Free Church Committee

According to an inscription supplied by Sir David Brewster (1781-1868), this group portrait was made in Glasgow at the Free Church Assembly, held in October 1843. The subjects are, from left to right, Lord Breadalbane (1796-1862), Brewster, Rev. Dr. David Welsh (1793-1845), James Hamilton (1799-1851), and Alexander Earle Montieth (1793-1861). Welsh was a central figure in the religious dispute; not only had he been the moderator of the Church of Scotland before the split, he was also the minister who read the statement of protest and led the dissenters in their walkout from the May meeting.

Hill and Adamson (David Octavius Hill [1802-70] and Robert Adamson [1821-48]) traveled to Glasgow to obtain this and other portraits of ministers for Hill's painting. This trip was probably one of the first that the artists made together outside of Edinburgh. The image, while not as sophisticated as later group portraits (see 84.XO.608.7), was most likely taken in a makeshift studio that the photographers set up at the meeting.

Hill and Adamson's work varied in print quality and tonality. This was due to the newness of the calotype process and the fact that the materials and procedures were still being perfected. In this example, the image appears grainy and slightly faded around the edges, a common condition in very early photographs.

Anne M. Lyden. Hill and Adamson, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1999), 16. ©1999, J. Paul Getty Museum.