The foundation stone was laid on the 1st of June 1911 by Lord Glenconner, the Lord High Commissioner of the General Assembly at that time.
Less that a year later, on the 24th May 1912, the building was opened for worship by the Rt. Rev. S. Marcus Dill, the Moderator of the General Assembly.

Professor Archibald Hamilton Charteris
was born in Wamphray, Dumfriesshire in 1835.
In 1868 he was appointed Professor of Biblical Criticism and Biblical Studies in Edinburgh University. He held this position until 1898 when ill health forced his retirement.
He acted as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1897 and was a chaplain to Queen Victoria and Edward VII.
 

Although holding an academic position in the university, his greatest contribution was as a churchman.
He was instrumental in establishing the Church of Scotland's Life and Work Committee in 1869 and founded the 'Life and Work' magazine in 1879
He also pioneered the Young Men's Guild and the Women's Guild.

Professor Charteris, although being highly honoured for his academic and ecclesiastical work is chiefly remembered for his unremitting zeal for increasing the witness of the church at parish level and his desire to enhance the place of women within the life of the church and the subsequent re-establishment of the Order of Deaconesses.

 

In 1888 Professor Charteris proposed a scheme for the organisation of women's work in the Church and laid it before the General Assembly. This scheme included the Women's Guild and the Order of Deaconesses.
Upon receiving approval for his scheme, Professor Charteris acquired the house in the Pleasance that had once belonged to Lord Carnegie. This was to be the site on which he proposed to found institutions for the training of Deaconesses for missionary work both at home and abroad.
St. Ninian's Mission opened in 1889 to provide practical training in mission work among the overcrowded tenements of the Pleasance, the Cowgate and the adjacent closes

Later, in 1894, The Deaconess Hospital was opened in in a building adjacent to St. Ninian's Mission.
The hospital provided practical training in nursing for Deaconesses, each of whom spent a year there as part of her training. Deaconesses who wished to become fully qualified nurses spent a further three years in the hospital's Nurses' Training School.
Although the hospital's primary purpose was to provide a training school for missionary Deaconesses, it also provided a much needed medical service to the local community in one of the poorest districts of the City.

In 1912, as a tribute to Professor Charteris, the Charteris Memorial Church was named in his honour. This building, the third element in his vision for the church, stands next to his other foundations.

The Charteris Memorial Church has not been immune from diminishing church membership in the local population.
In 1953 it was renamed 'Charteris Pleasance' on union with the Pleasance church.
1969 saw it adopt its present name of Kirk O'Field on union with Buccleuch and Nicolson Street churches.
Finally, but still retaining its name, Kirk O'Field Parish church welcomed the members of St Paul's, Newington into its congregation.