Whisky, Wars, Riots and Murder

by Malcolm Archibald

  After generations of such attrition, Macrae organised a raid on Matheson’s deer forest, with the intention of killing or poaching the deer, and more importantly of drawing attention to the plight of the crofters.

  The raid was well prepared, with the crofters gathering enough food for three days and carrying spars and sails from the fishing boats to act as makeshift tents. They left the scattered townships around the Pairc area, some carrying flags and most carrying guns of various vintages. The high skirl of the pipes announced that the men of Balallan Township and all the rest were no longer prepared to be persecuted. Others of the deer raiders were gathered by the sound of the horn, which seems to have been the way in the Highlands.

  At dawn on Tuesday, 22 November 1887, the crofters rendezvoused between Balallan and Eishken. It was a beautiful day, but the number of men who gathered can only be estimated; the figures quoted varied from a few score to as many as 2,000. Mrs Jessie Thorneycroft-Platt, wife of the tenant, greeted the raiders, but she spoke in English and they replied in Gaelic. Her head gamekeeper was a Gaelic speaker, but rather than support the raiders he said, ‘An Annam a Dhia bheil an caothadh oirbh?’ – ‘In the name of God, have you gone mad?’

  With the gathering complete, the raiders split into small groups and moved into the forest. What happened next was a determined, organised attempt to exterminate the deer population in the area that had once been cultivated land and was now a wilderness. The men were divided into occupations: some were stalkers, some were marks-men, others were porters who carried the sections of tent or were ready to carry the dead deer. Matheson’s gamekeepers tried to minimise the damage by driving the deer away from the raiders, but they were competing with experts who were also fighting for their families.

  On the first night, the raiders gathered at Airidh Dhomhnuill Cam, at the site of what was said to be one of the last clan battles in Lewis, where MacAuleys and Macleods slaughtered each other centuries before. The night was as interesting as the day. As pipers played cheerfully, the men feasted on venison from some of the deer they had killed, then prayed for God to bless this ‘Holy Crusade’. Many men slept under the stars, others under canvas as if they had not a care in the world.

  In the meantime, the tenant of the shooting estate contacted Sheriff Fraser and Procurator Fiscal Ross.

  As rain threatened the next day, the hunt resumed, with more cottars drifting in from the surrounding area. By that time the authorities were determined to end proceedings. With so many people involved, the local police were helpless so Sheriff Fraser had resorted to what seemed the usual tactics in dealing with unhappy Highlanders, and had called for overwhelming backup. As well as whistling up police from the mainland, he had asked for Royal Marines, while a company of the Royal Scots were also on their way from Maryhill Barracks in Glasgow. While he waited for this support, Fraser and Ross took a steamer from their base in Stornoway to the seat of trouble. HMS Ajax sailed north to support the law, but the Hebrideans could also use sea power, and Harris fishing boats carried away the carcasses of deer. In this case the islanders were more effective at sea than the Navy, for Ajax broke down in the Clyde. In the meantime, a party of raiders shared their venison with Douglas Thornycroft, Mrs Platt’s brother.

  By Thursday, 24 November, with an estimated 200 deer killed, the raid was finished and the men gathered at their camp. The flames of huge peat fires reflected from the lowering sky, while the bright music of the pipes contrasted with the dark, still waters of Loch Seaforth. The camp centred on a huge tent of canvas sails and cabers, filled with the scent of stewing venison. The crofters lounged amidst the heather, some mouthing Gaelic songs. They listened to the tale of Donald Mackinnon. He had been pursued by the police and on an impulse turned at bay, gun in hand. However, rather than become a fugitive, Mackinnon was to turn traitor and give the authorities the names of the leaders of the raid.

  Retaliation began. Sheriff Fraser visited the township of Eishken and read the Riot Act to the forty quiet crofters who gathered to meet him as they were on their way home. When Superintendent Gordon led twenty police from the mainland to Stornoway, scores of people gave them a cold welcome, but there was no violence when the police charged five men with mobbing, rioting and intimidation. The five men were Donald Mackinnon, son of a crofter; Murdo Macdonald, a married cottar; Murdo Macleod, a landless squatter; Roderick Murray, who was arrested when attending drill with the Royal Navy Reserves; Malcolm Mackenzie and Donald Macmillan. They walked quietly into custody.

