Records of Lady Glenorchy's Chapel

Willielma Campbell, Viscountess Glenorchy, was born in 1741. In 1761 she married John, Lord Viscount Glenorchy, the eldest son of the 3rd Earl of Breadalbane. That year too her elder sister married William, 17th Earl of Sutherland. Around 1764, Lady Glenorchy became deeply influenced by religion and she built a church in Edinburgh which was named after her - Lady Glenorchy's Chapel. Other chapels were built by her in Carlisle, Matlock, and in Strathfillan on the Breadalbane Estate. On her death she left large sums to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), mainly for the maintenance of schools. Willielma Campbell, Viscountess Glenorchy, died in 1786.

Lady Glenorchy's Chapel, or Church, had been built next to Trinity College in 1772. Both the Church and the College were cleared away in 1848 to make way for the then North British Railway marshalling yard (now part of the area taken up by the city's Waverley Station). For the Free Kirk congregation descended from Lady Glenorchy's, a Free Church had been built in Greenside Place in 1844. In 1875, Glenorchy Place, Greenside, was named marking that connection. Trinity College kirk was re-erected in Chalmer's Close, High Street, in 1872.