The cruelty was redoubled when a beast had been sold and had to be separated from the circle. Having been bludgeoned to stop it leaving the protection of the group, it now became necessary to persuade the terrified animal to back out of the circle so it could be driven off by its buyer. It would be hammered on the head with great force, and often a goad was shoved up its nostrils to force it to leave its little troupe. At every opportunity it would try to rejoin the rings of cattle it was driven past, as it had been taught to do by the beatings it had suffered over the last few hours, seeking refuge from the violence. A bullock could be beaten out of as many as ten droves before the butchers’ men could get it off the field and into the street on its way to the shambles that lined the market. On the way, the half-blind animal would run into or over or through anything in its path. Whenever a little ring was broken up to extract one of its members, the other beasts would be desperate to get their heads back into the centre as quickly as possible and re-form the ring for their protection. The circles were constantly being broken and re-formed, either by removing a beast or two, or by passing carts and drays.
There were many appalled witnesses to this unnecessary barbarity who tried to have it stopped. Secure penning would have avoided much of the horrible cruelty that turned the already traumatized beasts wild with terror, making them a great danger to the public as they were being driven through the streets to their slaughter. It is testimony to the inherent docility of the breeds of British cattle that they could be treated in this way without rebelling. It would not have been possible to deal with some of the more flighty Continental breeds like this. Many of the Limousin cattle imported into Britain during the 1970s were wild enough when treated quietly, but if they had been goaded beyond endurance they would have become murderous, and nothing but a bullet would have stopped them.
Charles Dickens wrote about the mayhem of Smithfield in Oliver Twist (published in 1838) and supported a campaign to have the market moved to bigger premises. In 1848, the new market for livestock opened in Islington, and Smithfield became the dead meat market that in part it still is today.
A significant element of the trade at Smithfield was in ‘black Scotch cattle’ – Galloways – which are the second most important polled breed to come from north of the border and almost certainly descend from the same stock as the Aberdeen Angus. Until about 1840, when the droving trade in south-west Scotland began to diminish, the black cattle – actually black or brown (dun) or occasionally white – made up the greatest part of the income (and capital) of that impoverished region. In the reign of William the Lion (1165–1214), the penalty imposed by the justices of Galloway for breaking the king’s peace was a fine of twelve score cows and three bulls. This reflected the shortage of cash in a region where there was a large population of cattle. There are numerous references to the considerable numbers of cattle reared in this part of Scotland and driven south to England via Carlisle. The climate, especially near the coast, is maritime and temperate and good for much of the year for the growth of grass. Before dairying (and sheep) pushed them to the margins, breeding beef cattle was the primary activity of farmers in the south-west of Scotland.
The Galloway type was once predominantly horned, although from early times there was a significant proportion of polled animals, which increased as time went on because they appealed to drovers, who were spared the risk of injury from horns. The polling is thought to have come from cattle that had been known in the Borders since Roman times, and probably beyond. The gene for polling is dominant in Bos taurus. So if two cattle are homozygous for polling – i.e. they have the gene for polling from both parents – a herd of cattle bred from them will be entirely hornless. It is also possible to cross a polled bull with horned cattle and have every calf hornless, because polling is dominant and horns are recessive.
From the middle of the eighteenth century, the breed was already more beef than dairy, although it milked better than its modern manifestation, with some strains yielding respectable quantities of milk. It was justly renowned for its beef conformation and quick feeding when transported to good English pastures, particularly in East Anglia, where it was driven in its tens of thousands to Norfolk graziers. In winter the animals were fed on turnips and grain to supply the winter market in the capital. The demands of the fatteners for a quick-feeding, even-fleshing beefing bullock, unaffected by dairying considerations, had a strong influence on the breeding and development of the type. But also no progressive breeders tried to ‘improve’ it, so it retained, unimpaired, its ‘native characteristics’, the most valuable of which is supreme hardiness, and the most notable its remarkable prepotency, which stamps its black colour and polling upon almost every other breed with which it is crossed. It does not mature early – five years is the average age when it is ready for the butcher – but when it is ready, its flesh is of superb flavour, marbled with fat, juicy and delicate. It is capable of being finished on grass alone. In the days when tallow and the hide were as valuable as the carcase, the Galloway would be worth as much as £2 a head more to the butcher than any other breed.
‘Black and all black’ is the mantra of the Galloway breeders. The animals look darkest in October when they have lost all traces of their brown ‘calf hair’, which usually returns in the spring and grows out during a summer of good grazing. It is said that the cows’ long outer coat should be ‘as wavy as bears’ – though not wavy from lightness, because the coat has to shed the worst of weather – with plenty of wool underneath for warmth. Its coat is second only to the buffalo in thickness, and for that reason it tends not to lay down an outer layer of fat for insulation. This characteristic is attractive to the butcher, because what was once prized as tallow is now routinely discarded at slaughter.
