David Freebairn

Styles of David Freebairn, M.A.
Reference style	The Right Reverend
Spoken style	My Lord or Bishop

David Freebairn, M.A. (1653–1739) was a Scottish clergyman who served as a minister in the Church of Scotland, before becoming a prelate in the Scottish Episcopal Church, and in which he was Bishop of Galloway (1731–1733), Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church (1731–1738) and Bishop of Edinburgh (1733–1739).

He was born in 1653, the son of the Reverend Robert Freebairn, Incumbent of Gask, Perthshire. He was educated at the University of St Andrews, obtaining a Master of Arts degree on 23 July 1672. He married twice, firstly to Jean Graham (died July 1697) and secondly in 1699 to Anna Dobie, daughter of Richard Dobie (brother of Sir Robert Dobie of Stanihill). By his first wife, he had three sons and one daughter.

He was recommended for licence to minister by Church of Scotland Presbytery of St Andews on 24 June 1675. His first ecclesiastical appointment was as an assistant minister at Gask, Perthshire (1676–1680), followed by as the Incumbent of Auchterarder (1680–1686), and then the Incumbent of Dunning (1686–1691). He came under a sentence of deprivation from the Privy Council, dated 4 September 1689, for not reading the Proclamation of the Estates, not praying for William and Mary, etc. He retired to Edinburgh in 1691, where he became a bookseller, but returned to the ministry in the Scottish Episcopal Church and set up a meeting house in Bailie Fyfe's Close. He was one of the seventeen Edinburgh clergy who in 1708 were summoned before the Lords of Judiciary for exercising their ministerial functions in the City, and they were ordered on 13 March 1708 "to desist from keeping any Meeting House within the City of Edinburgh, Leith, and Canongate, etc." He was prosecuted with other Edinburgh clergy in 1716 by order of the Commission of Justiciary for not praying for King George I, but was . He was one of the Edinburgh clergy who met in March 1720 to elect Bishop Rose's successor.

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