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The Very Revd Hugh O. Douglas KVCO, CBE, DD, LLD became widely known
through his popular TV series 'Coping with Life', and as Moderator of
the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. His notable ministry was
above all a parish ministry. Hugh the preacher, Hugh the leader of
worship, the pastor, speaker to civic life, and so on.
 Hugh Osborne Douglas (1911–1986), Church of Scotland
minister, was born in Glasgow on 11 September 1911, the son of the
Revd Robert Baillie Douglas (1870–1943) and his wife, Mary Isabella
Osborne (1870–1955). His parents served as missionaries in India. His
early years were spent in India, first in Jalna and then in Bombay. He
returned to Glasgow for his schooling at Glasgow Academy (1919–28), and
stayed with his maternal aunts. Through his school days he was to see his
parents only when they were home on furlough. He was joint dux of the
academy, and in 1928 went on to study classics at Glasgow University. His
experience as a child had not given him any enthusiasm for the organized
church, and his aim was to be a lawyer. But the Scottish Schoolboys' Club
had encouraged a healthy, liberal religious commitment which the Student
Christian Movement was to mature, and he came to find a vocation to the
ministry.
In 1932 Douglas graduated with a first in classics,
though it is questionable whether that gave him greater pleasure than his
blue for rugby. During his theological study at Trinity College he became
assistant to the Revd Dr George MacLeod at Govan, and continued to work
there for five years, as probationer and then as ordained assistant. These
years in an industrial parish in a time of depression shaped his entire
ministry. MacLeod's vision gave him hope that the church could be relevant
to the whole of life, to the slum and the street as well as to the
sanctuary. In 1938, when MacLeod left to found the Iona community, Hugh
Douglas continued in Govan until the appointment of MacLeod's successor.
In March 1939 he was inducted to St John's, Leven. He took a bit of Govan
with him, however, for on 29 April he married the girls' club leader,
Isabella Crammond Rutherford (1910–1995), who was to be his lifelong
companion and helpmeet. During their time in Leven their three children,
Molly, and then twins, Colin and Ruth, were born. At the outbreak of war
he wished to volunteer as a chaplain, but his congregation persuaded him
to stay.
In November 1942 Douglas was called to the parish of North
Leith. Here he developed more fully his style of ministry, using many of
the insights of Govan. A congregation used to an individual gospel soon
warmed to the demands made on it, in a mission of friendship to the parish
and in many other ways. Yet although the influence of Govan was always
there, Douglas was never an imitator of MacLeod. His style was his own. He
did not aspire to be the visionary orator. He was a pastor who cared
intensely for his people and who preached quietly, persuasively, and
comfortingly to their needs in a world at war.
The church building
had suffered bomb damage in 1941, and not until war restrictions ended was
it possible to think of full restoration. Then structural damage and rot
were found and costs escalated. But by 1950 Ian Lindsay's scheme of
restoration of the Georgian building was complete and paid for, and George
MacLeod preached at the rededication. In 1951 came a call to Dundee: St
Mary's, the original parish church of Dundee. The congregation was spread
citywide, and the minister was called on for many civic duties. These
Douglas could take in his stride. His main concern was to develop the life
and witness of his congregation, and here he had the help of a succession
of young assistants and deaconesses. Those he trained in this way kept
their affection for him until his death.
In 1945 Douglas had
written a pamphlet, What is Christian Marriage,
and he became the founder chairman of the Dundee Marriage Guidance
Council. He was a natural broadcaster with his persuasive, almost
confidential style, and became known to a wide public through a series of
talks, later published as Coping with Life
(1964). Life in Dundee was not all work. A month each summer was spent
with the family, usually on Iona, and Monday mornings were frequently
spent on the golf course.
The wider church began to use Douglas's
gifts in committee work. He convened the committee which organized the
celebration of the fourth centenary of the Scottish Reformation in 1960,
when the queen attended a special session of the general assembly. But he
had overstretched himself with unremitting pastoral work, meticulous
pulpit preparation, and demanding committee work. A coronary thrombosis
sounded a warning. He learned to pace himself better, and in 1970 was able
to undertake the onerous duties of moderator of the general assembly.
In 1958 Douglas received a DD from St Andrews University, and in 1971
an LLD from the University of Dundee. In 1959 he became one of the queen's
chaplains in Scotland, and in 1974 dean of the Chapel Royal, a post from
which he retired on his seventieth birthday in 1981. In 1961 he was
appointed CBE, and in 1981 was made a knight commander in the Royal
Victorian Order. In 1977 he retired from St Mary's and settled in St
Andrews. He had given many talks to ministers on how to cope with
retirement, and now he put his own advice into practice. He served as
locum tenens in Hope Park church, and later accepted the invitation of the
new minister to become his part-time associate. It was a happy association
in which the younger man had the responsibility and the older man now did
as he was asked. Douglas loved it, and the people loved him. Sadly it
ended when a further series of heart attacks took his life on 4 January
1986 at Broomlea, Windmill Road, St Andrews, Fife. He was buried at the
western cemetery, St Andrews, on 9 January.
Douglas was a shy man,
whose reserve could be misinterpreted as aloofness. Yet he attained
distinction both in church and in state, carried both without any
pretension, and earned the affection of all who worked and worshipped with
him.
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