), this unexpected loss prompted him to compose in secret several pious resolutions, found only after his death, that are thought to have henceforth governed his demeanour and actions. According to one account, these "heavy domestic afflictions" gave him "an appearance of gloom, that was often mistaken by strangers for absolute melancholy, and also tended to produce that comparative indifference to the world, and that undoubted piety which ever characterized him." Asked in later years why he never married, Bayne replied that "since my father died I have never felt that I had a home, and I have never cared to marry ."

He moved to Shapinsay, in the Orkney Islands, in 1833 to serve as assistant to the Reverend John Barry. When the parish's lay patron denied a popular request to grant him a continuing position there, Bayne, "chafed with the hauteur of the patron as well as with the treatment the congregation received," decided to leave. He was accepted by the Glasgow Colonial Society to serve as a missionary to British North America and was ordained by the Presbytery of Dingwall on 3 Sept. 1834. Bayne transferred all his property to his surviving sisters and departed for Upper Canada, arriving about the end of 1834. He first served at St Andrew's in Toronto between the departure of William Rintoul and the return from Scotland of his successor, William Turnbull Leach*. Late in 1835 Bayne accepted a call from the congregation of St Andrew's in Galt, whose minister, William Stewart, had left to accept a call to Demerara (Guyana). In Galt, with a congregation composed almost exclusively of "a respectable class of Lowland Scotch farmers" and businessmen, Bayne commenced a remarkable ministry that, for all his having decided to serve only temporarily in Upper Canada, lasted until his death. His services, sometimes exceeding three hours, were characterized by a forceful and eloquent pulpit style that soon attracted one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in Canada and made him one of the church's highest paid preachers. An observer said that in his pulpit prayers he talked "as if he were alone with God, and yet covered all public and congregational needs and aspirations." He also established seven new congregations in the Galt region, but his exhausting travels ruined his health with the result that he seldom attended presbytery and synod meetings. Nevertheless, he was chosen in 1842 to recruit clergy in Scotland for newly settled areas in the province.

Bayne was still in Edinburgh in May 1843 when the disruption of the Church of Scotland occurred as a reaction against state interference with church business. He returned to Canada in the summer believing that the absence of state interference with the colonial church would prevent a similar upheaval there. During the winter, when the developments in Scotland were widely discussed in British North America [see Robert Burns*], Bayne became convinced that to maintain the connection would be to share the Church of Scotland's "sin" of accepting the direct involvement of the state. Unlike the long-settled Presbyterians in the eastern part of Upper Canada, recent Scottish immigrants to the western districts strongly favoured a Canadian disruption. Moreover, because the separatists in Scotland who had formed the Free Church there promoted the Glasgow Colonial Society's mission in British North America, most of the society's missionaries, including Bayne, supported the split. When the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland met at Kingston in July 1844 Bayne took the lead by presenting a motion for separation from the Church of Scotland, thus opposing the Reverend John Cook*. With 20 elders and 22 other ministers, including Robert Burns, Alexander Gale, and Mark Young Stark*, he helped create the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, popularly called the Free Church. Most of Bayne's congregation in Galt supported his action, although it cost them their church building. Those in Galt who remained with the Church of Scotland received the guidance of the Reverend Thomas Liddell*, principal of Queen's College, Kingston, in securing possession of their property. A year later Bayne and Liddell publicly debated the disruption at Galt, and it was generally conceded that Bayne won.

The Free Church was approached in 1844 by the Missionary Synod of Canada in connection with the United Associate Secession Church in Scotland with a view to union. Bayne, convenor of his synod's union committee, and most of his colleagues demanded acceptance of their doctrine of the state's obligation to support the church without exercising any control, whereas the members of the Missionary Synod, led by William Proudfoot, were voluntarists, believing in the separation of church and state. Union was delayed until 1861, after Bayne's death.
In 1846 Bayne was unanimously chosen moderator of his synod. The following year he returned to Scotland on behalf of Toronto's recently established Free Church college (later Knox College), and obtained the services of the Reverend Michael Willis* as professor of theology. In later years Bayne, because of his continuing poor health, repeatedly refused a teaching post in the college, including one made vacant by the death of Henry Esson.

Bayne's popularity assured that his Free Church congregation in Galt, Knox's, would grow rapidly; by 1852 it comprised 298 families and had an average attendance of 890. Made a doctor of divinity in 1853 by Union College, Schenectady, N.Y., he took a leave of absence in 1855-56 after a serious illness to visit Britain and Europe, resuming his pastoral duties at the end of 1856. When his church needed two Sunday services Bayne "acknowledged that he was not equal to the undertaking" and in 1858 offered to resign. His congregation rejected the offer and instead hired the Reverend Archibald Constable Geikie as his assistant. "Conscious at the age of fifty that he looked old," Bayne, a heavy smoker who engaged in "ever-growing sedentary habits," suddenly became ill at his home on the morning of 3 Nov. 1859 and died that afternoon.

