Lachlan Macquarie, Governor of New South Wales

Major-General Lachlan Macquarie, soldier and colonial governor, was born on the 31st of January, 1761.

Lachlan Macquarie was a British army officer who was appointed Captain-General and Governor of New South Wales in May, 1809, and who came to be known as the ‘Father of Australia’. He was sent to Australia to restore order after the corrupt rule of the original convict guard – the New South Wales Corps – who had rebelled against Governor William Bligh of H.M.S. ‘Bounty’ fame, in the ‘Rum-do’ of January, 1808. A young Macquarie had joined the army at the age of fifteen and served in North America, Europe, the West Indies, and India, in a thirty-two-year military career, before sailing to the other side of the world. Governor Macquarie remained in Australia for twelve years and for his achievements, he is regarded by historians and many Australians as the real founder of Australia. In fact, it was Macquarie who formally adopted the name ‘Australia’ – a name proposed by its first circumnavigator; Matthew Flinders – in 1817, and he undoubtedly did a lot to help shape the future of the continent.

Macquarie’s reputation is sealed amongst the descendants of the ‘Emancipists’, who were the majority of the Australian population until the gold rush years. But it was the ‘Exclusionists’ – the large landowners and sheep farmers – and churchmen and officials, such as Samuel Marsden, Jeffery Hart Bent and John Thomas Bigge, whose intransigence and lack of understanding helped to get Macquarie recalled to Blighty. What angered the landowners and those others was Macquarie’s policy of emancipation for the colony’s freed convicts, which gave them opportunities by encouraging exploration, settlement and agriculture through land reform. Macquarie also established a decent administration, noted for its fair treatment of convicts and freedmen, schools, town planning, and the colony’s currency. Somewhat forgotten and ignored in his homeland, the name of Lachlan Macquarie is hardly likely to be forgotten in Australia; not least as there are so many things and places named in his honour. Macquarie died a mere three years after returning to Britain, believing his efforts had all been for naught, but they weren’t in vain.

Lachlan Macquarie was born on the island of Ulva, in the parish of Kilninian in the Inner Hebrides, on the 31st of January, 1761. His uncle, Murdoch Maclaine of Lochbuie, paid for Lachlan’s education and, in 1776, he accompanied that uncle to North America as a volunteer. There is a tradition that Lachlan attended the Royal High School in Edinburgh, but whether or not he did, he was sufficiently well educated to be able to enter the army on the 9th of April, 1777, as an Ensign in the 2nd Battalion of the 84th Regiment of Foot (the Royal Highland Emigrants). Ensign Macquarie performed garrison duty in Halifax, Nova Scotia, before being commissioned a lieutenant in the 71st Regiment, in January, 1781, and performed garrison duty in New York and Charleston at the closing stages of the American War of Independence. In June, 1783, he was transferred to Jamaica, but twelve months later he was back home on half pay.

Later, in 1787, he got a Lieutenant’s commission in the 77th Regiment and began a long association with India. While serving in India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Macquarie saw active service including the sieges of Cannanore, in 1790; Seringapatam, in 1791; and Cochin, in 1795; the capture of Colombo and Point de Galle during the expedition against the Pyché Rajah, in 1796; the Battle of Seedaseer, in 1799; and the second siege of Seringapatam, in 1799, where Tippoo Sahib was killed. Between 1801 and 1802, he was in Egypt expelling the French, but he returned to India in July of 1802 to assume command of the 86th Regiment. He was back in England in May of 1803 with a staff appointment in London and, on the 17th of November, 1805, was granted a commission as Lieutenant-Colonel of the 73rd. However, he was by then back in India with the 86th Regiment and about to fight against Holkar. Around eighteen months later, on the 19th of March, 1807, Macquarie left India for the last time.

Macquarie wasn’t a ‘shoe-in’ for the post of Governor of New South Wales. He had applied to Castlereagh, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, for the post of Lieutenant-Governor, but when Nightingall changed his mind, Macquarie wrote again, offering his services as governor, and got the job. Castlereagh seems to have had an influence on Macquarie’s approach to the governance of Australia as he emphasised in his confidential instructions to the new Governor, “The Great Objects of attention are to improve the Morals of the Colonists, to encourage Marriage, to provide for Education, to prohibit the Use of Spirituous Liquors, to increase the Agriculture and Stock, so as to ensure the Certainty of a full supply to the Inhabitants under all Circumstances.” On the 22nd of May, 1809, Macquarie and his second wife, Elizabeth, sailed from Portsmouth in the ‘Dromedary’ escorted by H.M.S. ‘Hindostan’ and they entered Port Jackson on the 28th of December. Macquarie was sworn in on New Year’s Day, 1810.

Just over twelve years later, on the 12th of February, and after his third application to resign had been accepted, Macquarie left Australia on board the ‘Surry’. Back in London, he had to contend with the fall out from the “false, vindictive and malicious” report of John Thomas Bigge, otherwise described as “this vile insidious Bigge Report.” Another concern that he had to deal with was a pension, promised by the Government and which by July, 1823, was still unforthcoming. However, in April, 1824, Earl Bathurst confirmed that Macquarie would be paid a pension of £1000. Sadly, Macquarie didn’t live to enjoy his pension as he died in his London lodgings on the 1st of July, 1824. He was buried at his estate on Mull, where the family tomb is now administered by the National Trust of Australia.

