Three senior Watch Tower officers flew from New York to give evidence at the proof: Frederick W. Franz, vice-president; Hayden C. Covington, the Society’s general counsel; and Grant Suiter, secretary and treasurer. Franz gave evidence first, and the whole of the evidence took seven days.

The Watchtower, “Jehovah’s Witnesses—A Religion Without Ministers?”

1 June 1955 · pp.329-332 · Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.

“An action for declarator was brought in Scotland that asked the Court of Session to declare that Douglas Walsh was a “regular minister” because of his appointment as a pioneer and also because of his appointment as a congregation servant. The case became known as Walsh v. The Lord Advocate.”

This is the organisation’s own contemporary account of the case. It records that a preliminary hearing was held in Edinburgh in January 1954, that Lord Strachan ordered the case to proof, that “the proof was set down for November 23, 1954”, and that “H. C. Covington, a United States barrister and the Watch Tower Society’s general counsel” together with “F. W. Franz, vice-president of the Society” and “Grant Suiter, the Society’s secretary and treasurer” flew from New York to give evidence, Franz being “the first to go into the witness box”. It records that “The whole of the evidence had taken seven days to give”, that judgment was given on 7 January 1955, that Lord Strachan held Jehovah’s Witnesses to be a religious denomination but Walsh not to be a “regular minister”, and that the press “devoted more than a thousand column-inches to the case”, The Scotsman reporting fully each day.

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