 The Kirk began to concern itself with providing churches in the new towns and relatively thinly supplied Highlands, establishing a church extension committee in 1828. Led by Thomas Chalmers, by the early 1840s it had added 222 churches, largely through public subscription. When the Great Disruption occurred in 1843, and roughly a third of ministers and their congregations left the established church and its buildings to form the Free Church of Scotland, Chalmers' organisational skills helped the Free Church build over 700 new places of worship by 1847. The established church took time to recover, but embarked on a rival programme of church building, increasing its number of parishes from 924 in 1843 to 1,437 by 1909. The intense competition between different denominations led to the creation of grand churches with tall steeples and ultimately resulted in an oversupply of churches, which would be a financial burden to future generations.
