Old Times Schools

   It is a hard fact that sometimes children don't love their teachers, no matter how lovable they are.  Just read the 'Bash Street Kids' in the Beano.  But life was not always fair on the teacher either. Mostly known as the dominie in past centuries, life teaching recalcitrant children in the centuries after the Reformation was likely to be ill-paid and pressurised perhaps by constant scrutiny by the kirk session which appointed teachers and scrutinised their performance.

   The heritor and the minister imposed strict rules for the schoolmaster in each parish.  Among the rules recorded as given to new schoolmaster of Tannadice, Mr William Herald (formerly assistant teacher at Kirriemuir), at a meeting on 24th January 1824 were the following:

   Second:  No cockfighting to be permitted in the schoolroom, under any pretence, under the penalty of two pounds to the poor of the Parish, to be prosecuted for by the Kirk Treasurer;-
   Third:  That he shall assist the Minister of the Parish, or any other in teaching any Sabbath School, the latter may institute...

   The Presbytery of Forfar required that Mr Herald was able to teach English, book-keeping, practical mathematics, land surveying, plus Latin.

   Cock-fighting seems to have been sadly endemic in country schools nearly into the 19th century.  A man informs James Mylne, author of Rambles in Forfarshire (1875):

On the morning of Shrove Tuesday or Candlemas, old style, there was a grand cock fight! at almost every school in the country.  Each of the scholars came to the school with a cock under his arm; a circle was formed by the boys, the master standing in the group to see fair play, and if one of them refused to fight it was called a 'foogie,' and was claimed by the teacher.  If a contest took place, the victor was set aside, and the vanquished, if killed, likewise became the property of the master...Pair after pair were made to fight, and the victors of successive rounds were set aside and made to re-fight with each other until all were defeated or killed but two.  The remaining pair were hailed by the juveniles as heroes of the day, and the teacher at once named one of them the 'king,' and suspended round his neck a small blue ribbon, to which was attached a bell, as a symbol of royalty.  The other he proclaimed the 'prince'...The proprietors of the feathered conquerers gained only honour by their success, as they...had to contribute, for the king 5s, and the prince 2s d.  The sum was spent in purchasing sweetmeats...

   Sometimes a brawl would break out between the owner of a slain fowl and the owner of its winning opponent.  The fact that the teacher gained a meal out of the animal cruelty further darkens the shade of the custom.

Newbigging School and Schoolhouse

   In fact, many of these old country teachers were highly erudite, as exampled by lamented 17th century teacher at Monifieth, John Urquhart, whose own tombstone boasts his merits:

The monument of Mr John Urquhart, a most faithful teacher of the Parish of" Monifieth, which his most loving wife, Janet Morum, caused to be erected. He died I6th June, l664, in his 32nd year. Stop, Traveller! in this tomb, alas! lies gifted Urquhart, who swayed the sceptre of scholastic rule. To children no Orbilius was he, but like a loving nurse, he fed their infant minds with tender care. As offering to his manes, then, pour out a fervent prayer that from the tomb that covers him the fragrance of the Corycian crocus forth may breathe.

   Mr Urquhart was appointed to his post at a meeting on 6th February 1663, at which the payments due to him were detailed, drawn from the who parish:

  That euerie ploughe within the parishe should pay two markes zeirlie vnto him, the one
halfe yreof was to be given presentlie vnto him, the other halfe at the first of August nixt, & in all tymes coming at two termes in ye zeir Candlemas & Lambm'as, everie ploughe thirteenth shilling four pennies...

   Forty-seven ploughs of Monifieth contributed to his income, and his stipend was further bolstered by four marks yearly from the minister.  Parents contributed also, according to their means.  Gentlemen in the parish paid 30 shillings a quarter for each child; husbandmen paid 20 shillings (if they were able to); while other persons of good quality and mark were charged 24 shillings.  Those of 'meaner quality', or less able to pay, were charged 18 pence at the time of their weddings.  Strangers were also called to contribute, post mortem, if they wanted to be buried within the kirk yard and there was also a levie paid at each baptism.

   At the same meeting it was agreed to erect a new schoolhouse, with a dwelling for the teacher, 'as neere the mids of the parishe as could be convenientlie vpon the charges of ye parishoners'. Parents were asked to supply school and master with peats and coal.  Sadly, Mr Urquhart did not live long enough to see many of these benefits.


   Some Angus burghs had schools which had a long and continuous history* Montrose Academy had its roots in a 16th century grammar school, with educational establishments being evident in the town as far back as 1329.  A new fee-paying school was erected in 1815.  Not long before this time a certain James Norval was one of the teachers at Montrose (teaching reading, grammar, geography).  Supposedly an adept at astronomy, he also turned his hand to drama and his play The Generous Chief: A Tragedy was produced in the Theatre Royal.  His play was printed in 1792 and was reviewed in the Annals of Literature in London, where it was said to be a play derived from the history of the Highlands:

There is much fighting, much love, and no little absurdity in the conduct of the whole.  A spark from Ossian occasionally animates the language, and sometimes renders the poverty of the other parts more conspicuous.  In short, it should never have strayed from Montrose, where the story would gain it favour, the Scotticisms never obscure the language, nor the absurdities disgust.

