Leaving the church: A note on the 1843 disruption of the Church of Scotland

Joseph Paul and John W. Sawkins

No 2024-06, Accountancy, Economics, and Finance Working Papers from Heriot-Watt University, Department of Accountancy, Economics, and Finance

Abstract: This paper analyses the decisions made by ministers of the Church of Scotland regarding whether to leave and join the Free Church, or remain within the establishment, at the time of the 1843 Disruption. Using a newly constructed dataset drawn from a range of hitherto unconnected sources, it models the binary, stay or leave, decision through a linear probability model. The empirical results affirm the importance of age, type of church served and geographical context in explaining the overall pattern of secession. In addition they cast doubt on theories offering explanations which elevate the role of narrow economic concerns in driving the decision; explanations focusing on the impact of loss of stipend or family circumstances.

Keywords: Church; Scotland; 1843; Linear Probability Model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 N33 N93 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/294827/1/1887664246.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:hwuaef:294827

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Accountancy, Economics, and Finance Working Papers from Heriot-Watt University, Department of Accountancy, Economics, and Finance Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().