Whisky, Wars, Riots and Murder

by Malcolm Archibald

  The local policeman was Constable Roderick McKenzie. Perhaps he was pleased to have some real crime to show his skill. When he made enquiries about any strangers who had been seen in the area, he discovered that a man had begged food at the farm a few days before. The man had said he was a deserter from the army and had been working at casual jobs for a few weeks, but after the theft at Balinleod he had vanished. McKenzie decided to follow his trail. The man was believed to be heading westward to Sutherland so McKenzie whistled up two men to help him and followed the suspected thief. He called at the lonely cottages and small settlements throughout the next few days, moving slowly westward towards Strathnaver.

  Once Strathnaver had held a large population, but the Clearances had been cruel to this part of Sutherland and houses were few and far between. McKenzie called at each until he found a stranger being given shelter in a shepherd’s cottage. The man had the silver watch and shirts beside him and surrendered without resistance. He gave his name as Sinclair Sutherland, but in reality he was Donald Petrie, who was already wanted by the police for theft in various areas. He ended his thieving career with a spell in Wick Jail. This winter chase across some of the most remote terrain in the country proved the calibre of at least one man in the Highland police forces.

  Improvements

  As the century progressed, so experience taught the police what type of equipment was best suited to the occupation. By 1864 most rural forces had leather leggings as protection for the boots from the weather and the subsequent mud. That year the old rabbit skin top hats were also discarded in favour of helmets and greatcoats replaced the old swallowtail coats. By 1868 the police throughout Scotland were better regulated, with pay increased according to length of service, so a recruit earned seventeen shillings and six pence a week and an experienced man a guinea.

  While the Caithness men had to be aware of tinkers and travellers, in Sutherland and Ross it was fishermen who continued to pose problems. In the 1860s the Sutherland Police were also responsible for the gold diggings at Kildonan. Unlike goldfields in other parts of the world, no grog shops were allowed at the diggings and there was virtually no crime from the male and female diggers. There was one Englishman imprisoned for stealing gold and a storekeeper imprisoned for selling beer without a licence. The licence fee for digging was £1 a month – for every forty square feet – four times higher than in the colonies, and paid to the Duke of Sutherland. The police regulated the licences and diggings.

  Many parts of the Highlands had to cope with railway labourers, or ‘navvies’ as they were known from the original canal ‘navigators’, as well as poaching and the slow rise in tourism and the bitter evictions and land raids that were a feature of the century. The numbers of police gradually increased so that by 1882 Inverness-shire had forty-two men, excluding the separate force for Inverness city itself, while Sutherland had sixteen. Overall, the Highland police forces were facing the challenges of the century with adaptability and skill.

  The evolution of the police could be seen as a small but important part of the nineteenth-century drive to a more efficient government that had more input in the lives of the people. However, the Scottish police were not only concerned with fighting crime, they were also part of the gradual improvement of social conditions as they regulated sanitation, dung heaps and street lighting, ran soup kitchens, controlled firefighting and coped with diseased animals. A policeman’s lot could be very busy as they fought to control the uncontrollable with limited resources and lack of support. It was little wonder that many turned to drink as an alleviation of stress.

  Sometimes the police could be over zealous. For example, in November 1896 the Inverness Police arrested a horse dealer named David McMillan on suspicion of stabbing a labourer named William Patillo. McMillan paid a bond of £50 to assure his attendance at court, but when he reported to the police station in Inverness they still clamped handcuffs on him and paraded him the fifty yards to the court in Inverness Castle. He was found not guilty of the stabbing and his solicitor and Sheriff Blair both made strong protests against the actions of the police.

  Constable Donald Cameron

  One busy Highland policeman was Donald Cameron from Port Appin in Argyll. He took over the policing in that area in 1899 and left some fascinating notes, including a case of assault in January 1900 against a carrier named Angus Cameron, who ‘with his booted foot [did] strike’ Murdoch Kerr ‘one severe and violent kick on the left hip, whereby the said Murdoch was hurt and bruised’.