  Donald Macrae was also arrested for inciting to mobbing and violence, and for pointing a firearm at the police superintendent. He had stated that the raid was to bring public attention to the plight of the poor of Lewis. The publicity did just that. A newspaper called The North British Daily Mail sent a reporter to Lewis and started a fund to relieve the poverty. Sympathisers in Scotland and descendants of those exiled in the Clearances contributed until the sum totalled more than £4,000, but in the meantime, the arrested men travelled to Edinburgh to face their trial.

  The Lord Justice Clerk summoned up the case very much on the side of the landowners, but also stated that deer and grouse were wild animals and not private property. The jury found all the accused not guilty. They believed that the men had not been mobbing, as they were scattered over 144 square miles of wild hills. They had intimidated nobody; they had treated the sheriff with respect and even shared their food with Mr Thornycroft. It was a massive victory for the crofters and a crowd carried Macrae shoulder high down the High Street, crying, ‘Down with the tyrants.’

  The raid had gained publicity, but the Pairc remained a deer forest even after the raid and the trial, but there is a much later postscript. In 2011 Rosanna Cunningham, the Environment Minister, granted permission for the people of Pairc to buy the estate under the ‘Right to Buy’ provisions of the 2003 Land Reform Scotland Act. The crofters continue to fight.

  Other poachers had less high ideals and their actions led to tragedy.

  The Poacher from Patagonia

  Every country in the world has its wild areas, the Badlands, no-go areas, places where for a while the rule of Law does not run. Nineteenth-century Scotland was no exception. In the 1890s the forests and hills of Abernethy became notorious for extensive and aggressive poaching. The police and gamekeepers were hard pressed to keep things under control. Of all the poachers, one of the most notorious was Allan Macallum.

  Allan Macallum was a rogue, a wanderer, a poacher and a wild man of the hills. Born on the shores of Loch Ericht in Perthshire, he was bred to the outdoor life. His father was a gamekeeper who soon took his family to Lochaber, where Macallum grew into active youth. His father tried every means he knew to cure him of the habit, but neither kind words nor stinging blows had the desired effect, and father and son worked outdoors but on opposite sides of the fence of legality. As would be expected, there were frequent family conflicts, as well as encounters between Allan Macallum and the other local gamekeepers. When his father died, still in the Fort William area, Macallum’s mother moved to Coylum Bridge, working for her older son, Donald, who in turn worked for the Grants of Rothiemurchus. By that time Allan Macallum was an experienced poacher and had left Scotland years earlier to try his luck elsewhere.

  For seven years he worked as a shepherd in the Falkland Islands and in neighbouring South America, where he wandered in Patagonia. Although rumours of wild days and heavy drinking reached Scotland, there were no details. Around 1890 Macallum returned home and lived with his mother and gamekeeper brother. He had earned a little money and was quiet for a while, but he soon took to wandering into the quiet solitude of the hills for days at a time. He did not look out of the ordinary, a stocky man with a neat moustache, who wore a bonnet and a tweed or tartan jacket, but he returned to his poaching way of life. Soon he was to be notorious throughout the Highlands.

  Macallum relished the life of a poacher, especially as he had a huge area in which to operate, from the Nevis range by Fort Wil
liam all the way east to the granite plateau of the Cairngorms. He was a natural outdoors man, agile, fit and used to being alone. He lived by poaching the wildlife and selling the produce to game dealers the length and breadth of the country, sending his catches from the railway station at Boat of Garten.

  About 1892, Macallum’s mother returned to Lochaber. Perhaps Macallum went with her, for he vanished for a few months. It is possible he was employed as a shepherd in Aberdeenshire or in the far north, but by late 1893 he was living with his brother in Glenmore. Despite his brother’s occupation, Macallum and the gamekeepers were old adversaries, and he had been fined and jailed on more than one occasion. He was notorious for abusive language and having allegedly threatened both gamekeepers and policemen in the past.