   For all his accomplishments, Mr Norval was not universally popular.  His teaching methods were criticised, not just in town, but by the poet Alexander Smart.  He apparently did not like change and penned a number of lessons attacking educational change in the Montrose Review, 1827-29.  He also seems to have been unpopular on a personal level, as evidenced by this rhyme, probably written by a pupil, which details his violent habits and brings in his dwelling place at the Cottage of Repose (opposite and east of the toll-house at the junction of the Hillside and Charlton), just in case anyone wanted to find him to seek revenge:

Cockie Norval of Montrose
Lives at the Cottage of Repose;
He whips his scholars every day,
But takes good care of the quarter’s pay.

* A further post will examine the general history of schools and the education system in Angus through the centuries.

Is Angus Part of "Ballad Land"?

   The ballad tradition in Scotland in one of the jewels in the national culture and flourised mostly in two areas, the borders and the north-east, which means in this context Aberdeenshire and Moray and Banff.  Any geographical definition of North-East Scotland usually excludes Angus, which sometimes (uneasily?) sits in geographical designations such as 'North East Central Scotland'.  There are relatively few ballads which can conclusively be proven to have Angus as their setting, which is not to say there were not songs and ballads ascribed to particular authors of the 19th century and before which passed from person to person and may have entered oral tradition to some extent.

   Considered here are certain ballads which may have Angus as a backdrop, though the claim can be contested.  At the end of the article I could not resist adding another variant of 'The Bonnie Hoose o Airlie', whose location of course is not in dispute.

Young Reiden

   The redoubtable Andrew Jervise states in Memorials of Angus and the Mearns (1861, vol I, pp. 85-8) that this ballad has been placed by some in the parish of Farnell.

At Red Den, on the west side of the parish...the spring called Reiden's Well is locally described as the scene of the tragedy of 'Young Reiden,' celebrated in the ballad of that name.  This idea, except in the third line of the opening stanza of the ballad as rehearsed by the old people of Farnell, is not borne out by the context, and it appears to have originated in the peculiarity of the name, and in the freak of some local rhymster, who (although he preserves 'Clyde water' and other associations of the older ballad) makes his version open prosily thus:—

Young Reiden was a gentleman,

A gentleman of fame ;

An' he 's awa' to East Fithie,

To see his comely dame.

Fithie had a castle, the remains of which form the back wall of a cottar house; and upon an adjoining knoll to the east, popular story avers that the 'lady fair' was burnt for themurder of young Reiden. The lands of Fithie gave surname to a family that held a respectable position in the county from about the middle of the thirteenth century until within these two hundred years. These lands also paid feu-duties to the Bishop of Brechin, and probably the De Fithies were vassals of the Bishops down to the year 1457, as at that time George Leslie, the first Earl of Rothes, had a grant of Easter Fithies, and this was confirmed by charter, under the Great Seal, to the third Earl in 1511. In little more than a century afterwards the property came intothe hands of Sir Robert Carnegie of Kinnaird. At one time

View towards Greenlaw, Farnell

Leezie Lindsay

   Like may traditional ballads, 'Leezie Lindsay' is frustratingly short of internal detail which would help the reader/hearer know who the characters are or where the scene of the narrative was set.  According to Robert Ford's Vagabond Songs and Ballads of Scotland (1901), the main female character was known in the common tradition of the Mearns to be one of the Lindsay family's branch from Edzell in Angus.

Will ye gang wi me, Leezie Lindsay?

Will ye gang tae the Highlands wi' me?

Will ye gang wi me, Leezie Lindsay?

My bride and my darling tae be?

Tae gang tae the Highlands wi you, sir.

I dinna ken how that can be.

For I ken na the land that ye live in,

Nor ken I the lad I'm gae wi'.

O Leezie, lass, ye maun ken little

If sae be ye dinna ken me,

For my name is Lord Ronald McDonald,

A chieftain o' high degree.

She has kilted up her skirts o' green satin,

She has kilted them up to her knee,

And she's aff wi' Lord Ronald McDonald,

His bride and his darlin' tae be.

Sir James the Rose

   In a previous post (More On The Lindsays and the Families of Stirling and Auchterhouse Castle)
 I noted that the historian of Auchterhouse parish, Rev. James Inglis, tried his best to prove that the ballad called 'Sir James the Ross' has its setting locally.  According to him, the ballad relates of the deadly rivalry between Sir James Ross and Sir John Graeme, both suitors of Matilda, daughter of the Earl of Buchan.  It only remains to be added that no other written authorities (that I can find anyway) give any credence for stating that the story had its origins here.  There are few modern academics who seem to be attempting to discover the 'truth' or otherwise of the border and north-east ballads.  In the the Edwardian age) Fitzwilliam Elliot devoted much energy in this area in his work The Trustworthiness of Border Ballads (published in 190), but it was perhaps an impossible task.

