Kilmarnock Academy ex-pupil is new Church of Scotland Moderator

Nov 7 2008 by Colin Rutherford, Kilmarnock Standard

KILMARNOCK Academy can now boast of having educated three Church of Scotland Moderators.

The election of the Rev William Hewitt as Moderator Designate of the General Assembly means that the church’s top job has gone to a former Academy pupil for the third time in less than a decade.

The Rev John Miller held the post in 2001, the year after the Rev Andrew McLellan, who went on to become Scotland’s inspector of prisons.

“It’s obviously a breeding ground,” said Mr Hewitt this week.

Fifty seven-year-old Mr Hewitt was born in Kilmarnock, where his father still lives. He was head boy of Kilmarnock Academy in 1968-69.

He initially studied accountancy at Strathclyde University before transferring to Glasgow University, from where he graduated with a degree in divinity in 1974.

He spent two years as a probationer assistant at Castlehill Church, Ayr, where he was ordained in 1977.

Mr Hewitt was later minister at Elderslie Kirk for 16 years and then moved to Greenock where he is still minister of Westburn Church.

Married with a daughter and two sons, he is a keen golfer and a Burns enthusiast.

Mr Hewitt said that he had yet to formulate his plans for his year as Moderator, which begins at the General Assembly next May.

“It’s early days yet,” he said.

He hopes, however, to put his long experience as a parish minister to good use.

“In the last four or five years I have been focussing on co-operation between churches and that is something I would want to bring on board,” he said.

The Moderator of the General Assembly is a honorary role. He or she chairs meetings of the General Assembly, rules on points or order and signs documents of behalf of the church.

After the assembly, the Moderator travels as a church representative in Scotland and overseas as the church’s ambassador.