Macquarie transformed the New South Wales penal colony from a backwater into a burgeoning new country. His emancipist ‘experiment’ was ahead of its time and certainly no other governor was ever as popular, even if he wasn’t able to operate from a sound constitutional basis. During his twelve years in charge, the non-indigenous population of Australia (including Van Diemen’s Land) increased from 11,590 to 38,778. Agriculture grew, manufacturing blossomed, and commerce flourished. A bank and currency were established and two hundred and seventy-six miles of roads had been constructed and many churches, barracks and other buildings completed.

On the other hand, Macquarie was responsible for these orders to soldiers in 1816, “All Aborigines from Sydney onwards are to be made prisoners of war and if they resist they are to be shot and their bodies hung from trees in the most conspicuous places near where they fall, so as to strike terror into the hearts of surviving natives.” That's how it was in the days of Empire.

Janet Cornfoot - the Witch of Pittenweem

Janet Cornfoot, accused of witchcraft, was killed by a mob on the 30th of January, 1705.

You may have heard of the ‘Witches of Eastwick’ – now read about the ‘Witches of East Neuk’. To be more exact, the ‘Witches of Pittenweem’, which place is a scenic fishing village in the Eask Neuk of Fife, one of the ‘five pearls’ as they were known; the fishing villages of Crail, Anstruther, Pittenweem, St. Monans and Elie on the east coast of Scotland. James VI & I is said to have referred to them as “a beggar’s mantle fringed with gold” and prior to that, in 1541 BF (before fish), when their wealth and importance was gained from salt and coal, they were granted Royal Burgh status by Shauchling Jamie’s grandfather; the fifth James o’ yon Ilk. Jamie Saxt himsel’ was a persecutor of witches, taking a personal interest in their torture and interrogation, and during his reign, hundreds of accused, in both Scotland and England were cruelly put to death.

In fact, bewitchment remained a capital offence in Scotland until 1737, and the routine punishments for flirting with the devil included being tied to stakes and strangled, before being burned. There were several notorious witch trials in Scotland, including the Aberdeen Witchcraft Trials, the Auldearn Witch Trials and the North Berwick Witch Trials. Some well known witches include the likes of Bessie Dunlop; Allison Peirson; Isobel Gowdie, the subject of a marvellous song by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band; Agnes Sampson; Christian Dore from the ‘pearl’ of St. Monans; Katherine Campbell and six others in the Bargarran Witch Trial; and bonny Maggie Morgan, forced to admit to being “a harlot and a scandalous limmer” and who was accused of having “ta’en up wi’ a witch frae Pittenween” before being burned on Kirk Hill. But, by late 1704, it had been sixty years since the last witch trials in Pittenweem.

Guess what! It wasn’t going to be long before the next one. Two men were to blame for the shameful events that culminated in the gruesome, vigilante killing of Janet Cornfoot (Corphat) on the 30th of January, 1705. Patrick Morton, the impressionable, sixteen years old son of the village blacksmith, was encouraged in his superstitions by the local Parish Minister, Patrick Cowper; no St. Patrick, that’s for sure. Churchmen wielded a lot of power in those days and Cowper, who reigned as Minister at Pittenweem for forty-eight years, was a particularly evil religious bigot. He ranted and raved from his pulpit to fan the flames and fuel the hysteria that grew out of Morton’s accusations of witchcraft. Apart from puir Janet, there were several other victims of young Patrick Morton’s wild allegations, with the first innocent ‘creatur’ being Beatrix Laing, the wife of the Town Burgess and Council Treasurer.

For some reason, said to be the superstition of carrying ‘cauld iron’ to ward off bad luck, Beatrice Laing pitched up at the ‘smiddy’ and asked Patrick Morton to make her some nails. No doubt Patrick was a bit cheeky in telling her to come back later, with the result that Beatrice gave him a telling off, before storming off, mumbling under her breath at the disrespectfulness of youth. She might even have suggested he’d “get what was coming to him.” Whatever transpired between them, the impressionable Patrick, fed on stories of witchcraft by the Minister, got the idea that Beatrice had cursed him by casting a spell. The story goes that he was reinforced in that belief by discovering coal in a pail of water, but dead embers in a bucket would hardly be surprising outside a ‘smiddy’, wouldn’t you say? The other thing you might ask; is why a witch would be looking for ‘cauld iron’ to ward off “the likes o’ her ain sel’?”

In any case, the power of suggestion being a wondrous thing, Patrick worked himsel’ into a frenzy. He lost his appetite and became weak and emaciated; he suffered convulsive fits and spasms, and in his anguish, he screamed out, imploring his tormentor to stop. Encouraged by Cowper, the younger Partick was convinced Beatrice was a witch and claimed that she’d visited the De’il himsel’ upon him. The Minister had the puir woman, despite her high position, locked up in the Tolbooth at the top of Cove Wynd. Or maybe it was the Kirk, the one at the top of the High Street with the studded door at the bottom of the tower. Cowper appears to have revelled in the opportunity to practice some evil tortures he’d learned elsewhere than in the scriptures. Not satisfied with one witch, Cowper wanted more. Unsurprisingly, Beatrice succumbed to torture and was forced to confess and clipe on her neighbour. She named Isobel Adam, who was also tortured, before implicating Thomas Brown. Between them, they named a hauf-coven of Nicolas Lawson, Janet Horseburgh, and Janet Cornfoot; all jailed in the Tolbooth.

