David Williamson

Williamson was born in St Andrews to William Williamson, a glover. He was baptised on 2 September 1636. He was educated locally and then studied at the University of St Andrews with an MA in 1655. He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of St Andrews on 23 June 1658 and became helper to Alexander Balfour, minister of Abdie in 1659.

On 13 July 1661, Williamson was presented by Charles II to the collegiate charge of the West Kirk of Edinburgh and ordained on 30 November that year. Williamson refused the imposition of episcopacy within the Church of Scotland and, the following year, acts of Parliament and the Privy Council deprived him of his charge. Williamson, however, remained in position until 13 April 1665, when his outspokenness against his newly installed pro-episcopal colleague, William Gordon, occasioned his removal. During his farewell sermon, Williamson prophesied: "I will return and die minister of this kirk".

There is little record of Williamson's activity until 6 July 1674, when he was denounced as a rebel for having held conventicles. In the following years, Williamson survived many narrow escapes from the law, including the incident memorialised in the song "Dainty Davie". In 1679, Williamson commanded a portion of the Covenanter army at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge. After Williamson's death, his son, John, related his father's escapades to Robert Wodrow. In George Lorimer's summary, Wodrow portrays Williamson as "a lonely hunted wanderer, glad of the shelter of a feal dyke behind which to lie down and rest himself amid the snow".

After the Indulgence of 1687 granted freedom to some Presbyterian clergy, Williamson returned to Edinburgh and ministered alongside James Reid in a newly erected meeting house in the Dean. Here Williamson developed a substantial congregation. Williamson's name was discovered on a memorandum belonging to James Renwick and, on 3 February 1688, Williamson was arrested and released a fortnight later. Soon afterwards, he was again arrested on a charge of failing to pray for the newly born Prince of Wales. Nothing, however, came of the charge.

In the wake of the Revolution, the General Assembly of 1690 restored Williamson to the West Kirk. In line with his earlier prophecy, Williamson ministered in the charge until the day of his death. Williamson served as one of the commissioners sent by the Church of Scotland to congratulate William II on his accession. Williamson was elected to the General Assembly of 1692 and served as the Assembly's moderator in 1702. In later life, Williamson invested £100 in the Darien scheme. He died "without painful sickness, generally esteemed" on 6 August 1706 at the age of around 72. He bequeathed a manse to his successors.

During his lifetime Williamson published individual sermons in 1696 and 1703.

Williamson is notable for his seven marriages. His wives and issue are as follows:

• Isobel Lindsay, who died in March 1665. Lindsay bore one son, William, who died young.
• Margaret Scott, who gave birth to a daughter, Margaret. Margaret married James Haswell, a merchant of Jedburgh.
• Jean, daughter of William Kerr of Cherrytrees, whom Williamson married around 1676. The marriage produced a daughter, Elizabeth, who married John Brown, minister of Abercorn in 1704. The circumstances of Jean and Williamson's meeting are alluded to in the lyrics of Dainty Davie.
• Margaret Melville, servant of the Countess of Wemyss, who died in October 1692 and who probably gave birth to a son, John, who served as minister of Inveresk, and a daughter, Agnes, who married Henry Robin, minister of Burntisland in April 1708.
• Margaret, second daughter of William Dougal, a merchant of Dysart, who gave birth to a son, David, who was apprenticed to a surgeon of Edinburgh in 1713, and a daughter, Mary, who married George Andrews, merchant of Edinburgh, on 1 February 1716.
• A wife whose name is not known.
• Jean, daughter of Arthur Straiton of Kirkside, Forfarshire, whom Williamson married on 10 May 1700. The marriage produced a son, Joseph, who became an advocate and died on 29 July 1795 aged 95, and a daughter, Jean, who married James Steele, a saddler of Edinburgh, on 5 April 1730. After Williamson's death, Jean married John Martine of Little Aries, Wigtownshire in 1717.

At his death, Williamson was buried within an enclosure on the Knowe, the area of high ground south west of the church. As had been his wish, this site of his grave was near that of his predecessor Robert Pont. His family erected no memorial inside the vault, which was then normal with enclosed vaults. Around the turn of the 20th century, a memorial plaque was installed by an anonymous descendant, whom William Pitcairn Anderson speculates to be Williamson's successor Andrew Wallace Williamson.