  Eventually Macallum and his brother Donald argued about the extensive poaching, there were harsh words exchanged, and Macallum threatened violence. In return, Donald suggested that Macallum was insane, and then they went their separate ways. Donald reported his brother’s threat to the police, and a constable travelled from Aviemore to Macallum’s cottage, but by the time he arrived, the place was securely fastened and there was no way in. The constable returned to Aviemore, reported his failure and returned with reinforcements, but with no better luck.

  Perhaps encouraged by the presence of the police, the local people began to voice their opinion of Macallum the poacher. They told the police he was dangerous and agreed he was probably insane; they claimed they were frightened when they knew he was roaming free.

  At this time, Macallum was forty-three and a deadly shot. He was a touch over five foot ten inches tall, broad in the shoulders, deep in the chest and powerful of arm and leg. Overall, he was a formidable man to cross but he seemed to have no close companions, except for a very faithful dog.

  The poaching continued. Macallum failed to appear at a court in Inverness and was sentenced to a fine of five shillings in his absence, with seven days in jail if he failed to pay. Constable Thomas King of Nethy Bridge Police Office was sent to arrange payment. King was an equally powerful man, with fifteen years’ experience in the police. He was over six feet tall, muscular and was married with eight children.

  Since the disagreement with his brother, Macallum had moved in to Marjory Macpherson’s cottage at Milton of Tulloch in Abernethy parish. Macpherson was known locally as Black May; her daughter, Christina Grant, also shared the cottage, which was little more than a wooden shanty with a porch in front. It was a typical but and ben with the front door leading into a small lobby or hallway. The kitchen and the bedroom both opened off this lobby. There were no other rooms in the house.

  King contacted Constable John MacNiven to help arrest Macallum. The two policemen met on Wednesday, 20 December 1893, and arrived at the cottage at nine in the morning, but there was no Macallum. Macpherson was there with her daughter; both were in bed. King and MacNiven remained in the cottage for three quarters of an hour in case Macallum returned, but when Macpherson said she thought he was outside, the police left to look for him, each going their separate ways, and with Macpherson watching.

  MacNiven strode toward Tulloch Public Park and walked straight into Macallum, who carried a rifle or a shotgun. MacNiven thought he was drunk or had been drinking.

  Macallum pointed the gun at MacNiven. ‘I will put this through your heart,’ he said.

  ‘Why would you put anything in my heart?’ MacNiven asked. ‘I have no ill will against you and you can have none against me.’ Not surprisingly, MacNiven was scared, in case Macallum should carry out his threat.

  ‘I suppose you have come after me about the fine,’ Macallum said. ‘I will pay the fine but I’ll be damned, but I will fight for liberty this time.’

  MacNiven did not come close but said he would accept the fine in instalments if Macallum signed a document to say he would pay that way. Macallum still held his gun in both hands and walked toward Macpherson’s cottage without answering.

  MacNiven did not follow him directly but walked in the same direction, keeping a little distance between them. On a number of occasions, Macallum turned to face him and pointed the gun in his direction, but that may have been a coincidence due to the manner in which the weapon was held. Perhaps because of the gun, MacNiven did not try and arrest Macallum alone.

  By eleven in the morning MacNiven and King were reunited and they returned to Macpherson’s cottage, but once again Macallum was not there. They left and waited for him outside throughout that dark day of cold and sleet until half past three in the afternoon, when a young labourer named Peter Grant told them that Macallum was back in Macpherson’s house.

  They returned to the cottage once more and King shouted out, ‘Hulloa, Macallum!’

  Macallam answered at once: ‘Yes, what have you to say to me?’

  King said nothing. The police entered the cottage together, with MacNiven going into the tiny bedroom and King into the kitchen. As soon as MacNiven entered the dark bedroom, he heard Macallum’s dog growl and thought it might attack him. Instead, he thumped it with his baton. As the dog yowled and backed off, MacNiven heard the sound of gunfire. The room was so dark and the sound so loud that MacNiven thought that Macallum was shooting at him and shouted to King for help, but there was no reply. Still believing that Macallum was in the bedroom, MacNiven left to find King. He crossed the lobby, entered the kitchen and stumbled over something on the floor.