Later, both women retracted their confessions, protesting they were made under duress. In Beatrice’s case, instead of being freed as she had hoped, she was subjected to further torture and thrown into a dungeon for five months; perhaps the nearby St. Fillans Cave. Now, there wasn’t a witch trial in Pittenweem, because Cowper’s petition to have Beatrice Laing and her ‘coven’ tried was dismissed by the Privy Council in Edinburgh. But when Janet Cornfoot escaped, the Minister incited the vigilante mob that captured her before she managed to flee. On the 30th of January, 1705, Janet was found and beaten, and dragged by the heels to the seafront. Her hands and feet were bound and she was swung from a rope tied to the bows of the ‘Sophia’ and repeatedly dunked into the freezing harbour water. More dead than alive, Janet was untied and dumped on the shore, but her barbarous ordeal wasn’t at an end. The crazed mob cast her under a heavy door, which they piled high with boulder upon heavy boulder until the weight crushed the life out of her body. Maybe Cowper got that wicked variation of ‘stoning’ from his bible, but the blood lust still wasn’t satisfied. The mob got a horse and sledge to drive back and forth over her corpse, just to ensure she was deid.

Of the others, the elderly Thomas Brown is known to have died in prison in Pittenweem. The Burgh Authorities ignored the ranting Minister and freed Beatrice with a fine, but she was chased out of the village to die alone and friendless in St Andrews. Isobel Adam too paid a fine and may well also have been banished, although her fate is unknown. Janet Horseburgh continued to live in Pittenweem where her grave is marked by a tabletop stone in the graveyard behind the Tollbooth. There is no further record of Nicolas Lawson. Janet Cornfoot’s broken body was refused a ‘christian’ burial, instead being flung into a communal grave at the spot known as ‘Witches Corner’. Patrick Morton was later exposed as a hysterical impostor, but neither he nor the mob were ever brought to justice or punished in any way. Thirty years after Janet Cornfoot’s death, the crimes used to condemn her and Beatrice Laing ceased to be recognised in law.

Earl Haig

Earl Haig, the Commander in Chief of British forces 1915-18 and founder of the British Legion, died on the 29th of January, 1928.

Earl Haig’s name wasn’t really Earl, it was Douglas and he only became known as Earl after he was granted an Earldom by the King and Parliament, in 1919, after the First World War. It was for his actions during the so-called ‘Great War’ that he is mostly famous – or infamous, depending upon your viewpoint – at a time when the future 1st Earl of Haig was known as Field Marshal Douglas Haig. Haig was Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force for most of World War One and one of the leading military commanders of any nation engaged in that conflict. Significantly, he has been recognised as the architect of the controversial and bloody strategy of attrition that resulted in the excessive casualties for which that war is famous. Crucially, and more recently, he has been execrated for that strategy having resulted in such vast numbers of dead and wounded in exchange for little material gain. That is, other than bringing the War to a close – as the American General, John Pershing, was to say afterwards, Haig was “the man who won the war.” Perhaps this extract from a poem by Siegfried Sassoon sums up the contradictions of Earl Haig’s reputation:

“Good-morning; good-morning!” the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead,
And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.

After the War, Haig was publicly lauded as the leader of a victorious army, but he was also loathed by those who gave him the nickname ‘the Butcher of the Somme’. Nevertheless, despite the insult, he remained a popular figure long after the War and his funeral, for example, was declared a day of national mourning. In his ‘War Memoirs’, published long after Haig was dead and gone, Lloyd George criticised the Earl for lacking the personal magnetism of a great commander, but it was well known that he was essentially a shy man, and so much so that he never addressed his troops and indeed was not often seen by them. In contrast to the Welshman, military historian John Terraine likened Haig to the legendary, historical figures of the Dukes of (hazard a guess…) – Marlborough and Wellington.

Haig has often been portrayed as an inept commander who, contrary to the qualities of competence, integrity and humanity that he surely had, exhibited callous disregard for the lives of his soldiers. It’s as if his tactics are seen as being of the ‘last man standing’ variety, in that the Allies had more men and would therefore outlast the Axis. And, sometimes, it’s as if he gets all the flack ‘on behalf of’ an outdated generation of British generals, hostile to change and technological advance. Haig’s critics argue that he was “unimaginative”, but that’s balderdash (appropriate use of then contemporary colloquial term). Consider that Haig introduced tanks, in 1916, and that the British Tank Corps was the world’s first such force. Consider that Haig’s army was the most mechanised force in the world by 1918. Consider that Haig’s army was supported by the world’s largest air force. And consider that, despite Haig being strongly criticised for failing to appreciate the usefulness of artillery, the Royal Artillery expanded by over five times during the War. Surely, all that demonstrates some degree of imagination or at very least an ability to listen and understand. Look at it this way; no German general was of sufficiently greater imagination to have wrested victory from Haig’s grasp.

