Heather Bell was a typical Scottish fishing smack. She was a small, oar-and-sail-powered vessel with a crew of four: elderly William Scott; his son, James Scott; James Smith of Banff; and William McDonald of Gardenstown on the south coast of the Moray Firth. Heather Bell was at the Lewis fishing but called in at Tobermory in the island of Mull on 26 June. As was common among some fishing crews, the men found a pub and sampled the local whisky. After a few drams, James Smith and William Scott began to quarrel about the workings of the boat. The argument petered into nothing but dirty looks and all seemed forgotten as the four men returned on board.
Heather Bell and a lugger named William and James left Tobermory at around eight that evening, but the drink was still working on James Scott and he left the deck to go below to the forecastle for a sleep. William Scott was steering, while McDonald and James Smith were working the sails. A flick of the halyard caught McDonald on the face and drew blood. With a following wind and fine weather, Heather Bell made good time out of Tobermory, but Smith and William Scott again began to argue, this time about the way the boat was steered. William Scott advised Smith to go and get a sleep, but Smith refused and instead demanded that he take over the helm. What began as a simple, if drink-fuelled, argument escalated into violence when Smith punched Scott on the side of the head.
McDonald looked astern from his work at the sails. ‘What kind of work is that you are at?’ he asked.
By way of reply, Smith grabbed hold of Scott’s shoulder and legs and threw him over the port side of the boat into the sea. As Scott splashed overboard, Smith shouted, ‘Let the old devil go!’
McDonald ran below to wake James Scott, but he was deep in the sleep of the drunk so McDonald returned quickly on deck. He saw old William Scott floating astern, quite nearby, and let go the peak halyards to wear Heather Bell round, and then put up the now unattended helm to close with the man in the sea. William Scott sunk quietly, without a cry for help, and it is possible the fall had rendered him unconscious. Smith had left the helm, possibly to go below and rouse James Scott. He re-emerged about half an hour later and helped McDonald reset the sails, but they did not discuss the loss of William Scott.
With the sails reset Smith returned below, leaving McDonald alone on deck for some hours as Heather Bell sailed idly in the Sound of Mull. McDonald sat on a barrel and cried at the loss of his companion. Around four next morning, when dawn coloured the eastern sky, Smith came back up on deck, took the helm for a few moments and returned to the forecastle. At about eight o’clock, James Scott came on deck, still unaware of the death of his father. When Smith told him that his father had gone on board William and James, Scott searched for a bottle of whisky he had brought on board and when he could not find it he supposed that his father had taken it onto the lugger for a drinking spree.
Unable to tell the truth, and afraid how James Scott would react, McDonald said he did not know, but Smith later found the whisky and handed it to James Scott. Only when Heather Bell approached the buoys that marked the entrance to the Caledonian Canal did Smith say that McDonald should relate what happened. It appeared that McDonald was quite a weak character, but so indeed was Smith to kill an old man and hide the truth from the son.
When Heather Bell berthed at Corpach, McDonald told James Scott that his father had fallen overboard, emphasising that it had been an accident. They told the young man that his father had been sitting on the bulwark aft but overbalanced and fell overboard. James Scott wondered about the blood on McDonald’s face, but did not believe the halyard had caused it. He thought that McDonald had argued with his father and knocked him overboard in a fight. He told the same tale to the local policeman but told the possible truth to the Procurator Fiscal in Fort William. When Smith was charged with William Scott’s murder, James Scott told the court that his father had mentioned quarrelling with McDonald, rather than Smith, and said that his father intended ‘waiting his own time to get things settled’.
With so much contradictory evidence and the probability that nobody even remembered the truth, yet alone being able to relate it, the court found Smith not guilty and the death of William Scott was never solved.
Ducking the Artist
William McTaggart was a Kintyre man, born at Aros Farm near Machrihanish, on the west coast of the peninsula. His parents were Gaelic-speaking crofters, and his mother descended from the poet Duncan MacDougall. When he was sixteen, McTaggart moved to Edinburgh and studied to be an artist, an occupation at which he excelled. He is remembered as one of Scotland’s finest landscape painters. One of his paintings, ‘Through Wind and Rain’, hangs in the McManus Galleries in Dundee, and shows a small fishing boat under a lugsail in a choppy sea. It was in a small boat very similar to the one in the painting that McTaggart became involved in a criminal case in August 1884.
