GILLESPIE, THOMAS (1708-74), Scottish divine, was born at Clearburn, Duddingston, Midlothian, in 1708. He received ordination at Northampton in January 1741. In September of the same year he was admitted minister of the parish of Carnock, Fife, the presbytery of Dunfermline admitting as valid the ordina tion he had received in England, and allowing a qualification of his subscription to the church's doctrinal symbol, so far as it had reference to the sphere of the civil magistrate in matters of religion. Having absented himself from the meetings of presby tery held for the purpose of ordaining one Andrew Richardson, an unacceptable presentee, as minister of Inverkeithing, he was deposed by the Assembly of 1752 for maintaining that the refusal of the local presbytery to act in this case was justified. He con tinued, however, to preach, first at Carnock, and afterwards in Dunfermline, where a large congregation gathered round him. In 1761, in conjunction with Thomas Boston of Jedburgh and Collier of Colinsburgh, he formed a distinct communion under the name of "The Presbytery of Relief,"-relief, that is to say, "from the yoke of patronage and the tyranny of the church courts." The Relief Church eventually became one of the com munions combining to form the United Presbyterian Church. He died on Jan. See Lindsay, Life and Times of the Rev. Thomas Gillespie; Smithers, History of the Relief Church; for the Relief Church see UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.