  Only when he lit a match did he see the body of King lying face downward on the floor with a single-barrelled muzzle-loading gun over his legs. The barrel of the gun was warm, as if it had been recently fired, and King had been shot through the heart. MacNiven tried to ascertain whether King was alive or dead. As he stooped, he saw a man in the cottage doorway and recognised Alexander Grant, the postman.

  He called out, ‘Watch the door; he is in and King is shot.’

  ‘He is not in,’ Grant said. ‘He is away down the road.’

  MacNiven then tested to see if the gun was still loaded by blowing down the barrel and then thrust his finger in the barrel. His finger was black when he withdrew it, which was a sure sign that the gun had been recently discharged.

  Once MacNiven and Grant ascertained that King was dead, they carried the body to the nearby cottage of Betsy Geddes to wait for Dr John Grant from Grantown. Dr Grant came that same evening. As soon as King was taken out of the house, MacNiven borrowed a spring cart and drove to Nethy Bridge to raise the alarm.

  Alexander Grant explained his side of the story. He had been outside the cottage when Macallum returned. He saw the police enter a few moments later, heard the door slam and a voice call, ‘Allan,’ then there was the sound of a shot and he saw Macallum running away from the house. Macallum was not wearing his boots, but his dog followed him.

  As was usual in such cases, the police asked for another medical opinion and Dr William Barclay of Grantown also examined King’s body. He said the shot had passed between the seventh and eighth rib, fired from close range. After the murder, the police were now involved in a manhunt.

  Chief Constable McHardy sent telegrams to all the police in Speyside and the surrounding area, ordering them to search for Macallum. Superintendent Hugh Chisholm, the deputy chief constable, led the hunt for the fugitive murderer. There were reports of Macallum from various places.

  About nine on Wednesday night, 20 December, Macallum called at the house of John Stewart at Tonterie, about a mile from the shooting. Stewart was an old friend and fed Macallum and gave him an old pair of boots. On Wednesday night Macallum called at the lonely cottage of Angus Grant at Clachaig and took as much food as he could. The Grants knew who he was but were too afraid to resist him, yet when he asked them how Constable King was, they realised he was not aware the policeman was dead. That same night Macallum borrowed a match from a tramping shoemaker near Skye of Curr, so he was making to attempt to hide from the police. As always, Macallum’s dog accompanied him, but a day later the dog was seen back at Macpherson’s cottage,
alone.

  The police followed Macallum’s trail. They found the impression of a human body in an outhouse at Lurg Farm, about a mile from Clachaig, and guessed Macallum had been there. The police suspected he was heading for Donside, either by Tomintoul or by Inchrory, over the wild, bare hills. Chisholm sent nine policemen to pursue him and had another fifty casting a wider net around the countryside. There were stories that he had been seen between Balmoral and Ballater, and rumours he may run into Deeside, but the police concentrated on the Don area.

  Chisholm led Sergeant Fraser of Kingussie and Constable McBeth of Inverness to follow the trail of Macallum. On Saturday, 23 December, a farmer named William Bell told the police that Macallum was at his farm at Tomachrochair, which ironically means ‘the hangman’s knoll’. The next morning the police caught him. Four police found Macallum in the barn, covered in straw. Chisholm arrested him on the charge of murdering Constable King. Surprisingly for such a reportedly violent man, Macallum did not resist. The police searched and handcuffed him.

  Macallum was brought back to Aviemore, from where he was then taken to Inverness. There was a crowd waiting to see him at Inverness railway station, some pointing as he left the train, handcuffed to a policeman. He was tired, weather-beaten and ragged as he was bundled into a cab and carried to the jail. He appeared before the sheriff that same day but did not plead. All the time he was held in custody, Macallum had kept a guard on his tongue and rarely spoke to anybody. Almost the only thing he said was to ask about the welfare of his dog.