  There was another assault in July that year when a railway gauger named Duncan Kennedy attacked a labourer named Neil McNeil and ‘with his fists did strike him two or more violent blows on the face and did knock or throw him to the ground, and when lying there did repeatedly strike him on the face and head’. Kennedy was at it again later that month when he attacked Alexander McKay with his fists or a sharp implement.

  There was also John McRae, who used ‘abusive and disgusting language’ to Margaret and Annie Davidson. Or William Leach, who drilled a hole in a beer barrel and drew out six quarts for his own use in January 1900.

  Crime and Punishment

  Petty assaults, petty theft and acts of petty vandalism were the day-to-day lot of the policeman in every part of the country. Sometimes they were involved in more interesting work, such as tracing a murderer or controlling a riot. While the police forces gradually evolved into unified and efficient forces, other measures of crime deterrence and prevention also altered.

  In the early years of the century crimes could be punished in a variety of ways from fines to execution. The public hangman was not the most popular man and in the Inverness Circuit Court in spring 1811 James MacCurroch and John Lawson were charged with attacking him. Even so, executions were not as common in Scotland as they were elsewhere. In October 1832 Hugh Lumsden of Pitcaple, Sheriff of Sutherland, speaking at a criminal court at Dornoch, said that Scotland was fortunate in having a system of law where a Procurator Fiscal did not act ‘in anger or irritation’, while in England prosecutions were often left to the private party, and where men are often not ‘public spirited enough to undertake the vindication of the law’. He further compared Scots justice to English, saying in England there were ‘300 capital crimes’ but ‘not more than fifty in Scotland, of which the greater part had been introduced by British statutes’. At the beginning of the century the lesser sentences included transportation and public whipping, as well as the more unusual punishment of being held in the jugs or jougs, a band of iron that fastened around the neck and held the offender secure for public display.

  On 3 May 1800, Lachlan Grahame, who lived at North Knapdale in Argyll, was tried for distilling whisky at a Justice of the Peace court at Lochgilphead. The justices ordered him to swear his guilt or innocence and when they believed that he lied under oath they ordered him into Inveraray Jail until 6 June, and then to be placed in the ‘juggs’ on Sunday, 7 June in the parish church at North Knapdale. Grahame complained to the High Court in Edinburgh, reminding them that by the criminal law of Scotland no sentence of an inferior court could inflict corporal punishment unless a jury had convicted the offender. The Lords of the High Court agreed and Grahame was freed.

  Transportation did not always inspire quite the feeling of dread it was intended to. For example, in the spring circuit court at Inverness in 1821, John Gunn, known as Miniart, was convicted of horse stealing and sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation.

  Using the name Hugh Mackay, Gunn had signed articles as a seaman on board the Peterhead whaling ship Alpheus. On his return, George Campbell, King’s Messenger, boarded the ship and arrested him. As the court officers escorted him to the cells, he remarked that he was being carried free to a much better country and would get plenty of two-penny grog on the voyage.

  Prisons

  Most burghs also had their own jails, many of which were ancient and no longer secure. In the middle of the century in Inverness-shire alone there were local prisons at For
t William, Nairn, Tain, Wick, Portree in Skye, and Inverness. Of these, the jail at Inverness was arguably the most important. It was built in 1791 at a cost of £1,800. In the nineteenth century a new jail was erected on Castle Hill to cope with the increased population.

  These small prisons dealt with local criminals, both petty and serious. The records of Dornoch Jail for a few months in 1824 will probably be typical of the type of criminal held in them. For example, on 9 June 1824 Gustavus Sutherland of Golspie was jailed for stealing hay from a haystack owned by Hugh McPherson of Drummuie Farm. On 12 July the whisky smuggler Angus Mackay of Blarach was jailed for six months or until he paid a fine of £20. On 18 August John Mackay of Rogart was also given six months or a £20 fine for illicit distilling. On 9 August Robert Murray was held pending trial for stealing a ewe and a lamb from Hugh Gordon. Sheep stealing and whisky distilling were possibly the most common offences, and on 20 February 1819 Isabel Gray was accused of sheep stealing from Cyderhall.

