Obituary: Rev Grahame Bailey; cultured minister who pioneered the introduction of women ministers into the kirk

THE Rev Grahame Bailey was a cultured and academic minister, but he commands a place of special distinction in the history of the Church of Scotland. At the 1968 General Assembly he brought his campaign to permit women ministers in the kirk to a successful conclusion when the Assembly ratified the vote of the previous year. The moderator for that year, the distinguished theologian, Dr James Longmuir, said: “We have certainly made history in the Church of Scotland today.” It was largely thanks to Bailey’s foresight and diplomacy that the Kirk took the action without a long drawn-out and acrimonious discussion.

Bailey also served with distinction at the kirk of Ladykirk and Whitsome in the Borders and is particularly remembered at St Martin’s Church, Edinburgh where he was the first minister of this enterprising congregation.

Indeed, the current minister the Rev Russel Moffat paid tribute to the work Bailey did when St Martin’s was founded in 1957. “Grahame set the trend: he was a formidable innovator” he told The Scotsman. “He was a gracious and scholarly man who had a keen ability to relate to the entire congregation.

“I know he is fondly remembered throughout St Martin’s and he and his wife were an inspiring double act.”

Wellesley Grahame Raymond Bailey – known by friends and parishioners as “Raymond” – was the son of a missionary family – his grandfather had founded the Mission to Lepers (now known as the “Leprosy Mission”) in India and his father was a missionary in the Punjab.

He was educated at Highgate School in London where his father had taken up a post teaching Hindi and Urdu at the University of London’s School of Oriental Studies. Bailey then read arts and divinity at Edinburgh University and worked initially with the renowned George MacLeod at the Iona Community. He then served in the Punjab where he was ordained for missionary service in 1939.

In 1945 he returned to the UK and in 1947 was appointed minister of St Columba’s Presbyterian Church of England in Oxford where he met his future wife, Mary. In 1957 Bailey was appointed to the newly established church of St Martin’s in Magdalene Drive, East Edinburgh.

His determination and enthusiasm laid the basis for a thriving kirk and the success the church has enjoyed in the ensuing half century is in no small measure thanks to his abilities as the founding minister. Significantly, St Martin’s was the first kirk in Scotland to ordain a woman minister – which gave Bailey a very special pleasure.

For three years from 1967 Bailey returned to his missionary work and served in remote areas of Pakistan. He returned to Scotland and was appointed to the parish of Ladykirk linked with Whitsome in the Borders. Bailey had first brought the subject of women ministers before the Assembly in 1964 when not enough time was available for a full discussion of such a controversial subject. Bailey continued the campaign and brought up the subject again at the Assembly in 1967.

Serious debate had taken place on the subject as far back as 1963 when Mary Levison had petitioned the Assembly. Bailey was in the forefront of that debate – reasoning with senior members of the kirk, arguing that the change was inevitable and would be to the church’s long-term advantage.

Three years later he told a reporter from The Scotsman of his “determination to reintroduce the matter”. In the debate Bailey gave an impassioned speech in which he concluded that if delegates were “hesitant or cautious… it will only be a matter of time before the Church accepts women ministers”. Amidst sustained applause, the motion was approved by 397 votes to 268 and over the next few months 42 presbyteries approved with 17 disapproving.

Bailey retired from Ladykirk in 1978 and took up an appointment as assistant at St Columba’s Pont Street in London and was a locum at South Morningside, Edinburgh, during his retirement in the city.

His wife Mary and a son Alan predeceased him, and he is survived by his three daughters, Diana, Elizabeth and Rosalind, and his grandchildren and great grandchildren.

ALASDAIR STEVEN