John Sime - Minister and Golfer
John Sime was appointed minister of Dundonald as a young man of 29 after serving for a few years at Kilwinning. He was the last minister to be presented to the parish by the Heritors as the Patronage Act was repealed a few years later. He proved to be a very popular minister, discrete, courteous and studious yet also witty and sociable. He suffered poor health in his later years and had the misfortune to lose three of his children in their youth. The communion table and chairs in the Church are dedicated to his memory.
John Sime had a parallel career as a prominent golfer. As a native of St Andrews, where he also attended the University, he grew up with golf on the famous links there. He was the winner of the University medal at age 19 in 1856, the year after it was instituted and he was a frequent visitor to North Berwick where he came to the notice of the professional Willie Park, first winner of the Open Championship. In Park’s opinion John Sime was one of the finest golfers of his time.
In these days ministers usually gave up golf after their induction as it was seen to clash with their calling by many parishioners. Not so John Sime. Once installed at Dundonald he became a member at the newly established Prestwick Golf Club where he won many competitions and presumably re-established contact with Old Tom Morris who had come there from St Andrews. Mr Sime was invited by Sir William Houldsworth of Coodham, another St Andrews man, to join a team of four Scots to challenge an English team to a match over St Andrews and Prestwick. Mr Sime won his match but the Scots were defeated at both courses. This was really the first international golf match. Such was the respect in which Mr Sime was held as a minister that there seemed to be no objections to his golfing activities.
James Gillespie, Minister and Social Benefactor
By 1902 Mr Sime’s health was failing badly and James Gillespie was appointed as his assistant and successor. With Mr Sime’s passing in 1904 James Gillespie took over and served the parish for the next 39 years, our second longest serving minister. He served the parish well and made a substantial impact on the community. Very early in his ministry major alterations were made to the church building, including the addition of the chancel and he made a substantial contribution to the design. A few years later he oversaw the addition of the Session House and Choir Room.
Mr Gillespie also made a contribution to the village community. Using money from his father’s estate he arranged for the building of the houses in Winehouse Yett, and later he raised money from many local contributors to fund the demolition of old properties in the Main Street and build the flats in St Giles Place. He arranged for part of the glebe to be run as a market garden to maintain employment in the village, and he was instrumental in having Merkland cottage built for the man who ran the market garden.
Apart from his ministry, during which he served as an army chaplain in World War I, and his work to improve the housing stock in the village, the other major contribution Mr Gillespie made was the publication of a scholarly 2 volume history of the parish. Long out of print this book occasionally turns up in the second-hand market and is quickly snapped up. It remains a major source of information about Dundonald and its times past.