On an autumn Sunday in 1991, the regular worshippers at Castlehead Church on Main Road got a surprise. Former US President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy, dressed in tartan, joined them for morning worship, ringed by Secret Service agents.

The visit was all about family. Reagan's maternal ancestors, the Wilsons, had left Renfrewshire for Illinois generations earlier. Discovering that connection brought one of the best-known figures of the twentieth century to a modest Paisley kirk, on the way to a whisky banquet in Perthshire.

Explore more: Paisley Heritage & History · Paisley Abbey: From Priory to Parish

A secret Sunday

The best evidence puts the visit on Sunday 20 October 1991. Several accounts place the Paisley service on a Sunday morning and the Perthshire banquet that same Sunday, although STV's archive footage of the banquet is dated Saturday 19 October.

The visit was kept quiet. According to the Daily Record, only the minister, the Rev Gordon Kirkwood, and a few members of the kirk session knew the Reagans were coming. The congregation was its usual size of about 140 when the couple arrived. Secret Service agents and Metropolitan Police officers had searched the building in advance. The Reagans landed at Glasgow Airport by private jet and made the short trip to Castlehead in a black Daimler.

Outside, Castlehead looked more like a film set. In a 2016 eyewitness piece for CapX, Iain Martin remembered agents in raincoats speaking into walkie-talkies in the graveyard. He also wrote that a Sunday Times photographer named Frank was said to have been wrestled to the ground. The Paisley historian David Rowand told a similar story: a local man jumped the churchyard wall and was pinned down. Asked who he was, he replied "I stay here", and he was let go.

Inside the kirk

Kirk members at the gate wished the Reagans "Good morning", and Reagan answered in kind. The couple sat through what Martin called "a typically Presbyterian service". Mr Kirkwood welcomed them from the pulpit, and the congregation sang Amazing Grace.

On their way out, Reagan admired a painting of the church by local artist Margaret Barrie that hung near the door. The minister insisted the Reagans take it home as a reminder of their Paisley connection, and it ended up at the Reagan ranch in California. The Scots Magazine reports that Reagan promised it a place of honour in his home.

The Paisley Wilsons

The connection runs through Reagan's mother, Nelle Clyde Wilson. Research by Hugh Peskett of Burke's Peerage, commissioned by the then Glasgow Herald, found that Claude Wilson and Margaret Downey (also written Claud Wilson and Peggy Downie) married on 23 May 1807. Both were described as "of the parish". The Herald located the marriage in the records of Paisley High Church. Most later accounts link the wedding to Castlehead, which was then known as the West Relief Church and was the reason for the Reagans' visit.

According to Reagan's own family records, Claude, Margaret and their children emigrated to Illinois in 1832. Their son John, Reagan's great-grandfather, was born in Renfrewshire in 1812. The family called their Illinois farm Clyde, and Reagan noted that Clyde was also his mother's middle name. Nelle married John Edward Reagan in Fulton, Illinois, in 1904. Some later reports claimed the couple were buried at Castlehead, but the 1832 emigration makes that unlikely.

The Scots Magazine says Reagan first heard of his Scottish roots in 1991, in a letter from the minister of Castlehead.

Whisky at Blair Castle

Paisley was a stop on the way north. Reagan had come to Scotland to be made a Keeper of the Quaich, the Scotch whisky industry's honorary society, at a banquet in the Duke of Atholl's Blair Castle in Perthshire. STV's archive describes the trip as his first visit to Scotland.

The haggis, it seems, caught Nancy off guard. Whisky Magazine recounts a story told of that banquet: as the haggis was addressed, Nancy Reagan whispered to her top-table neighbour, Lord Elgin, the society's patron, to ask what was going on. When he explained it was being addressed "so we can eat it", she is said to have exclaimed: "EAT IT? I'm not eating it!"

Castlehead today

Castlehead Church dates from 1781, and the weaver poet Robert Tannahill is buried in its graveyard.

The church held its final service of thanksgiving in December 2010. Its congregation then joined the nearby Laigh Kirk to form Stow Brae Kirk. Several plans to convert the building have since been put forward, and one was withdrawn after objections over the graveyard. No plaque marks the day the Reagans came to Paisley.

Related: Heritage & History hub · Paisley Abbey

Further reading

  1. The day the Reagans came to Paisley – Daily Record: Secrecy, security and arrival, with recollections from David Rowand.
  2. How I almost met Ronald and Nancy Reagan in Paisley, but didn't – CapX: Iain Martin's eyewitness account of the service and the painting.
  3. He thought his roots were Irish and then we uncovered link with Paisley – The Herald: The Burke's Peerage genealogy.
  4. The President's Paisley Roots – The Scots Magazine: The minister's letter and the gift of the painting.
  5. Dinner with the keeper – Whisky Magazine: Keepers of the Quaich banquets at Blair Castle, including the Reagan haggis story.
  6. Keeper of the Quaich – STV Footage Sales: Archive footage of Reagan's acceptance speech.
  7. Paisley's Hallelujah as historic church cemetery is saved – Daily Record: Closure and redevelopment plans.