William NICOLSON

NICOLSON, WILLIAM (b. Ceres, Fife Scotland, 1794 or 1796; d. Hobart, Tas 2 Jan 1890). Minister, Free Church of Tasmania.

Nicolson was schoolmaster of Muthill in 1820 and later at Kemback, near Cupar. He obtained his MA at St Andrews in 1825, when Thomas Chalmers taught Moral Philosophy there, and was ordained and inducted to Ferryport-on-Craig parish (Tayport) 24 April 1828. He adhered to the Free Church at the Disruption in 1843 and organised the Tayport Free Church. He was admitted minister of Scots Church, London Wall, 2 Oct 1844 but demitted to accompany a son to New Zealand and then, after a year, to organise a Free Church in Hobart. He arrived 9 April 1851 and Chalmers' Church (demolished 1956) was erected in 1852 on the corner of Bathurst and Harrington Streets, seated for 750 persons. Here he had a very successful ministry, and preached to crowded congregations. With two other ministers he formed the Free Presbytery of Tasmania, 18 Mar 1853. He received the DD degree in 1863 from Washington College, Iowa, obtained a colleague in 1876 and retired in 1878.

Nicolson was firmly opposed to any dilution of the Disruption position, deplored the failure to uphold orthodoxy in the Free Church, and strongly opposed instrumental music and other innovations in public worship. Apart from sermons and pamphlets on church questions he issued Musings When Alone (1884). Nicolson's influence was one of several factors which delayed the union of the two Presbyterian bodies in Tasmania until 1896. It was a singularly insensitive act that the first anthem sung in his church was at his funeral.

J C Robinson, The Free Presbyterian Church of Australia (Melbourne 1974); R S Ward, The Bush Still Burns (Melbourne 1989); H Watt (ed) Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae, Vol V (Edinburgh 1925)

ROWLAND S WARD