George Washington Sprott

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George Washington Sprott (6 March 1829 – 27 October 1909) was a Scottish minister and liturgical scholar who campaigned for reform of the Church of Scotland’s services and for reunion with the Free Church after the Disruption of 1843.

Born in Musquodoboit, Nova Scotia, he was the eldest of five children of Presbyterian minister John Sprott. He studied at Glasgow College, graduating BA in 1849, and joined the Church of Scotland. Ordained in 1852, he worked as an assistant in Halifax, served as chaplain to the 72nd Highlanders, and spent time in the Crimea. After visits to Newfoundland and the United States, he returned to Scotland in 1856, had short posts in Greenock and Dumfries, and then went to Ceylon (Kandy) as chaplain to the Scots Kirk (1857–1864). He later served as chaplain to Scottish troops in Portsmouth.

In 1866 he was presented to the parish of Chapel of Garioch, Aberdeenshire. There he pushed for liturgical reform, opposed the movement to abolish patronage, and helped promote Holy Communion during Synod sittings. With Thomas Leishman he supported using the Apostles’ Creed in baptism. As moderator of the Synod in 1873, he preached on the necessity of valid ordination. He moved to North Berwick in 1873 and, in 1882, helped lead a protest against admitting congregational ministers without Presbyterian ordination. He continued to influence church life, and in 1879 was sent to Canada to study Presbyterian churches and to lecture on pastoral theology.

Sprott helped form and lead several church organizations: the Aberdeen Ecclesiological Society (from 1886), the Scottish Church Society (from 1892), the Church Law Society, and the Church Service Society (formed 1865) to promote liturgical reform. He was a leading advocate of reunion and worked with Charles Wordsworth and the Scottish Christian Unity Association.

He retired to Edinburgh in 1903 after a ministerial jubilee and died there in 1909. He wrote and edited important liturgical works, including The Worship, Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of Scotland (1865), a critical edition of John Knox’s Liturgy (1868), Scottish Liturgies of James VI (1871), Worship and Offices of the Church of Scotland (1882), Memorials of the Rev. John Sprott (1906), and contributed to the Dictionary of National Biography.