William Henry Goold

Very Rev Dr William Henry Goold DD (15 December 1815–29 June 1897) was a 19th-century Scottish minister of both the Reformed Presbyterian Church and the Free Church of Scotland who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church 1877/78.

Rev William Henry Goold
Martyrs Church, George IV Bridge, now the Frankenstein Pub
28 Mansionhouse Road, Edinburgh

Life

He was born on 15 December 1815 at 28 Buccleuch Place the only son of Rev William Goold.[1] His father was a member of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. He was educated at the old High School and in 1829 was one of the pupils in the newly built High School on Calton Hill. He was school dux in his final year of 1831. He took a degree at the University of Edinburgh and then studied divinity at the Theological Hall in Paisley.[2]

He was licensed to preach by the Reformed Church in 1839 and in 1840 he was ordained at his father's church in Edinburgh, the Martyrs Church on George IV Bridge, returning to live at Buccleuch Street.[3]

In 1854 he was elected successor to Professor Andrew Symington, his mentor and wife's uncle, at the Theological College in Paisley. From 1860 he was Secretary of the National Bible Society of Scotland. In 1876 the Reformed Presbyterian Church merged with the Free Church of Scotland, continuing simply as the Free Church of Scotland. William Goold was central to the conditions of the merge.

In 1877 he succeeded Rev Thomas McLauchlan as Moderator of the General Assembly, the highest position in the Free Church of Scotland. He was the first from the Reformed Church to serve in this role. He was succeeded in 1878 by the Rev Andrew Bonar.[4]

In 1890 there was a celebration of his jubilee in the Martyrs Church.[5]

He died at home 28 Mansionhouse Road in the Grange, Edinburgh on 29 June 1897 aged 81.[6] He requested that Psalm 103 was read to him before he died.

The Martyrs Church transferred to the Free Church of Scotland in the Union of 1876. In the 20th century it became the Elim Pentecostal Church for Edinburgh. It is now in secular use as a public house.

Family

In 1846 he married Margaret Speirs Symington (d.1875) daughter of Rev William Symington of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Stranraer. They had two daughters and four sons, one son died three weeks before his wife and another a few weeks after.

His sister Janet Helen Goold married the Rev Prof George Smeaton.[7]

Publications
  • Patronage v. Independence of the Church
  • Claims of the Church of Christ
  • The Supernatural in Christianity
  • The Church: Its Privileges and Duties
  • Works of Christ's Church in Modern Times
  • The Consummation of Christ's Works

References
  1. Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1815
  2. Free Church of Scotland Monthly, Sept 1897
  3. Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1841
  4. Ewing, William Annals of the Free Church
  5. Goold, William Henry (1890). Jubilee services of the Rev. William H. Goold, D.D., Martyrs' Church, Edinburgh, held 5th to 12th October 1890. [Illustrated. Edinburgh: A. Elliot. OCLC 794807374.
  6. Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1897
  7. Ewing, William Annals of the Free Church; Smeaton
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