Person:Walter Dunlop (1)

Described as a tall, hearty man, with broad shoulders, and a portly figure. Bald, for a number of years before his death, wore a high-peaked brown wig. He frequently appearing "wrapped in the ample folds of a big blue camlet coat made without sleeves, and fastened at the neck by two buttons and a chain".

Born at Chisholm farm, Roberton parish, near Hawick. Funeral service conducted Buccleuch Street church by Dr Wightman of Kirkmahoe, and his neighbour Mr Clyde of Loreburn Street church, laid to rest in St Michael's Churchyard in presence of a vast crowd of mourners from all classes of the community.(John Cairns, Buccleuch Street Church: DUMFRIES 1807 - 1907, p.15)

Said to have turned his baker's apprenticeship to good use, and baked the pie for his ordaination dinner with his own hands. Walter Dunlop was the first minister of a sessessionist Presbyterian church, which met on the "Burghers' Brae", Buccleuch Street. When Mr John Lawson, minister of the Dumfries Relief Presbyterian church in Dumfries, insisted on wearing a cassock or gown to preach, about a hundred of his members left in protest, forming a separate body. They called Walter in Feb 1809 from his work in Liddesdale, and he remained its minister for the rest of his life.

Noted for sense of humour and sound evangelical preaching. "Mr Dunlop was in many respects a remarkable man. He was a good preacher, and eventually became as noted in the neighbourhood for his conversational humour as for his pulpit oratory. The latter, though what would now be deemed old-fashioned and rustic, was highly effective. The manner of it was warm, earnest, and impressive; the matter rich, 'sappy', and soundly evangelical. So active and irrepressible was his perception of the ridiculous, and so fond was he of repartee, or of putting down any assumption, or of 'shooting folly as it flies,' that he was sometimes blamed for indulging in sallies that were out of keeping with his sacred calling. But if in this respect he was not beyond criticism, it is due to his memory to say that he was devotedly attentive to the couch of suffering and the bed of death. His natural temperament might lead him to the house of mirth, but it never caused him to neglect his visits to the house of mourning. Mr Dunlop, when at his best, had a portly, 'sonsie' presence, which accorded well with his reputation as a humourist." (Wm McDowall, History of Dumfries pp762-3, 1st pub. 1867).

(See also: John Cairns, Buccleuch Street Church: DUMFRIES 1807 - 1907 (A souvenir of the Centenary), pp6-17.) "His ministry of nearly six years in the quiet pastoral district of Liddesdale was a very happy and fruitful one: he always recalled it with delight, and after he came to Dumfries, so long as his strenght lasted, he went back every year to preach to his old congregation and to revive pleasant and blessed memories of the past. Some of his best sermons were composed at Newcastleton, and he used to speak of them as his 'Liddesdale hams'. "An incident belonging to this period shows that even thus early Mr Dunlop had acquired that habit of pointed, not to say personal, speech in the pulpit for which he was afterwood so well known. When he was in Newcastleton a manse was built for him, but until it was ready he lodged with a family in the village. One Sababth one of the children, a little boiy, had been to church for the first time. In the evening Mr Dunlop asked him what he had seen there. 'I saw you,' was the reply, 'and ye were stannin' in a tub.' 'Aye,' said the minister, 'and what did I say?' 'Ye said, "I see a woman sleepin'." ' " (John Cairns, Buccleuch Street Church: DUMFRIES 1807 - 1907, p.8)

"In 1799 he entered the Burgher Theological Hall, which met at that time in Selkirk, under charge of Dr Lawson. After the usual five summer sessions spent there, amid scenes familiar to him since his boyhood, he received licence as a probationer in the end of 1803 or beginning of 1804." (John Cairns, Buccleuch Street Church: DUMFRIES 1807 - 1907, p.7)

University of Edinburgh - theological studies. "...he was a ful-grown man when he entered the University of Edinburgh. There is a tradition that, despite his late beginning, he distinguished himself greatly as a student; but as the honours lists for those days have not been preserved, I have found no means of verifying it beyond this, that his notebooks of class lectures, which I have seen, are very full and clear, and testify alike to his diligence and to his intelligent grasp of the subjects discussed." (John Cairns, Buccleuch Street Church: DUMFRIES 1807 - 1907, p.7).

Apprenticed as baker.