The Other Robert Stewart

We wonder if much was made of the nominal coincidence when Lord Castlereagh met the Presbyterian minister of Broughshane, Co.Antrim, cira 1816.

After all, this was a case of Robert Stewart (1769-1822) of Mountstewart, Co Down, discussing denominational business with Robert Stewart (1783-1852) fae Tullybane, a townland up abin Clough, Co. Antrim.

It is 151 years since the death of the latter figure, whom it is usual to describe as the lieutenant of Henry Cooke (1788-1868), the Athanasius of Irish Presbyterianism.

The two had met at Donaghadee in 1804, when waiting for the Portpatrick boat.  In attending college in Glasgow, like so many ministerial candidates in that period, Stewart had temporarily returned to the land of his forebears.

After ordination, he became an increasingly important figure in the Presbytery of Ballymena, in the General Synod of Ulster and then the General Assembly.

An admiring profile (1875) of the other Robert Stewart, written by Dr Thomas Hamilton of Queen's College, Belfast, is included in The Union of Synods (1840) in the context of Mid-Antrim (60pp).

Available at £5 by post in United Kingdom from the Mid-Antrim Historical Group, c/o 69 Galgorm Road, Ballymena, Co Antrim BT42 1AA, this miscellany is built around a paper by the Rev. Professor R. Finlay G Holmes, a former Presbyterian Moderator.

The former principal of Union Theological College and modern biographer of Cooke identifies the various strands in Irish Presbyterianism - aspects of a rich Scottish inheritance.