Douglas Haig was born in Edinburgh on the 19th of June, 1861. Douglas attended Clifton College and then studied at Brasenose College, Oxford, between 1880 and 1883, where he studied Political Economy, Ancient History and French Literature. He passed his exams at Oxford, but left without a degree, perhaps in order to avoid becoming too old to enrol for officer training at the Royal Military College in Sandhurst, which he did in 1883. He graduated the following year and a year after that, was commissioned into the 7th (Queen’s Own) Hussars. Later, in 1896, he gained a special nomination to attend a year long course at the Staff College in Camberley. Haig’s first active service came in 1898, when he served as acting Chief of Staff and was attached to the cavalry forces of the Egyptian Army during the Omdurman Campaign.

Haig also served in the Boer War, being involved in the Colesberg operations and becoming Assistant Adjutant General of the Cavalry Division. Haig was mentioned in despatches four times during his service in South Africa and that brought him to the attention of the likes of Major-General John French and Kitchener, both of whom would have important roles later on, in World War I. After the turn of the Century, in 1901, Haig became the Commanding Officer of the 17th Lancers and, in 1902, was also appointed Aide-de-Camp to King Edward VII. In 1904, Haig left the Lancers and returned to India where Lord Kitchener was Commander-in-Chief. At that time, Haig, who had been a Captain for ages and ages, had reached the rank of Major-General; the youngest in the British Army at that time.

Haig returned to Britain in 1906, to take up the post of Director of Military Training on the General Staff. The next year, Haig took up the post of Director of Staff Duties in the War Office and, in 1909, he went back to India once more; this time as Chief of the Indian General Staff. He returned to Blighty in 1912, to be appointed GOC Aldershot Command, and in 1914, he once more became Aide-de-Camp to a King; George V. Upon the outbreak of the First World War, Haig was appointed Commander of I Corps and helped to organise the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), commanded by Field Marshal Sir John French. Following the defensive successes at the Battles of Mons and Ypres (the first time), Haig was promoted to full General and, in December 1914, the I Corps was expanded into the British First Army, of which Haig was given command. Then, in December of the following year, after French had fallen out of favour, partly down to Haig’s influence, the Scotsman became Commander-in-Chief of the BEF. Then he and his army won the War.

Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, died on the 29th of January, 1928 and, at his request, was buried in Dryburgh Abbey, near his estate of Bemersyde, with a simple headstone, not unlike far too many of his men who were buried on the battlefields of France.

William Burke

William Burke, murderer, was hanged in Edinburgh on the 28th of January, 1829.

The names of Burke and Hare are synonymous with 19th Century Edinburgh, but are also current in tales of ghastly and ghoulish goings-on, which fuel the tourist industry in the 21st Century in Scotland’s capital city. From underground vault tours and ghosts and gore tours to witchery tours and ‘jumper ooter’ scare ’em tours, the Old Town of Edinburgh is full of restless spirits – or so we’re led to believe. As one tour operator states, “The closes and courtyards of the Royal Mile are home to an eclectic collection of departed souls.” So, whether it’s the ghosts of Burke and Hare or the ghosts of their victims you might expect to come across on one of Edinburgh’s after dark tours, the city isn’t in the slightest bit concerned about being associated with such loathsome rogues. In fact, it’s rather proud of its ghastly heritage – or more to the point, it cannae ignore a decent source of tourist income. And tourists are still incoming, as the price of a hotel bed will testify.

You may remember Burke and Hare as grave robbers or as yon bodysnatchers, but although infamous as wicked exponents of such ‘trades’ they were never proven to have robbed a single grave. Their ‘modus operandi’ meant they didn’t need to resort to such hard work as digging up a coffin and, in fact, their main customer, the famous anatomist, Dr. Robert Knox, didn’t want ‘foostie’, auld, decaying corpses. No, indeed, Dr. Knox was after fresh specimens and he didnae ask awkward questions. Burke and Hare have been rather interestingly labelled as ‘resurrectionists’ or ‘resurrection men’, but let’s just say that’s a posh term for grave robbers, and equally misguided in their particular case.

One interesting fact is that neither Burke nor Hare was from Edinburgh, nor were they Scottish. They were Irish navvies who came to work on the Union Canal, but had never met whilst working there. William (Brendan) Burke had ta’en up with a Scots woman, Helen (Nell) MacDougal, and eventually, he and Nell made their way to Edinburgh’s West Port district. After the completion of the Canal, William Hare went his own way to Edinburgh where he also found cheap lodgings in West Port. When Hare’s landlord died in 1826, he took up with the widow, Margaret Logue, and they ran the boarding house together, in Tanner’s Close. By chance, Burke and MacDougal became paying lodgers of the Hare’s and the foursome ended up with a sinister purpose.

Burke and Hare’s first venture into selling corpses for cash occurred quite by accident. In November of 1827, one of Hare’s lodgers, who owed him rent, an army pensioner called Donald, fell ill and died. Hare was mad at losing the rent and concocted the plan that he and Burke were to repeat with more nefarious intent, many more times. They hid the body, filled the coffin with wood and after it had been all unsuspectingly removed, headed off to the nearest anatomist. The two Irishmen ended up knocking at Dr. Knox’s door and selling their first body. Their booty was the tidy sum of £7 10/-. Soon, they were seeking new victims and the next was another boarder who became sick, Joseph the Miller. In Joe’s case, Burke and Hare hastened his demise, by putting him out of his misery. That ‘mercy killing’ was the first in which they employed what became their specialty, which in turn became known as ‘burking’ – they pinned him down and suffocated him by covering his nose and mouth.

