Heritors' responsibilities in Church Matters

In Scotland landowners in each parish had responsibilities within that parish and were called ‘heritors’. They were involved in the process to choose a new minister or schoolmaster and responsible for maintaining the church, manse and schoolhouse. They also had responsibilities towards making sure the minister had sufficient glebe land close to the manse – land on which he could grow a few crops and keep a few horses, cattle and sheep. Other responsibilities involved keeping the roads in good repair. There were both residing heritors, who lived within the parish, and non-residing heritor who lived out with the parish. All this came to an end with the Property and Endowments Act of 1925, after which all Church lands and heritable property were made over to the General Trustees of the Church of Scotland and the heritors’ obligations written off, or redeemed through the payment of a final amount to be vested with the General Trustees.