Not all Galloways are black; there are dun, red, white and belted (both black and dun) types, with not much difference between them in performance. The distinctive belted type has attracted quite a following, as has the White Galloway, which is similar to the White Park in having black ‘points’ – that is, muzzle, ears and feet. There is also a strain that has red points. These white cattle do not breed to type, and if bred together for too long, the points will tend to fade, or even disappear. To maintain the colouring, they have to be crossed back with a black or red Galloway from time to time.
The Celts thought white cattle with red ears came from the Otherworld. They appear in many Irish heroic tales as fairy cattle, associated with the supernatural. In the Conversation of the Morrigan with Cu Chulainn in the Tain, ‘the Morrigan came in the shape of a white hornless red-eared heifer with fifty white heifers about her and a chain of silvered bronze between each two of the heifers’. There is a recent interest in Riggit Galloways. These are a genetic oddity halfway between an earlier type with a white stripe along the back and tail and under the belly, and the solid colours of modern Galloways. Their unique finching is similar to the Gloucester and Longhorn in Britain, and the Austrian Pinzgauer. The historian of the Belted Galloway says that the finching is thought to have come from an infusion of Dutch Lakenvelder blood, ‘probably in the seventeenth or eighteenth century’. But there is no evidence cited for this assertion, which seems to be based on the Dutch cow having a similar white belt. The indigenous, now extinct, Sheeted Somerset had an almost identical belt, and there are other old breeds that have similar marking. So it is just as likely that the belt is a genetic mutation inherent in the breed.
While its cousin the Aberdeen Angus was being developed into an early-maturing animal that responded to intensive stall-feeding, the Galloway remained a grazing beast for the hills and uplands. It stands bad weather and indifferent grazing better than almost any other breed and actually dislikes being housed in winter, being happier outside. Perhaps the main reason for its survival unadulterated through nearly three centuries is that a cross with a Cumberland White (or Whitebred) Shorthorn bull produces the Blue Grey, a wonderful example of the best effects of hybrid vigour. The heifers are highly prized as s
uckler cows, long-lived, thrifty, fertile and adaptable. And the bullocks make fine grass-fed beef.
Youatt declared that there was, ‘perhaps, no breed of cattle which can be more truly said to be indigenous to the country, and incapable of improvement by any foreign cross than the Galloways’. The breeders were instinctive stockmen who understood what many farmers even to this day either ignore or do not recognize: that their breeding cattle should be rather under than above their pasture. In other words they should be capable of thriving on slightly worse land than they have. The Galloways had long been renowned for their capacity to tolerate fatigue better than most other cattle, a quality that was essential if they were to endure the long drive south to their finishing pastures. Their capacity, as the Reverend Smith succinctly put it, to ‘grow thrive and fatten and to be reared at the least expence and afford meat of the most excellent quality’ was what allowed them to bear comparison with any in the kingdom.1
The type was of a uniform quality that appealed to the drovers and the English graziers to whom they sold, particularly those from Norfolk, who prepared cattle for the London market. Inspection of one bullock in a troop was usually enough for the drover to judge, at a glance, the quality of them all. His skill was to know whether they would be ‘good feeders’ and ‘sell best at the far end’. The chief Galloway sales were at St Faith’s on 17 October and Hampton on 16 November. The drover would buy cattle at home, paying either in cash or more likely bills of exchange, and send them off in droves of two or three hundred, in the care of a topsman, who was in charge of the gang of drovers – about one man to every 30 beasts – who accompanied them on their three-week journey to Norfolk. The topsman went ahead to secure grazing at night-stances, organize accommodation and make all arrangements necessary to ensure the trip was as trouble-free as possible.
Despite this, it was a hazardous, occasionally disastrous business. If disease struck, a drover could be ruined and be unable to honour his debts to the farmers. He did well if he could clear between 2s. 6d. (12½p) and 5s. (25p) a head for the journey. If he had the capital or the credit to handle a few large droves, he could make a good deal of money. If all went well, 1,000 head would leave him about £250. Walter Scott’s grandfather was a highly respected drover in a substantial way of business, who made money from the ‘Scotch’ cattle trade.
Youatt quotes the Reverend Samuel Smith, who noted a ‘peculiarity of character’ of the ‘greater proportion’ of Galloway farmers that predisposed them to cattle dealing. It was either inherent or acquired from long experience of satisfying the English cattle trade, but they were in the habit of buying and selling for no reason other than ‘the prospect of a good bargain’. When the markets were brisk, they would not keep a bullock more than a few weeks before succumbing to the temptation to sell it on at a profit. If the market was not favourable, they would hang on to it for a year or more until the right opportunity arose. Those few skilled in striking a bargain grew ‘opulent’ from their trading, but there were many others, ‘tempted to embark in the trade, without either the talents or resources to carry it on’, who did so nonetheless, ‘frequently pursuing the road to ruin’. It seemed that the trade had ‘all the fascination of the gaming table’: the fluctuation of the markets, the sudden gains and losses, the risk, ‘the idea of skill and dexterity requisite’. ‘These excite the strong passions of the mind and attach the cattle dealer, like the gambler, to his profession … He counts his gains but seldom calculates his losses.’ Many farmers spent two or more days of the week at the auction, whether they had any business to do or not, and as a consequence, neglecting the attention that farming needed, incurred expenses greater than their income would satisfy. Their habits of dissipation sapped their desire to work and they became ‘disqualified for any business or employment’.