Suffocation whilst drunk and helpless had two benefits; the victim was easy to dispatch and the body had no marks to indicate foul play. The fourth victim was elderly Abigail Simpson, who met Hare before being ‘entertained’ by the gruesome foursome and persuaded to stay the night. She never made it through the night. Burke and Hare soon took to hanging out in the Inns in the Grassmarket, from where lured their victims. Those were the sort that wouldn’t be missed; waifs, strays and prostitutes from the streets of the Old Town. Two of those prostitutes were Mary Paterson from West Port and her pal, Janet Brown, both picked up by Burke. Thankfully for Janet, she remained fairly sober and was able to leave. Mary was ‘burked’ and delivered to the anatomists slab. However, suspicions were roused as Janet had told her landlady about Burke’s invitation and, of course, Mary Paterson had mysteriously disappeared. In addition, some of Dr. Knox’s students recognised her – you may speculate as to how or why. Indeed, she was missed.

Yet, more bodies followed, including a woman called Effie and one whom Burke told the Police he knew and persuaded he’d take home and look after. He looked after her all right; in the usual manner. Next up and down the anatomists were an old woman and her deaf grandson, but the boy was ‘damaged goods’ as he had to be killed by Hare breaking his back. A Mrs. Ostler, an Ann Dougal, and Elizabeth Haldane and her daughter Peggy, soon followed, but Burke and Hare had become careless. Their downfall began when they disposed of young James Wilson, a weel kent character known as ‘Daft Jamie’. In October of 1828, when the two men had been at their macabre craft for almost two years, Hare invited Jamie back to his house. Jamie put up a fight, but Burke arrived to assist and the lad was promptly ‘burked’. Jamie’s widowed mum went looking for him and some students recognised the body of the boy, and folks began to put two and two together.

Their last murder occurred, rather appropriately, at Halloween and made rather more than five – it made sixteen. Madge Docherty was an Irish woman, glad to meet fellow countrymen and up for a bit of a shindig; she was persuaded to stay the night. When the Hare’s new lodgers, James and Ann Gray, arrived next morning for breakfast, they found no sign of Madge, but later on in the day, Ann Gray found her body under the bed, so the Grays called the Cops in blue and the game was up. The gruesome foursome was arrested and charged with the so-called ‘West Port Murders’, an event that was covered in the newspapers of Monday, the 3rd of November, 1828. William Hare and Margaret turned King’s witnesses and were given immunity for their evidence; not being brought to trial. Nell MacDougall was acquitted with the Scots verdict of ‘Not Proven’. William Burke was tried for murder on the 24th of December, 1828 and sentenced to hang. He was ‘turned off’ in front of a huge crowd, who gathered in front of St. Giles’ Cathedral on the 28th of January, 1829. In a bizarre twist, Burke’s body was given over to the medical Professor, Alexander Monro, for public dissection. Even more bizarrely, a pocket book (wallet), which you can still see in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, was made from his tanned skin.

The Glasgow Herald

‘The Glasgow Herald’ newspaper was first published on the 27th of January, 1783.

‘The Glasgow Herald’ newspaper is the longest continuously published daily newspaper in Britain and one of (if not) the world’s oldest continuously published English language newspapers. The paper was first published from Duncan’s Land, Gibson’s Wynd, in Glasgow, on the 27th of January, 1783, under the title of the ‘Glasgow Advertiser’. It changed title, briefly, to the ‘Herald and Advertiser and Commercial Chronicle’ in 1803, before being re-titled the ‘Glasgow Herald’ on the 26th of August, 1804. It became a daily paper in 1859 and, in 1895, publication moved to a Charles Rennie Mackintosh building in Mitchell Street. Almost a century later, on the 19th of July, 1980, the paper moved to offices in Albion Street. Twelve years after that, in recognition of the need to portray a broader, all-Scotland appeal, and on the 3rd of February, 1992, it became ‘The Herald’.

Today, ‘The Herald’ and its sister publications in the company’s newspaper division, the ‘Evening Times’ and ‘Sunday Herald’, are owned by the Herald & Times Group, which is one of Scotland’s oldest and most successful media companies. In its turn, The Herald & Times Group, the former publishing arm of the Scottish Media Group, an organization that was formerly known as Scottish Television, which bought Caledonian Newspapers in 1996, the result of a management buyout of ‘The Herald’ in May of 1992, is owned by Newsquest, one of the UK’s biggest newspaper and website publishers, and a division of Gannett. The group’s printing press at Cambuslang, just outside Glasgow, is one of the most efficient in the UK and produces more than 300,000 newspapers every day.    

Contrasting with ‘The Herald’, which is a very old newspaper, the ‘Sunday Herald’ is Scotland’s youngest, being ‘born’ as recently as 1999. The boastful slogan of the ‘Evening Times’ is that “no one knows Glasgow better” – which just might be justified. Other ‘Herald Group’ publications include ‘The Scottish Farmer’ magazine and the popular, outdoor specialist publication ‘TGO’, and once a quarter, the ‘Scottish Review of Books’ is published as a supplement in a Saturday edition of the paper. Glasgow’s ‘The Herald’ is a broadsheet newspaper, which competes with Scotland’s other ‘quality’ national daily from Edinburgh, ‘The Scotsman’.