Although he became famous and lived in Charlotte Square in Edinburgh, McTaggart never forgot his roots and returned to Kintyre every year. On 11 August 1889 he was fishing in Campbeltown Loch with his wife, Marjorie Henderson, their two sons and a tailor friend called Thomas Young. It was a perfect west coast summer day with the sea flat calm and few clouds to mar the blue of the sky. For an artist who specialised in the play of light and shade on maritime subjects, it would be a dream of a day.
They watched as the steamer Meteor came out of the harbour. McTaggart’s boat was at anchor near the entrance to the loch, but as there was plenty space at their side and a fishing boat about thirty yards away, they felt no alarm when the steamer steered towards them; Meteor would obviously alter course soon. They continued to fish until they realised Meteor was getting very close and had not altered course to avoid them. When she was about 120 yards away, McTaggart and Young stood in the boat, waved their arms and shouted to the steamer to ‘Clear off!’ The people in the boat could see two men standing at the gunwale of the steamer, working at the hatchway, so were quite sure that they had been observed. However, rather than sheer away, when Meteor was about sixty yards away she altered course so she came directly onto McTaggart’s boat. McTaggart continued to shout, especially when he saw a third man join the two in the bow of the steamer, but there was no response. The bow of the steamer smashed into the port side of their boat about a foot from their stem. The small boat was sliced in two, the occupants thrown into the loch and the steamer passed right over the top of them.
It was only then that the crew of Meteor seemed to realise that they were not alone. David Japp, the engineer, was content with his position on board. He respected the master, who he thought was a quiet, reliable and steady man. He was down below before the accident but had come on deck in time to see the mate standing at the mast. He felt the shock of collision but did not hear anybody in the boat calling to them. As soon as they hit the small boat, the mate ordered ‘full speed astern’ and Japp glanced over the side and saw the people in the water. He shouted and asked the master to stop engines, got permission and returned to the engine room.
The steamer’s boat picked up McTaggart’s party and brought them on board. McTaggart approached the master, Archibald Grassam, and the mate, James Boyle, and asked who owned the ship. Grassam told him the owner’s name. McTaggart, dripping wet and concerned about his family, asked Grassam why he had come all the way from Leith just to ram Edinburgh people in a small boat in Campbeltown Loch. Grassam only said that he did not have a lookout posted.
Duncan McLean, who had been in the fishing boat nearby, thought he saw a man run forward to the bow of Meteor just before the collision, and heard somebody shout out, ‘You’re over them! Lower your boat and stop the steamer as quick as you can!’ He thought the steamer stopped within sixty yards. He also thought the steamer was riding light in the water so the bows were high and the steersman would be unable to see the small boat low down in front of him. Peter McCallum, another professional Campbeltown fisherman, said there were three men on Meteor and nobody posted as lookout. He thought her a dangerous vessel because of that.
The case c
ame to court in September of that year. Archibald Grassam was given three months in jail and the mate, James Boyle, two months.
Tiree’s Whisky Galore
Tiree sits square in the centre of the Inner Hebrides, an island of surprising fertility and thriving population. However, in common with its neighbours, it was often plagued by bad weather, and shipwrecks around the coast were frequent in the nineteenth century. One such was Cairnsmuir, a 1,123-ton schooner-rigged Leith steamer who was sailing from Hamburg to Glasgow and then onward to China. She went north about round Scotland, and on Monday, 6 July 1885, while negotiating the Inner Hebrides, she ran into dense fog. At quarter to three in the morning she ran aground on the reef known as Bogha Mór, off Tiree’s Rudha Craignish Point on the tricky west coast. Cairnsmuir had struck amidships, and water was gushing into her engine room.
