In 1843 the secession from the Established Church of Scotland, usually termed the "Disruption," occurred, and the Free Church was formed. Mr MacRae seceded to the Free Church.
Mr Russell died in 1844, having been forty-two years minister of Gairloch. On the departure of his successor from Gairloch, the Rev. D. S. Mackenzie, the present minister of Gairloch, was appointed in 1850.
On the establishment of Presbyterianism, Gairloch was in the Presbytery of Dingwall. Several minutes show the difficulties in the way of the ministers of Gairloch attending the meetings of presbytery, and of members of presbytery visiting Gairloch. Minutes of the presbyteries relating to these and other matters in Gairloch are extracted in [Appendix F].
Sometime between July 1668 and June 1672 there seems to have been nominally a Presbytery of Kenlochewe, but it does not appear that this presbytery ever met, and there are no records of it extant. In 1672 Gairloch was reannexed to the Presbytery of Dingwall by the bishop and synod.
On 4th September 1683 the "Highland churches," including Gairloch, were annexed to the Presbytery of Chanonry. This step appears to have been intended as a punishment to the ministers of the Highland parishes for their non-attendance at meetings of the Presbytery of Dingwall. Thus for a time Gairloch was no doubt in the Presbytery of Chanonry, but there is no other reference to the fact in the ecclesiastical history of the period. This was during the long incumbency of the Rev. Roderick Mackenzie, whose isolated position in Gairloch seems to have rendered him indifferent to the action of the presbytery.
On 19th May 1724 the Presbytery of Gairloch was erected by the General Assembly. This presbytery was composed of the same parishes as now constitute the Presbytery of Lochcarron. The meetings of presbytery were held at different places,—Kenlochewe, Gairloch, and Poolewe are mentioned.
In 1773 an Act of the General Assembly ordained that the Presbytery of Gairloch should be called in all time coming the Presbytery of Lochcarron, and Gairloch and Poolewe remain to this day in that presbytery.
The old parish church of Gairloch, dedicated to St Maelrubha, stood, as we have seen, in the churchyard of Gairloch, which is now used as the parish burial-ground. There was a church in existence here before 1628, for we find from an old document that Alastair Breac, fifth laird of Gairloch, had caused a chapel to be built "near the church" of Gairloch, during his father's lifetime, where he and his wife, and no doubt also his father John Roy Mackenzie, were buried. According to the Rev. Daniel Mackintosh, in the Old Statistical Account, the Gairloch church of his day had existed for "more than a century," so that it must have been erected in the middle or latter part of the seventeenth century,—possibly by John Roy or Alastair Breac; it stood most likely on the same site as the original church. In 1727 Mr Smith, minister of Gairloch, got the heritors of the parish to erect churchyard dykes. In 1751 the Rev. Æneas M'Aulay is said to have got a new church built. It must have been a frail structure, for in 1791 it had fallen into a ruinous condition; it was a thatched building. James Mackenzie says, that about 1788, when his mother was attending the parish school at Strath of Gairloch, under the tuition of William Ross, the Gairloch bard, she and other girls went one day during the dinner hour to the old church. The children opened the church door, when, from some cause or other—very likely only a puff of wind—the door closed in their faces with a bang, and they got a great fright!
The present Gairloch church was erected in 1791, and repaired in 1834.