The ownership of the ‘Glasgow Herald’ changed frequently during the 19th Century, but it was always owned by a collection of local businessmen and lawyers, along with some of the leading managers of the paper. Its first editor was John Mennons. Samuel Hunter, editor from 1803 to 1836, was a surgeon with military experience and it was he who established the ‘Glasgow Herald’ as the leading Glasgow paper in an intensely competitive marketplace in the early part of the 19th Century. By the 1850s, all its older rivals had folded.

Hunter’s successor, George Outram, editor from 1836 to 1856, was an advocate who dabbled in verse. James Pagan, editor from 1856 to 1870, was the first professional journalist to be appointed as editor, and under his guidance, news coverage was widened and editorial material increased. Pagan was followed by the academic, Professor William Jack, 1870 to 1875, then by James Stoddart, 1875 to 1888, and by Charles Russell, from 1888 to 1907, with the latter two being, like Pagan, trained journalists. Both Stoddart and Russell greatly improved the paper’s literary and artistic sections. Its editors have also included some very famous names, in reality mere namesakes, such as William Wallace and Robert Bruce, and, for real, for a period in 1964 as acting editor, George MacDonald Fraser.

The politics of the ‘Glasgow Herald’ shifted this way and that between Tory and Whig in the early days. Under Hunter, the paper was staunchly Tory, opposing the demand for the ‘First Reform Act’, but afterwards, it developed mild Whig tendencies. It supported the first Scottish nationalist movement in the early and mid-1850s, but it continued to be moderately Liberal until Gladstone’s ‘Irish Home Bill’ of 1886, which it strenuously opposed. Thereafter, the paper became an eloquent advocate of Liberal Unionism.

One of the interesting characters associated with the paper is Alexander Sinclair, who rose to become a managing partner and introduced many innovations. Sinclair was born in Campbeltown, in 1828, and arrived in Glasgow, in 1843, to complete his education. He joined the ‘Herald’ in 1845 after answering an advertisement for a boy clerk, in which position he was the first employed by the company. Sinclair rose to become a managing partner by successive stages; from Clerk, to Keeper of the Petty Cash, to Cashier, and then Manager of the Commercial and Publishing Departments. Under Sinclair’s stewardship, the Linotype composing machine was introduced, by which an operator using a keyboard could set, cast, and deliver in lines, upwards of seven thousand letters per hour.

These days, an on-line, electronic version of ‘The Herald’ provides a daily round of news and sports coverage as well as a business section and a selection of feature articles, and the ‘Evening Times’ is also on-line. However, up to date technical innovations were not confined to those of the 21st Century. Back in the 19th Century, in 1845, when Alexander Sinclair joined the ‘Herald’, it had one printing press, wrought by two men, turning out 400 copies per hour. By 1909, largely thanks to improvements made under Sinclair’s management, it had nine presses driven by electric motors, one of which alone could print, fold, and deliver 1,000 complete ‘Heralds’ in six minutes, with the paper consumed by a morning issue running to 126 miles worth. In 1845, the electric telegraph was unknown for newspaper purposes, but revolutionary technical innovations and journalistic improvements consolidated the paper’s dominance when, in 1868, it became one of only two British papers with telegraphic wires going directly into its offices. That same year, the paper also introduced new ‘Hoe’ presses and, in 1875, it installed rotary presses.

In 1845, a copy of the ‘Herald’ cost 4½d, largely due to the ‘knowledge tax’, which meant a penny stamp on every printed copy, sold or unsold, three halfpence per pound on every kind of paper, and eighteen pence on every advertisement. Thanks to successive legislation in 1853, 1855 and 1861, the entire newspaper industry became duty free and the price of the ‘Herald’ was reduced to 1d when it was made daily, in 1859.

Kirkpatrick Macmillan

Kirkpatrick Macmillan, inventor of the rear-wheel driven bicycle, died on the 26th of January, 1878.

Kirkpatrick Macmillan was one of the characters of 19th Century rural Scotland and is believed by many to have changed transportation forever when he built the first pedal-powered, rear-wheel driven bicycle, in around 1839. Stories around his invention differ in detail; one version suggests that around that time he saw a ‘hobby horse’ being ridden along a nearby road, while others have it that a customer brought in a ‘swift-walker’ for repair. In either event, Macmillan decided to make a copy for himself.

When it was finished, Macmillan considered the idea of attaching iron rods and foot pedals to the rear wheel. The way he figured, it would be an improvement if riders could propel the machine without having to push their feet against the ground. The rods and pedals would crank the rear wheel and create motion, much like the locomotive, a recent invention at the time. Working at his smithy, Macmillan designed treadles, rods and cranks to supply power to the rear wheel, and built a prototype, which he completed in around 1839 (it might’ve been ’38, ’39 or ’40). His fellow villagers thought him ‘mad’ for dreaming up such an idea but, although known locally as ‘Daft Pate’, he did indeed become the inventor of the first pedal-driven velocipede – the first bicycle as we know it;­ that is a bicycle with transmission and front wheel steering.

