Robert Liston (minister)

Robert Liston (22 March 1730 – 11 February 1796) was a Scottish Minister, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

Robert Liston, was born 22 March 1730, the son of the Reverend John Liston, Minister of Aberdour. The Liston family had been much involved in the Covenanter struggles. His great grandfather William had been sentenced to death for his part in the Battle of Rullion Green, though he fled and escaped. Robert began to attend school on 11 February 1735 and, when he was thirteen, he matriculated as a student at the University of Edinburgh on 13 October 1743. He was licensed to preach the Gospel by the Presbytery of Dunfermline on 5 September 1753. Some members of the Presbytery had opposed his father's original appointment as Minister, fighting it all the way up to the General Assembly. They felt he was being imposed on them by then Patron, Robert, Earl of Morton, and the rich Heritors of the Parish. Such disputes were common throughout Scotland at the time. One of those who had added his voice against John Lister's appointment, Ebenezer Erskine was to lead a number of Ministers out of the Church of Scotland as a protest against Patronage, forming the Original Secession Church.

Perhaps to avoid such disputes, several heritors and Elders of the Kirk Session of Aberdour wrote to James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton, who now Patron of the Parish, shortly after Robert had been licensed, and asked that he be appointed assistant and expected successor to his father. This was agreed and he was called on 13 December and ordained on 2 April 1754 as Assistant Minister of Aberdour. Ten years later, on 17 September 1764, when his father died, he became the Minister of Aberdour.

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