Captain John Scorgie tried to reverse her engines, but the sea flooded the engine room, and as the weather worsened into a full gale, the crew headed for the boats and came ashore. Shipwrecked seamen are not known for their taciturnity and soon let the islanders know that there was spirits and wine in the cargo. Naturally interested, the men of Tiree began searching what cargo had been washed ashore, emptied the crates and carried them away.
When the local coast officers of Customs and the Lloyd’s agent visited Tiree to assess the wreck, they found hordes of local men busily looting. The officials tried to chase the looters away but were subjected to what they called ‘gross abuse’. The islanders had men constantly on watch for any cases being washed ashore, which were then pounced on. The contents of any bottle was emptied into more durable containers, which were buried somewhere beneath the sand, safe from prying official eyes. The officials saw one case bobbing on the sea and estimated it would come ashore on the bay next door.
As they walked round, keeping an eye on their prize, a man named Kennedy stripped naked and plunged into the water. He wrestled the case through the breakers back to the beach when the officials challenged him. However, a large group of men arrived to back up Kennedy, and the officials backed away.
At a court of enquiry in Edinburgh on 31 July 1885, Captain Scorgie was blamed for the accident and lost his master’s certificate, but it was restored on appeal. The islanders retained the secrets of where they concealed this bounty from the sea.
The Scuttler
In 1883 troubles gripped Tiree. The islanders were making newspaper headlines with their opposition to the Duke of Argyll, the landowner, but simultaneously there was another drama unfolding. Even as the islanders watched for the arrival of the Royal Marines to support the Duke, two policemen slipped quietly through the quiet townships and arrested John Malcolm Brown, the son of a crofter. They took him back to Oban on the steamship Trojan. Brown had not been involved in the rioting in the island but was accused of scuttling a ship.
Brown had been the part owner and mate of the 99-ton sailing ship St Athens, also possibly owned by his father, Archibald Brown. It was suspected that the schooner was in the father’s name to save creditors from grabbing her. St Athens was a schooner coaster and in April that year she had loaded a cargo of china clay at Sutton Pool, Plymouth, in the south of England and headed for Runcorn, in the Mersey. China clay was often considered a heavy and dangerous cargo. Until that time St Athens was in good condition and Captain Walker had ascertained that she did not take in water.
On the twelfth of the month, St Athens was sailing on a calm sea in fine weather. Brown and an able seaman named John Lamond were on deck, sawing a piece of wood, which they took down below. When somebody shouted that St Athens was taking in water, James Walker, the master, hurried below and saw chips of wood floating on the water, and also saw Brown’s mattress in the lazarette, the compartment where stores were held. He mentioned the facts to Brown, who said, ‘Oh, let her go. She’s no use to me.’ Walker suspected that Brown had lain on the mattress and bored through the hull of the vessel in order that his father could claim the insurance of £750.
Brown appeared at the High Court in Edinburgh in November. The prosecution claimed he had bored several holes in the hull and concealed them with plugs. According to the prosecution, when the schooner reached a point twenty-nine miles north of the Longships Lighthouse near Lands End, Brown had removed the plugs to allow the water in. Brown pleaded not guilty.
Captain Walker told the jury that when he learned of the leak he ordered the hands to the pumps, but only one pump was operable, as the handle for the second was missing. The handle was later found under the floor of the cabin. The crew abandoned and eventually arrived in Kingston in Ireland.
Oban man James McDougall was a member of the crew. He claimed that Brown had mentioned that he might scuttle the ship to save her from creditors and offered him a bribe to help, but McDougall refused. He also claimed that Brown had offered him a bribe of £40 and a gold watch to scuttle the ship on an earlier voyage and had boasted he would buy a new vessel with the insurance. He offered McDougall the post as master if he helped. McDougall had turned down the offer but was so unsure of Brown that he did not undress at night in case Brown sank the ship. The schooner was insured with a number of insurance companies, including the Union Association of Underwriters in Dundee, the Dundee Shipping Association, the Banffshire Mutual Marine Insurance Association, the Union Freight Insurance Association of Dundee and the Dundee Shipping Freight Insurance Association. Charles Levison, the ship’s carpenter, also claimed that Brown offered him £70 and a good position on a steamer he would allegedly buy with the insurance if he helped scuttle St Athens. He also asked how to bore a hole in a ship’s hull: Levison suggested using an auger.