John S. Moir

[John Bayne left no diaries and few letters. According to one biographer, he "disliked greatly the mere act of using a pen . . . and he had, as a rule, as little to do with pen and ink work as was possible for one in his position." Under those circumstances it is surprising that he published at all. Some of his sermons and polemical writings appeared in pamphlet form during his lifetime, including Report of the discussion on the late disruption in the Presbyterian Church, which took place in St. Andrew's Church, Galt, on Tuesday, May 27, 1845, between the Rev. Principal Liddell, D.D., of Queen's College, Kingston, and the Rev. John Bayne, minister of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, Galt (Galt [Cambridge, Ont.], 1845). At the request of the newly formed Free Church synod, Bayne drafted a defence of the disruption as a pastoral address that was later expanded and published as Was the recent disruption of the synod of Canada, in connection with the Church of Scotland, called for? An address to the Presbyterians of Canada who still support the synod in connection with the Church of Scotland (Galt, 1846). Another work, Is man responsible for his belief? A lecture delivered before the members of the Hamilton Mercantile Library Association, on the evening of the 18th of February 1851, was published in Galt in 1851. Although plans to publish notes of his sermons posthumously were never pursued, fragments of his sermons appeared as "Outlines of four discourses by the Rev. John Bayne, D.D., late minister of Knox Church, Galt," in Canada Presbyterian church pulpit, first series (Toronto, 1871), 16-30.

Notices of Bayne's death appeared in Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record for the Presbyterian Church of Canada (Toronto), 16 (1859-60): 20-22, 54, in its Minutes of the Synod (Toronto), 1860: 37, and in the Sarnia Observer, and Lambton Advertiser, 18 Nov. 1859. A longer obituary is Robert Irvine's sermon, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?"; a discourse preached in Knox's Church, Hamilton, C. W., on Sabbath, November 13, 1859, with a view to improve the sudden demise of the late Rev. John Bayne, D.D., of Galt (Hamilton, [Ont.], 1859).

The first biography was written by his friend, the Reverend George Smellie. Called Memoir of the Rev. John Bayne, D.D., of Galt . . . (Toronto, 1871), it republished Bayne's essay on man's responsibility for his belief (91-139), and also contains the only surviving sample of his poetry, in which sphere Bayne "had some confidence in his abilities." In part to provide more anecdotal information, and in part to correct a misleading statement in Smellie's biography that obviously rankled, the Reverend Archibald Constable Geikie wrote an excellent biography of Bayne called "A colonial sketch: Dr. John Bayne of Galt," originally published in the British and Foreign Evangelical Rev. (Toronto), 24 (1875): 488-504. It was republished in Rev. Dr. John Bayne, D.D., minister of Knox's Church, Galt, 1835-1859 (Galt, 1935), edited by a namesake, John Bayne Maclean. This work and A. J. Clark, "Notes on the Galt churches," OH, 22 (1925): 18-19, reproduce a portrait of Bayne which in 1935 was still hanging in his former manse. The pious resolutions written on the drowning of his two sisters are printed in Geikie's biography and in the Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record for the Presbyterian Church of Canada, 16: 104. A short, uncredited biography entitled "The Rev. John Bayne, D.D." also appeared in the Knox College Monthly (Toronto), 2 (1883-84): 34-38. j.s.m.]

PCA, H. S. McCollum papers. UCA, Biog. files, John Bayne, esp. A. B. Baird, "Biographical sketch: Rev. John Bayne, D.D., of Galt" (typescript). Croil, Hist. and statistical report (1868), 25, 28-29. Scott et al., Fasti ecclesiœ scoticanœ, vol.7. Gregg, Hist. of Presbyterian Church. Knox's: for the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom; the story of the congregation of Knox's Presbyterian Church of Galt . . . 1844-1969, ed. C. E. Saunders ([Galt], 1969). N. G. Smith et al., A short history of the Presbyterian Church in Canada (Toronto, [1965]). J. R. Blake, "The history of Knox's Church, Galt, Ont.," Waterloo Hist. Soc., Annual report, 1937: 266-72.

Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online 1851-1860 (Volume VIII)

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About the year 1854 an effort was made in connection with a new congregation started in Berlin, largely through the influence of Sheriff Davidson, he had removed there about the year 1843 to obtain a pastor over the two congregations During 1855 and part of 1856 ministers of the Presbytery gave supply, and from October 1856 Rev. A. Constable Geikie preached to the two congregations. A call was prepared for him June 28th, 1857, but the Woolwich people were not satisfied with the arrangements for services, so the union was dissolved and Woolwich stood alone again. Both congregations got up a call for Mr. Geikie, but being invited by the celebrated Dr. Bayne, of Galt, to be his helper and successor in Knox Church of that town, he accepted and had just removed and got settled there when one Sabbath morning Dr. Bayne died very suddenly, and the congregation of Knox Church, Galt, refused to carry out the arrangements, so Mr. Geikie removed to Australia and became one of the great leaders of the church there and passed away a few years ago. Returning to the other branch of the church, St. Andrew's, Woolwich, we have the Session Records to guide us in tracing the history. On Oct. 17th, 1854, the Presbytery of Hamilton met in the church, composed of Rev. J. C. Gibson (Galt), Rev. Kenneth MacLennan and Rev. Cohn Gregor (Guelph), for the purpose of inducting the Rev. James Shour. The elders present were George Loggie, James Burnett and William Smith, all belonging to St. Andrew's, Woolwich, of whom George Loggie and James Burnett were new members of the Session and had been chosen and ordained during the vacancy. The Rev Mr. Gibson preached from 1 Cor. 3: 9 'Ye are gods', and after the usual vows had been accepted by the Rev. Mr. Shour he was addressed by the Rev. Mr. Gregor and the people by Rev. Mr. MacLennan. The Rev. Mr. Shour was a man of short stature and thick set build, kindly and quiet in his manner. He was educated in Glasgow, Scotland, was ordained and inducted into the charge of Three Rivers, Quebec, in 1844 and in 1854 into the charge of St. Andrew's, Woolwich. At his settlement the families connected with the congregation were 40, the communicants 56, scholars in Sabbath school 100, teachers 11 and one bible class. Half the families that supported and attended the services of the church were Episcopalians. The arrangement for services were Sabbath school to be held at ten on Sabbath morning, public service at eleven with occasional evening services, prayer meetings in private houses each week alternately on each side of the Grand River.

A Few Notes on the Early History of Chalmers' Church, Winterbourne" by Rev. A. M. Hamilton, M. A.

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The Rev. John Bayne, minister of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Galt, was responsible for the establishment of the (Free) Presbyterian Church of Canada as apart from the Church of Scotland.

A native of Greenock, Scotland, he was a graduate of Glasgow University and the University of Edinburgh. He was a powerful preacher and attracted Presbyterians who were settling within fifteen miles of Galt. When the split in the Presbyterian Church occurred, the majority in his congregation followed Dr. Bayne to his new church. A civil court ruled that the buildings, glebe and monies of St. Andrew's were for the use of the minority group, and the dissidents, who were in the majority, built a church on the corner of Dickson and Ainslie Streets, and called it Knox's Presbyterian Church.

Union College in Schenectady, New York, recognized the accomplishments of Dr. Bayne by conferring on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity.

Waterloo Region Hall of Fame

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BAYNE - Died on the 3rd instant, after a short illness, at the Free Church Manse, Galt, the Rev. John Bayne, D.D., minister of Knox's Church in that town. Funeral on Monday, the 7th instant. The late reverend gentleman had many warm admirers throughout the Province, being universally and justly esteemed for his erudition, talent, and piety, and in his death the Presbyterian Church of Canada sustains a heavy loss.

Hamilton Spectator 5 Nov 1859

Occupation:
he first minister of St. Andrew's was Rev. William Stewart of Kenmore, Scotland, who arrived in Canada in 1831. He ministered to this congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland from 1832-c.1834. Rev. Stewart was followed in 1835 by the Rev. John Bayne. In 1844 Rev. Bayne espoused the cause of the Free Church of Scotland which had been formed in 1843, as a result of the Disruption, when a large number of clergy and laity had split from the Church of Scotland in part because of disagreement over the right of a congregation to call its own minister.

Rev. Bayne was instrumental in founding the Synod of the (Free) Presbyterian Church of Canada, in 1844. This caused a deep division in the congregation of his own church, St. Andrew's. The result was that Rev. Bayne formed a new congregation in 1844, known as Knox Free Church, which was made up of the majority of the members of the congregation of St. Andrew's. St. Andrew's remained with the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland.<sup>1a

1a</sup>Ambrose, Rosemary. Waterloo County Churches A Research Guide to Churches Established Before 1900. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada: Waterloo-Wellington Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society, 1993. [used the kind permission of Rosemary Ambrose 2011]