James Begg 1808—83

Son of a Lanarkshire manse; graduated Glasgow; assis­tant North Leith and served in Lady Glenorchy’s Chapel. After brief ministries at Maxwelltown and Paisley he became minister at Liberton, then a village beyond the Edinburgh boundary. As one of the leaders of the ‘Evangelical Party’ he relinquished his parish at the disruption of 1843 and became first minister of Newington Free Church (later St Paul’s, Newington). Dr Begg entered warmly into all the controversies of his day: education, the new Higher Criticism and the relations between Church and State. He headed the ‘Constitutional Party’ in the Free Church which resisted the ‘voluntaries’ who desired a clean break between Church and State. He is remembered best for his interest in better housing for the working people; he set up the Edinburgh Co­operative Building Company which built tenement homes, advanced for their day and available on deferred terms, known generally to Edinburgh citizens as ‘Begg’s Buildings’.