  And so it continued, year after year. This was the reality of rural crime and punishment, the day-to-day mundane business of justice shorn of glamour or the excitement of major drama. For every high-profile murder there was a plethora of petty thefts and pointless assaults. However, as government increased its power, so justice also became centralised.

  Police Headquarters in Inverness

  © Author’s Collection

  In 1877 the Prison Act transferred fifty-six locally run Scottish prisons to the authority of the Prison Commission for Scotland. Although this Act therefore relieved the smaller burghs of the responsibility and expense of housing convicts, it gave the government headaches in providing more prison accommodation. It also gave problems to Inverness when the resident, if reluctant, population of all the smaller jails were transferred to the red sandstone Inverness Castle that stood on the banks of the River Ness. The prison was naturally overcrowded, but in 1886 various improvements saw the addition of twelve new cells, so that male and female prisoners could be housed separately, while washing and laundry rooms were also added. With Inverness improved, the small jails at Dingwall and Elgin were then closed down.

  The extra twelve cells were not enough, however. Industrialisation came late to the Highlands, but new industries brought a different style of living, crime increased and as the number of prisoners mounted, many were sent south to the national penitentiary at Perth. Nevertheless, in 1903 a new prison was built in Inverness, with prisoners used as cheap labour. There were fifty-nine cells, including ten exclusively for women, and it proved adequate for a time.

  Perth Prison, on the southern fringe of the Highlands, was huge by comparison. Completed in 1859 it had taken nineteen years to build and spread over twenty-five acres. There were 580 ordinary cells, 108 cells for females and sixteen punishment cells.

  Police and prisons had altered through the century, and the Highlands were no longer isolated but were as much a part of the fabric of the country as Edinburgh or Aberdeen.

  6

  Nautical Crime

  With so much nautical activity around the nineteenth-century Highlands and Islands, it was not surprising that there also was crime. Fishing boats exploited Hebridean waters for herring and white fish, trading ships crossed and re-crossed the seas, passenger vessels raced to be first to the piers. Sometimes there was tragedy as the notorious Scottish weather caught a vessel off guard.

  Looting the Wreck

  In the summer of 1804 a West Indiaman was caught by a sudden squall off the West coast of Scotland. The wind drove her onto the rocks off Jura. No sooner had she struck than a horde of locals descended upon her, beat up the master and looted the cargo of everything that was portable. Despite the remoteness of the island, the forces of the law caught up with them and seven people were called to the Circuit court at Inveraray. They were John McFee, Archibald Ramsay, Archibald McDougall, Roderick Shaw, Alexander McKioch, Anne Campbell and Catherine Campbell. Shaw, McDougall and Anne Campbell did not appear and were outlawed. The others were found not proven and released without charge.

  There were other occasions when a wrecked ship was plundered, such as in January 1806 when a ship was wrecked on the island of Sanda off Kintyre and some men from the area plundered it. The western seaboard of Scotland held many hazards for sailors.

  Racing for the Pier

  The nineteenth century saw massive changes to the economy of the Highlands. One was the advent of crowds of summer visitors by land and sea. Tourism brought many benefits to the Highlands, but it also brought its dangers as the small ports of the west coast were visited by pleasure steamers. In one case on 5 August 1867 two steamers, both carrying a large number of passengers, ran into each other off Dunoon pier. Both masters were charged with ‘recklessly failing to direct, manage or steer the vessel which each of them was then in charge’. The two vessels were Eagle and Levan, both registered in Glasgow. Ronald McTaggart was the acting master of Eagle, taking her on a voyage from the Broomielaw in Glasgow to Rothesay, while John McLachlan was acting master of Levan, sailing in the opposite direction. Eagle had around eighty passengers on board and Levan had fifty, so between them the two masters were responsible for 130 lives, plus the crews of their respective vessels.

