The first meeting of the 2025-26 session will be on Thursday 2nd October in the Park Centre, 45 Kerr Street, Kirkintilloch G66 1LF. The meeting will start at 7:30pm with tea and coffee served from 7pm.
Society member Graham McKenzie will give a talk on "Devotion and discord: the history of St. Mary's Parish Church, Kirkintilloch". St Mary’s church located in the Cowgate in Kirkintilloch has been in existence for over 110 years, but it is only the latest manifestation of a local parish church history that goes back over 700 years. The history of this parish church is a story of those who were devoted to promoting Christian worship in Kirkintilloch, but also a story of the discord that arose when people began to challenge the rights the law had conferred on the church. This illustrated talk will cover the history of the two earlier parish churches and will describe in detail the controversy that attended the planning, design and construction of the current church.
Graham was born and grew up in East London, South Africa, and studied and worked in topographical surveying before taking up a project administration and management role with a South African engineering consulting firm. While working, he completed a BA with majors in history and psychology at Rhodes University. He transitioned into preparing and managing engineering consultancy tender submissions. He moved to the UK in 2008 to take up a proposal management position with a company in Glasgow and is still working in the same field.
As part of plans for celebrating the centenary of the current St Mary’s church in 2014, Graham undertook to write a publication that updated and extended aspects of Joe Fisher’s book, ‘The Auld Kirk, Kirkintilloch Parish Church, 1644-1944’ and Iain Smith’s book ‘St Mary’s Parish Church, Seventy-five years on, 1914 – 1989’. The new publication provided a detailed analysis of the planning, design and construction of the church in the Cowgate.
