Scottish Court of Session Decisions

In the year 1860, the Rev. John Jaffray, then minister of the parish of Dunbar, raised a summons of augmentation, modification, and locality against the heritors of the parish, concluding for an augmentation of the stipend of the parish, with a competent yearly allowance for communion elements. On 16th January 1861 the Court of Teinds augmented the stipend to 21 chalders, “and that for stipend (the communion element money being paid by the burgh of Dunbar).”

It appeared that the Provost of the burgh had in the year 1618 consented on behalf of the community,

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“so oft as the communion shall happen to be celebrated thereanent, in all time coming, to furnish the elements to the celebration of the communion at the said kirk;” and accordingly a decree of modification of stipend pronounced in that year contains the following finding:—“And sic like the said commissioners, in respect of the consent of the said Mr John Aitchison, Provost of Dunbar, above written, finds and declares that the Provost, Bailies, Council, and community of the town of Dunbar above mentioned are and shall be obliged, so oft as the communion shall happen to be celebrate thereanent, in all time coming, to furnish the elements to the celebration of the communion at the said kirk.” In subsequent decrees of modification of stipend pronounced in 1767 and 1833, the obligation of the burgh to furnish the communion elements, according to use and wont, was recognised. A dispute has arisen betwixt the minister and the magistrates as to the quantity of wine which the latter are bound to furnish, the minister contending that he is entitled to six dozen annually, while the magistrates say they are only bound to furnish as much as is actually necessary. The minister accordingly presented a petition to the Court, on the footing that the conclusion of the summons of 1860 were not exhausted, no decree having been pronounced for communion elements, in which he prayed the Court to “award and decern, to and in favour of the petitioner and his successors in office, serving the cure at the Kirk of Dunbar, in name of communion elements, by decree against the Magistrates and Town Council of Dunbar, as representing the said burgh and community thereof, either the annual allowance of twenty-two loaves of bread and six dozen of wine, as hereinbefore set forth, or else a money payment of £15 a year in lieu and place thereof; and to remit to the Lord Ordinary, before whom the locality of the stipend of the said parish is now depending, to give effect to said decerniture in framing and adjusting the locality of the stipend.

It was stated in the petition that “for upwards of sixty years the burgh of Dunbar had been in use to give the minister of the parish annually, in satisfaction of his claim against them for communion elements, twenty-two loaves of bread and six dozen of wine; but in the month of November 1865 it was officially intimated to the petitioner by the Town-Clerk that the Magistrates and Town Council hold that this allowance is too large, and that they intend in time coming to approximate the supply of bread and wine to the quantity which may be actually consumed in church at the celebration of the communion.” It was also stated that “by this procedure on the part of the burgh of Dunbar the interest of the benefice will be injuriously affected, and it has in consequence become the duty of the petitioner, on behalf of himself and his successors in office, to take steps for having the allowance for communion elements put on a satisfactory and permanent footing, according to use and wont, or otherwise according to law.”

The Magistrates stated in their answers that they were willing to implement the obligation upon them, but that in consequence of there being now a Chapel of Ease in the parish, and of the number of communicants in the Parish Church being thereby, as well as by the progress of dissent, considerably reduced, it was not now necessary that so much wine should be furnished as formerly.