  Both ships were approaching the pier at Dunoon at the same time, but in an age where competition and speed were important, neither slowed down. Eagle was nearly twice as long as the pier and Captain McTaggart was standing on the paddle box supervising, but there were no ropes thrown out to attach the vessel to the pier. The master of Levan was also on the paddle box of his ship, which had started to slow near the Castle Rock, about fifty yards from the pier, where she intended to berth.

  Fishing boat of the type used at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

  © Author’s Collection

  Eagle had been at full speed all the way from Kirn, and Captain McTaggart did not order her engineer, Robert Nairn, to slow down until they were nearly at the pier. Perhaps because McTaggart wanted to be first, Eagle had altered her normal course and steered between Levan and the pier. It was usual for her to come up to the east corner of the pier, but on this occasion she approached from the west, the side from which Levan was also approaching. Levan was at her usual time and on her normal approach route. She had slowed down around the Castle Rock and was reversing into her berthing place. While approaching Dunoon from Kirn during flood tide, the correct procedure for paddle steamers was to take the bow in first, creep past the pier and reverse in. Eagle had passed the pier and her paddles were stopped, as if she was about to reverse into her berthing space.

  The rule was that when two or more steamers were approaching the pier, the vessel that was closest when they blew off steam had the right to berth first. Levan was then closer than Eagle when she blew off steam and was backing into position. The two vessels came into contact, with the side of Eagle close to the foremast thumping into Levan’s stem.

  A number of passengers were injured, nine of them seriously. John Kay, a Glasgow shoemaker, was badly shocked; Mary Bowie, a widow, was extensively bruised; Isabella Edgar damaged her spine; Agnes Henderson banged her head and her back; and her daughter Elizabeth, one year old, was ruptured; while others were more or less bruised and battered. The stem of Levan was damaged in the collision, while Eagle lost a good amount of her bulwarks, and then Levan backed away.

  However, David Kidd, the deck hand who was steering Eagle when the collision took place, remembered events differently. He said that Eagle had followed her usual route from Kirn to Dunoon and was closer to the pier than Levan was. He was sure that Levan was coming on at speed and if she had not struck Eagle, she would have gone through the pier itself. He thought Eagle’s engines were stopped first, and Levan’s engines afterward. Hugh Stewart, another seaman on Eagle, agreed with that version of events and said it was the force of the collision that made Eagle’s bow face toward the quay.

  Dugald Livingstone was a seaman on board Levan when the ships collided and
was equally adamant that his vessel was closer to the quay. He said Levan’s engines were slowed at the Castle Rock, but Eagle was moving faster. Captain McTaggart of Eagle was seen to signal to the master of Levan to slow down. George Taylor, a Glasgow police inspector and a passenger on Levan, also thought Eagle was closer to the pier. He saw the master of Levan arrive on the bridge about a minute before the collision, saw him give three raps, which was the signal to slow, and heard him shout out, ‘How the hell have you not stopped her before this?’ Another passenger on Levan, James Currie, thought the master said, ‘My God, Jock, you’ve done in now. Why the hell didn’t you stop the boat in time?’

  Alexander Cameron was the pier manager at Dunoon and thought that Eagle was travelling too fast. She was the larger vessel and was trying to race to the pier. Cameron believed Eagle was moving faster than Levan. Other witnesses, such as the corn merchant James Forrester, believed Levan had more way on her than Eagle had. The masters of both ships pleaded not guilty.

  Lord Deas heard the case at Inveraray Sheriff Court in April 1868, and the jury found both masters guilty of culpable neglect but recommended mercy, particularly for McLachlan. Lord Deas gave them each a month in jail.

  Murder on Heather Bell

  In the nineteenth century, Scottish fishermen were not known for their quiet demeanour and often appeared in the police courts during the great herring booms. It was a tough, relentless life, with men working long hours in often terrible conditions in open boats. Sometimes tensions flared into harsh words and even violence, sometimes the men drank too much and that exasperated small disputes. Such a case occurred in June 1874 when the smack Heather Bell was fishing in the Sound of Mull. As with so many squabbles involving drink, the truth is hard to unravel behind a maze of lies and barely remembered instances. The following is the case made up mainly from the point of view of William McDonald, a seaman on board.