The defence were not quite mute. They called James Finlay of Lossiemouth, a previous master who declared that St Athens had sprung a leak on her last voyage with him and he had difficulty in keeping her afloat. However, the jury had no difficulty in finding Brown guilty and the judge, Lord McLaren, sentenced him to five years’ penal servitude. Lord McLaren said the term would have been longer if he considered that any lives had been put at risk.
Fishing Disputes
Fishermen sometimes fell foul of laws that may have seemed designed specifically to prevent them from making an honest living. Such a case occurred in April 1885 when Alex McKay, Kenneth Cumming, Donald Smith and Donald Duff, four fishermen from Portmahomack, took seventy baskets of mussels from a scalp at Ardjachie Point off Easter Ross. Mussels were commonly used as bait for fishermen who long-lined for white fish. The fishwives would shell them and painstakingly attach them one by one to the hundreds of hooks on the line.
Unfortunately in this case the fishermen had dredged mussels from a scalp they apparently had no right to. Major Rose of Tarlogie claimed that he owned that scalp. When the case came to the sheriff court at Tain, the fishermen vocally challenged the major’s claim. They said, loudly, ‘Whose scalps are they?’ and ‘They belong to the Lord God Almighty.’
Not used to such a hubbub in his courtroom, Sheriff Hill threatened to clear the court of the spectators, who were mainly local fishermen and their supporters, come to lend moral support to the men from Portmahomack. None of the men denied taking mussels from the Tarlogie scalps but their agent, Mr Macrae of Dingwall, complained that Major Rose’s claim to the scalps was ‘more in keeping with the laws enacted two or three hundred years ago than the more humane laws during Her Majesty’s reign’. He said the fishermen had ‘as good a right to fish for mussels as for fish’. However, the sheriff ruled that the major owned the mussel beds and the fishermen had been trespassing, and he fined them £1 each or ten days in jail. Not surprisingly, the audience in the courtroom received the sentences with loud displeasure.
There was a not dissimilar case in July 1889 when two fishermen, Malcolm Kennedy and Lachlan Currie, both of Bowmore in Islay, were fishing nearly a mile offshore. They were in their boats and used nets to catch salmon and grilse at Gartnatra, in Islay. Major Lovat Ayshford Wise, the tenant of Islay House since April 1887, who control
led the shooting and fishing of the area, prosecuted them with the full approval of Charles Morrison, the proprietor. The case came to Inveraray Sheriff Court on 11 October that year. Wise was seeking a forfeit of the fishermen’s boats as well as a fine of between ten shillings and £5. However, there were some complications in the case.
In July some men working for Wise had seized nets and gear belonging to the same two fishermen, but in Lochindaal, Islay. The local men had fished Lochindaal for centuries without hindrance and Wise’s minions had acted without any warrants, so the seizures were illegal. The fishermen had taken an action against Wise, so this case appeared to be a pre-emptive strike by Wise to forestall a case against him. It appeared that the local gamekeepers had informed Wise that there was considerable salmon poaching in the area and he had asked them to try and stop it. He had asked his keepers to seize any nets that could be used for catching salmon, as when he was in England he seized rabbit nets belonging to poachers. When Malcolm Kennedy called at Islay House and asked for his nets to be returned, Wise had refused. Kennedy had handed him a copy of the Fisheries Act and said the nets were shot legally and Wise had no right to them. In response, Wise said, ‘You may think yourself very lucky I did not prosecute you.’
When the case came before the sheriff court at Inveraray, Wise claimed he had exclusive rights to fish for any kind of fish within certain limits of the shore but he was only interested in salmon and trout. He admitted his ignorance of the kind of nets habitually used in Islay but insisted that they were suitable for poaching. Malcolm Kennedy repeated that the nets were a mile beyond the low water mark and said when they were seized they held only dog fish.
Whisky, Wars, Riots and Murder Page 10
