Peter Hately Waddell

Peter Hately Waddell (19 May 1817 – 5 May 1891) was a Scottish cleric and prolific writer. He founded a congregation he called the "Church of the Future". He also wrote widely on aspects of Scottish culture and ancient Celtic history, sometimes espousing distinctly non-mainstream views.

Waddell was the son of James Waddell of Balquhatston, and was born at Balquhatston House, Slamannan, Stirlingshire on 19 May 1817. His father soon afterwards disposed of the property and removed to Glasgow, and Waddell was educated in the high school and at the university of Glasgow. He was a student of divinity at the time of the disruption of 1843 of the Church of Scotland, and then cast in his lot with the seceders, who afterwards formed the free church of Scotland. Having been licensed as a preacher, in 1843 he was ordained as minister of Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, and in the following year he removed to Girvan, Ayrshire, to the pastorate of a small free-church congregation. His attachment to the free church was loosened when he found that its members intended to retain in the entirety the rigid definitions contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith. He had outgrown his early Calvinistic training, and, finding himself at variance with the church of his adoption, he voluntarily resigned his charge, and founded an independent chapel at Girvan styled ‘the Church of the Future,’ defining his aims and intentions in a discourse with the same title, published in Glasgow in 1861. Many of his congregation left the free church and joined with him. Waddell remained at Girvan till 1862, when he went to Glasgow, and began preaching in the city hall as an independent minister. He soon gathered a large congregation, and in 1870 a church was erected for him in East Howard Street, Glasgow. Financial difficulties led to the abandonment of this building, and Waddell once more gathered a congregation by preaching in the Trades Hall. In 1888, at the request of friends and adherents, he joined the established church. Advancing years compelled him to retire from the ministry in October 1890, and he then began to make selections from his published works to form a volume. The task was not completed when his death took place at Ashton Terrace, Dowanhill, on 5 May 1891. He graduated D.D. from an American university.

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