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Life-size cartoon for Innerwick Parish Church, Rev T W G Sutherland Memorial Window [bottom quatrefoil "The Good Samaritan," (Christ instructing young child with other folk looking on inc. St Peter)

Designer: Wilson, William, OBE RSA RSW · 1905-1972

Life-size cartoon for Innerwick Parish Church, Rev T W G Sutherland Memorial Window [bottom quatrefoil "The Good Samaritan," (Christ instructing young child with other folk looking on inc. St Peter)

The present cartoon is for one of two stained glass windows designed by Wilson which were installed in Innerwick Parish Church, East Lothian in 1966 …

The present cartoon is for one of two stained glass windows designed by Wilson which were installed in Innerwick Parish Church, East Lothian in 1966

This cartoon is for the window erected in memory of Reverend Thomas William Grant Sutherland (c.1867-1939) a native of Falkland in Fife, who after 12 years as minister of the Old Kirk in Edinburgh's Holyrood area, was called to Innerwick Parish Church in 1905 and died in harness five days after his last service.

The imagery shows Christ as the Good Samaritan in the upper section, with a pair of winged angels in the point at the top of the lancet, a golden crown between them. Wilson has included a small depiction of Innerwick Parish Church, its graveyard and some surrounding cottages into the design. Shields bearing the personifications of the four Apostles frame the figures of Christ and the poorly man.

Below in a roundel Christ is seen with his arm around a young boy to whom he is giving instruction, watched by a woman holding a baby and two bearded men with staffs.

The inclusion of the young child in the imagery reflects a particular aspect of Sutherland's ministry; an obituarist wrote of him in an appreciation published in The Scotsman newspaper on 1939-01-20 that "his happy nature and kindly humour gained for him the trust and affection of the children and young people...."

No report of the unveiling of the window has been traced but would appear to have taken place at some point between the death of the minister's widow Elizabeth Grant Sutherland or Cormack in 1941 to whose memory a second window, also by Wilson was also dedicated, and the death in 1963 of the couple's son Dr Thomas RMM Sutherland, the donor of both windows.

The second window depicted Mary and Martha, whose story immediately follows the Parable of the Good Samaritan in the Gospel of St Luke.

The church is a former Church of Scotland property which became redundant following its closure in 2022 and was subsequently sold. East Lothian Council approved planning permission to convert the property into a private house in 2024.

© The Artist's Estate