Macmillan’s pedal bicycle – the first of its kind to be ridden with the feet off the ground – was propelled by a horizontal reciprocating movement of the rider’s feet on the pedals. His system used swinging cranks on the front wheel to power a pair of connecting rods that were linked to levers on the rear wheel. The machine had wooden wheels and iron-band tyres, and weighed almost exactly half a hundredweight (56lbs).  It was so heavy that he pushed off by striking the ground with his feet and the physical effort required to ride it must have been considerable. However, Macmillan quickly mastered the art of riding his bicycle on the rough roads and was accustomed to making the fourteen-mile journey to Dumfries in less than an hour. Being a natural showman, as befits his nickname, Macmillan amazed townspeople by riding his contraption at top speeds through the streets. But instead of being revered as a great invention, his new ‘hobby horse’ was viewed as a dangerous menace. Macmillan could often be seen crashing into trees and flying over the handlebars.

Macmillan’s next exploit, in June 1842, was to ride his cumbersome machine the sixty-eight miles over rough country roads from his tiny smithy home (incidentally, still intact today) into Glasgow. The trip to visit his two school teacher brothers in the city took him two days. And on the way back to Dumfriesshire he is said to have raced the stage coach. Whilst in Glasgow, the inventor was arrested and later fined five Scots shillings for knocking down and causing a slight injury to a small girl who ran across his path. This incident occurred was he while ‘speeding’ (at 8 mph!) into the Gorbals. Reputedly there was a large crowd gathered excitedly to see what was described as this ‘Devil on wheels’ and no doubt the unfortunate affair could be attributed to the press of the crowd. The magistrate at the Gorbals Public Bar was sufficiently impressed to ask Macmillan for a figure-of-eight demonstration in the courtyard, and is said to have slipped him the money for the fine. So as well as being the inventor of the bicycle, Macmillan can be said to have caused the first road traffic accident in the history of transportation.

Kirkpatrick Macmillan was born the son of a blacksmith in Keir, Dumfriesshire, on the 2nd of September, 1812, albeit lacking an overture to herald the event. He held a variety of positions as a young man, before becoming a blacksmith himself, in 1824, and eventually, much later, returning to work with his father at Coathill (Courthill) Smiddy, at Keir Mill. He pulled teeth for both horses and humans and was a popular fiddle-player at weddings.  Kirkpatrick Macmillan died on the 26th January, 1878, and was buried in the Kirk yard at Keir, where he is remembered by a plaque on the Smiddy, which reads ‘He builded better than he knew’.

Macmillan seems never to have thought of patenting his invention or trying to make any money out of it, but others who saw it were not slow to realise its potential, and soon copies began to appear and be sold for six or seven pounds. Gavin Dalzell, of Lesmahagow, copied Macmillan’s machine in 1846 and passed on the details to so many people that for more than fifty years he was generally regarded as the inventor of the bicycle. Macmillan’s early machine can be seen, albeit in reproduction, as the centrepiece of the cycle display at the Museum of Transport in Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall – the oldest bike in existence.

In Macmillan’s hometown of Coathill, the one hundredth anniversary since the creation of his velocipede was celebrated in September 1946 after an eight-year delay caused by WWII. More recently, the Kirkpatrick Macmillan Festival was held in Drumlamrig Castle, near Dumfries. Now, in the 21st Century, there are over 800 million bicycles worldwide, of which more than 300 million are in China, and globally, bicycles outnumber cars by three to one. How green is that?

Of course, there is controversy surrounding the claims for Macmillan. The International Cycle History Conference (est. 1990) would have you believe that all rear-pedal velocipedes were a reaction to the front-pedal velocipede and therefore later. Its earliest, agreed upon date for the origin of the front-pedal velocipede is 1864; attributed to one of two Frenchmen, Ernest Michaux or Pierre Lallement. That infers that Macmillan couldn’t have invented the rear-pedal bicycle a quarter of a century earlier.

However, it seems logical to conclude that rear-pedal bicycles predated front-pedal models, because of one simple attribute – early front-pedal velocipedes were, without question, an improvement on Macmillan’s rear-pedal velocipede, requiring much less effort to crank the wheel and create motion. The pedals on Kirkpatrick Macmillan’s improved ‘hobby horse’ gave the rider a lot more control, but pedalling required brute strength. So it seems crazy to suggest that the rear-pedal velocipede was a reaction to Michaux or Lallement’s ‘Velocè’ (which used technology that is still used in children’s tricycles today). If such was the case, the pedalling action on the Macmillan bicycle would not have been designed with the horizontal reciprocating movement it has.

Robert Burns

Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns, was born on the 25th of January, 1759.

A’body kens Robert Burns, regarded by most as Scotland’s national poet and one of very few people or personages, like Royalty as in ‘the King’, to be known simply by designation – he is ‘the Bard’. Just a mere twenty-five days ago, many folks the world over would’ve been signing their drunken hearts out to the words of a song penned ‘lang syne’ by Robert Burns. A lot of those poeple, whether or not they’ve got the excuse of being a foreigner, would’ve gotten some of the words wrong. Typically, folks sing about auld acquaintance being forgot “for the sake of auld lang syne,” which is a shame, because Burns never wrote that line.