In one of the Statistical Accounts of Scotland,2 we find a description of the strange life of the ‘lower kind of dealer’ in cattle. ‘He will travel from fair to fair for 30 miles around with no other food than the oaten cake which he carries with him, and what requires neither fire, table, knife, nor instrument to use. He will lay out the whole, or perhaps treble of all he is worth … in the purchase of 30 or 100 head of cattle, with which, when collected, he sets out for England, a country with the roads, manners and inhabitants of which he is totally unacquainted. In this journey, he scarcely ever goes into a house, sleeps but little and then generally in the open air … if he fail of disposing of his cattle at the fair of Carlisle, the usual place of sale, he is probably ruined, and has to begin the world, as he terms it, over again. If he succeeds, he returns home only to commence a new wandering and a new labour, and is ready in about a month perhaps to set out again for England.’ There are others with ‘wandering and unsettled habits’ who ‘job about from fair to fair without ever leaving the country’.
The Whitebred Shorthorn was developed in the wild Border country, the debatable lands of reiving days of the Middle and West Marches in north Cumberland, Dumfriesshire, Roxburghshire and Northumberland. They were bred from the Shorthorn and a type of white cattle that had existed in the Borders from early times, and have become a separate localized breed with a particular purpose. It soon became obvious to the instinctive Border stockmen that the cross with the Galloway produced an outstandingly valuable hybrid. In the late nineteenth century, blue-grey-coloured suckled heifer calves from hard Border farms, brought for sale at Newcastleton market, began to be recognized for their superior qualities as suckler cows on marginal land. They had the hardiness, longevity, carcase conformation and wide-ranging grazing habits of their Galloway dams, coupled with the milkiness, resilience and quality of flesh of their sires.
Their distinctive blue-grey colour is given to them by a genetic effect called incomplete dominance. When a bull that is homozygous (pure bred) for white hair is mated with a cow homozygous for black hair, the offspring will have a heterozygous mixture of black and white hair, rather than being either one or the other. As with all hybrids, mating the results of the first cross does not give reliable results in a second. For this reason, anyone who wants Blue Grey heifers has to repeat the crossing process for each generation. That is why people are prepared to pay about twice the price for a Blue Grey than they would for an ordinary crossbred breeding heifer. Blue Greys are the bovine equivalent of Mules in the sheep world – the result of the genius of stockmen in the north of England, who wanted an animal that would cross with their resilient Galloways and fulfil the particular purpose of making the most of these extensive upland grazings. They scorned pedigree and fashion to get it, and created, above all, practical farmers’ cattle, and none the worse for that.
The early Borders breeders credited with doing much to fix the breed’s characteristics – Andrew Park of Bailey near Bewcastle in Cumberland, and David Hall of Lariston, Newcastleton, just over the border into Scotland – were both commercial farmers with the Borders stockman’s eye for a beast that so characterizes the farmers of the country lying either side of the Roman wall. Although their land is bisected by the Scottish border, the people here have more in common, both culturally and tribally, with each other than with their compatriots to either the north or the south, with their history of 300 years of reiving and extortion. Blackmail originated here – the practice of demanding rent (male) as tribute in goods; black payment as opposed to white male, which was rent paid in silver coin. The Whitebred Shorthorn arose in the epicentre of this reiving country. Lariston was the stronghold of ‘Noble Elliot of Lariston, Lion of Liddisdale’ in James Hogg’s stirring ballad of the reiving times, ‘Lock the Door Lariston’.
When the Whitebred Shorthorn is crossed with a Highland cow, the resulting calf is a strawberry roan, which although not quite as good as a Blue Grey is a perfectly acceptable hardy upland grazer. Both the Galloway and its hybrid offspring will eat most herbage clothing the hills and uplands indiscriminately and are becoming appreciated (belatedly) as ‘conservation grazers’ – keeping invasive species in c
heck and encouraging the growth of productive grasses, while treading down bracken, scrub and brambles. Many conservationists mistakenly held grazing animals to be the villains of the piece, eating out diversity and creating a monoculture, or overgrazing land and killing off unusual species. They are now coming to see that they were wrong, and increasingly accept that managed grazing is the best way of maintaining biodiversity and also producing natural grass-fed meat from the uplands.
1 The Reverend Samuel Smith’s General View of the Agriculture of Galloway, written for the Board of Agriculture in 1810.
2 Surveys of life in Scotland during the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, containing information about the economic and social activities and the natural resources. The First Statistical Account (1791–99) was published by Sir John Sinclair, and The New (or Second) Statistical Account of Scotland was published under the auspices of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland between 1834 and 1845. These two Statistical Accounts are among the finest European contemporary records of life during the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. A Third Statistical Account of Scotland was published between 1951 and 1992.
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