Field Meetings. 219 



was supposed to be losr. The roll shews that in 1813 there 

 were 118 members in the society. Dr and Mrs Duncan were 

 instrumental in establishing also a friendly society for women, 

 and their son and biographer mentions that the two had a com- 

 bined membership of three hundred. He also credits the 

 women's society with setting the fa.shion of the now popular 

 soiree by making their annual bu.siness meeting the occasion of a 

 tea-drinking. The men's society had a more elaborate cele- 

 bration once a year. It was their custom to go in procession 

 from the village to the church on a date early in July, there to 

 attend a special service, and to wind up the day with a dinner 

 or a dance. For the purposes of these demonstrations they 

 provided themselves, three years before Dr Duncan came upon 

 the scene, with sashes — on which they spent £2 6s 9d — and a 

 flag and flagstaff, which cost them £4 Os 3d. They also in that 

 year (1796) voted 4s 6d from the funds to buy a pair of black 

 silk gloves as a present for the minister who was to preach. The 

 dinner they contracted for at a shilling per head. 



Dr Duncan was instrumental in getting from the Earl of 

 Mansfield a site for the hall which the society erected ; and it 

 may be said that it was upon this society, the fortunes of which 

 he so long directed, that he grafted the savings bank, which 

 was the parent institution of its kind in Scotland. He also spent 

 much labour in endeavouring to extend the system to other 

 places, and in corresponding with statesmen and other men of 

 influence in order to secure legislative recognition and security 

 for the banks. The first Savings Bank Act was passed in 1819. 

 At Ruthwell Manse, which they afterwards vLsited, the party 

 had the privilege of inspecting several documents connected with 

 the early history of the bank, which had been the property of 

 members of the family to which the Rev. Mr Dinwiddle belongs. 

 These included bank accounts of individual depo.sitors, extend- 

 ing from 1811 to 1825, each written on a quarto sheet of paper; 

 balance .sheets, and an abstract of the rules. The rules pro- 

 vided that any sum not less than sixpence might be lodged, but 

 interest was allowed on pounds only; and every depositor was 

 required to lodge at least four shillings in course of a year, under 

 penalty of a fine of a shilling. Interest was allowed at the rate 

 of five per cent, to every depositor who continued a member of 

 the bank for three vears, but such as withdrew the whole of their 