Burns’ line at the end of verse one reads “And days o’ lang syne”; that at the end of verses two and five “For auld lang syne”; and for verses three and four it’s “Sin auld lang syne.” In Scots, the words ‘syne’ and ‘sin’ are used as adverbs, conjunctions or prepositions with several meanings, such as next; afterwards; since; ago; etc. In the context of Burns’ song, ‘lang syne’ means ‘long ago’. In the context of the fourth verse, the lines “But seas between us braid hae roar’d – Sin auld lang syne” means “Broad seas have roared between us since times long past’ (in the days when ‘we two used to wade in the brook…’).

Burns is rightly celebrated home and away, near and far. He is by far, the best known of the many poets who have written in the Scots language. Indeed, he is probably the only Scottish poet of whom the majority have heard. Although much of his writing is in English, his first work was published on the 31st of July, 1786, when Burns was twenty-seven, and entitled ‘Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect’. That simple unbound book, covered in unassuming “plain blue wrappers” and now famous as ‘The Kilmarnock Edition’, was the catalyst for Burns’ celebrity status. The book was published by John Wilson at Kilmarnock in Ayrshire, at a time when Robert Burns and a brother, Gilbert, rented the farm of Mossgiel, near Mauchline. Burns’ celebrity got him out of there on a trip to Edinburgh in late November of 1786, after many of the limited edition of 612 copies of ‘Poems’ had reached the socialites of Edinburgh and been met with curious amazement. The landed gentry and literati were equally astounded at the quality of Burns’ work and the fact that he was ‘merely’ a farmer.

Burns became known as the ‘Ploughman Poet’, preceding his overlapping contemporaries, the ‘Ettrick Shepherd’ (James Hogg) and the ‘Weaver Poet’ (Robert Tannahill) in being granted such a humble moniker. Robert Burns was born Robert Burnes (or Burness) on the 25th of January, 1759 and thereafter became known, variously, as Robert Burns (he changed the spelling himself), Robden of Solway Firth, and the Bard of Ayrshire. Robert was born in the village of Alloway and his first exposure to ballads and stories came from listening to old Betty Davidson. Her story telling struck an elemental chord, which was later to chime and rhyme in monumental fashion. When he was six, Robert was taught for a while by a man called Campbell, in a wee school at Alloway Mill. When the teacher left, Robert’s father clubbed together with some neighbours and employed a man called John Murdoch to teach their children. After the Burneses flitted to Mount Oliphant, in 1766, Robert and his brother Gilbert continued to attend Murdoch’s school, for two years, until Murdoch moved to Carrick. After that, Robert’s father undertook his sons’ education, during and after the day’s work on the farm until, when Robert was about thirteen or fourteen, he and Gilbert went to the Parish School of Dalrymple. They spent a summer quarter there, to “improve their handwriting” and later, Robert spent three weeks in Ayr, reunited with Murdoch, who coached him in grammar and a bit French.

Burns’ education owed much to his father, to Murdoch and to his own reading. Murdoch taught him mathematics, English and grammar as well as French (good enough to be able to read), and lent Robert the works of Pope, Addison, Swift, Steele and Shakespeare. Murdoch also lent him the ‘Life of Hannibal’ and he got the ‘Life of Sir William Wallace’ from a blacksmith; whom we should perhaps thank for ‘Scots, Wha Hae’. Robert’s father borrowed Salmon’s Dictionary for his sons and instructed them in Geography; Natural History; Astronomy, out of Derham’s ‘Physico and Astro Theology’; and Theology, from Ray’s ‘Wisdom of God in the Creation’. Burns himself got hold of the novels of Richardson, Fielding and Smollett, and the works of the historians, Hume and Robertson. He also learned a bit Latin, from Ruddiman, but perhaps not much more than the ability to read phrases such as ‘Amor vincit omnia’ (love conquers all). Burns was also familiar with the ‘Life of Thomas Davidson, the Scottish Probationer’ and acquainted with Stackhouse’s ‘History of the Bible’.

Burns then, was much more than a ploughman who turned his hand to a wee bit poetry and versification. He was able to draw from an impressive list of sources and notwithstanding he was the son of a poor farmer, he was “a genius of the highest intellect”. He was certainly not out of place amongst the illustrious names of Scotland’s second ‘golden age’ (the first being in the 15th Century). The hundred years say, between 1730 and 1830, was a period known as the ‘Scottish Enlightenment’ and it produced such great poets, artists, philosophers, men of letters, scientists, engineers and architects as James Hogg, Robert Tannahill, Henry Raeburn, Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith, David Hume, Walter Scott, John Gibson Lockhart, James Hutton, John Playfair, Robert Adam, Robert Stevenson, &c.

When Burns went to Edinburgh in 1786, it was as a peer amongst such men; men who were responsible for making 18th Century Edinburgh the most distinguished intellectual centre in Europe. Burns wasn’t a great philosopher like David Hume, nor a scientist such as James Hutton, but his brand of philosophy has stood the test of time just the same. His contribution to the arts and humanities is no less valid, nor should it be valued any less, than say, Adam Smith’s ‘invention’ of economics. Robert Burns was peculiarly responsible for a revival of Scottish-ness, helping to rediscover Scotland’s traditions, its literature and its folksongs, and developing those sources in his own unique style.

“Rabbie was a fairmer’s loon
Liltin’ rhymin’ lovin’ rovin’
Heid and shouders a’ aboon
Liltin’ rhymin’ Rabbie.”