Obituary - George Lugton, minister who held many senior positions in the Church of Scotland

Died: February 22, 2018

THE Rev George Lugton, who has died aged 88, was one of the most able and committed of the ministers in the second half of the 20th century to serve in the Church of Scotland’s administration. Before becoming assistant secretary of the Kirk’s church and ministry department in 1973, and later the depute secretary and then secretary, he had been appointed in 1969 as the full-time clerk of the presbytery of Dumbarton.

He was born in Dunfermline and educated at Star and Kennoway Schools and thereafter at Bell-Baxter and Buckhaven. He graduated in arts and then divinity at the University of Edinburgh, undertaking a student assistantship at Carrick Knowe in the capital and then a two-year probationary in Dysart.

He had played rugby at school and when in Dysart he turned out in the pack for Kirkcaldy RFC. He was described as someone “who had a robust style of play which would not have been appreciated by present day referees". That robust style also featured in his contributions to debates in the General Assembly.

In 1955 he was ordained and inducted to the parish of Strathblane. From the start of his ministry he always took very seriously the vow to take his share in the government of the church, and he was a natural choice to become the full-time clerk of the presbytery when a vacancy occurred in 1969. He had wanted to become a parish minister from his schooldays.

When the General Assembly, in one of its many attempts to reform the Kirk’s administration, created a department of ministry and mission, George Lugton was appointed one of its joint secretaries.

When he left 14 years later, to become minister of St Andrew’s Guernsey, he was described as having brought to the department “great gifts of administration, efficiency, ability to discern what was in the real interest of the church and its ministers, a capacity to bear many other people’s burdens and to listen and alleviate”.

In St Andrews in the Grange in Guernsey he exercised a quite exceptional ministry. Along with his wife Joan, he welcomed and entertained residents and visitors in his manse. He ensured that St Andrew’s presence was stamped firmly in the island’s community, and he preached with real conviction.

Although himself somewhat conservative in theology he was at home both in the congregation and also in the wider Church of Scotland with those of a different outlook.

When he left the church offices for Guernsey, such was George Lugton’s popularity that two farewell gatherings had to be arranged to accommodate all those who wanted to wish him well.

This writer recalls that, when making radio programmes with Mr Lugton and his congregation to mark the anniversary of the liberation of Guernsey in May 1945, the atmosphere and warmth of the congregation had clearly grown from the approachability and pastoral sensitivity of the minister.

It was also significant that when Mr Lugton left he Kirk’s administration, the General Assembly was advised that virtually everyone in the department had to take on extra work and responsibility to ensure the payment of pensions, stipends and fees and that the myriad enquiries that came in every week were dealt with.

When his department’s work was reviewed each year by the General Assembly, George Lugton could appear stern and forbidding, though in private he was both relaxed and humorous.