The Bonnie Hoose o Airlie

   As I said above, I will finish with another version of 'The Bonnie Hoose o Airlie'.  No need here to go into the backstory of the ballad.  But an interesting aside is provided by Robert Bond's Vagabond Songs and Ballads of  Scotland (1901), which shines a light on the latter days of ballad performance in an urban setting:

Thirty and odd years ago there was a decrepit old man who used to haunt the Nethergate and Perth Road of Dundee who sang nothing else, and his rendition was so singularly absurd that he had many mock imitators among the younger generations thereaway, who knew the old vocalist only by the self-created name of  'Leddy Ogilby.' 

It fell upon a day, and a bonnie summer day,

When the aits grew green and the barley,

That there fell out a great dispute

Between Argyle and Airlie.

The Duke o' Montrose has written to Argyle

To come in the morning early;

And he's up and awa' by the back o' Dunkeld,

To plunder the bonnie House o' Airlie.

Lady Ogilvie look'd ower frae her high Castle wa'.

And O, but she sigh'd sairly,

When she saw Argyle wi' a hunder o' his men.

Come to plunder the bonnie House o' Airlie.

'Come down, come down, Lady Ogilvie,' he says,

'Come down, and kiss me fairly;

Or I swear by the sword that hangs in my hand,

I winna leave a stannin' stane in Airlie.

'I'm no come down to thee, proud Argyle,

Nor wad I kiss thee fairly;

I'll no come down thou fause, fause lord,

Tho' thou shouldna leave a stannin' stane in Airlie.

If my gude lord had been at hame,

As he's awa' wi' Charlie,

There durstna a Campbell in a' Argyle,

Set a fit upon the bonnie green o' Airlie.

'If my gude lord were here this nicht,

As he is wi' King Charlie,

The dearest blude o' a' thy kin,

Wad slocken the burnin' o' Airlie.

'O, I ha'e borne him seven bonnie sons.

The youngest ne'er saw his daddie,

And though I had as mony ower again,

I wad gi'e them a' to Prince Charlie.'

Argyle in a rage attacked the bonnie ha'.

And he's to the plundering fairly;

And tears tho' he saw, like dewdrops fa'.

In a lowe he set the bonnie House o' Airlie !

'What lowe is yon ?' quo' the gude Lochiel,

'That loups ower the hilltaps clearly ?'

'By the God of my kin !'" cried the young Ogilvie,

'It's my ain dear bonnie House o' Airlie !

'It's no the bonnie house, nor the lands a' reft.

That grieves my heart sae sairly;

But O, the winsome dame and the sweet babes I left.

They'll be smoor'd in the black reek o' Airlie.'

'Draw your dirks ! draw your dirks ! " cried the brave

Lochiel;

'Unsheath your swords !' cried Charlie,

'And we'll kindle a lowe round the fause Argyle,

And licht it wi' a spark out o' Airlie.'

Humour in the Bygone Kirk

   Forthcoming posts on this site will jot down shadier aspects of bygone life associated with religion, such as violence at the Reformation and afterwards, Protestant and Catholic martyrdom, and other dark morsels.  But to ease us all in gently, here are a few anecdotes of times when the Kirk was the centre of the universe, around which all else orbited. These snippets on the lighter side of religion come either from the Rev Dr Charles Rogers or Robert Chambers.  While some of the anecdotes are difficult to either find amusing or to make sense of (being from a vanished age), they do open the window on the past a chink.

John Kay caricature of a distracted congregation

Not that all the stories are entirely light hearted when you dig beneath them. Dr Rogers tells the tale of a local farmer hauled before the Presbytery of Brechin, to give evidence concerning the Rev. John Gillanders, minister of Fearn, who was accused of drunkenness. The lawyer who conducted the prosecution asked the witness if he had heard Mr. Gillanders acknowledge that he had been in the habit of drinking to excess.

   'I never heard him say that,' the farmer said carefully, then added, 'But I have often heard him say that he was not.'

   John Gillanders was born in Aberdeenshire in 1757.  After being a schoolmaster at Tannadice he was ordained on 7th June 1786.  He died unmarried in 1802, and no details have come my way to confirm or counteract the slander of alcoholism brought against him.

   Many ministers at the past had the provervial gift of the gab, loquaciousness being a requirement of the calling, so to speak.  In the late 18th century there were two particularly talkative ministers in charge of neighbouring parishes.  When they were both at any gathering they competed to see who could monopolise the conversation the best, at the expense of all others.  Once the two divines happened to be having breakfast together and one of them launched on an immense and unending story which went well beyond any of his previous storytelling exploits.  So engrossed was he is his own oratory that he overfilled the teapot and did not even notice when it overspilled, first onto the table and then down on to the floor.  When at last he paused in his monologue, announcing that he was near the end, his guest sourly remarked:

   'Aye, ye may stop noo - it's rinnin oot the door!'

   It was a common jibe against ministers that they spoke so much that they sometimes spoke nonsense, or at least got muddled in their speaking.  The Rev. Alexander Imlach of Murroes (born 1727) was one such imprecise speaker, but the sole surviving instance of his verbal muddledness is no mild as to be near insensible.  When he was preaching one day he loftily invoked an old saying and stated, 'O Lord, bless all ranks and degrees of persons, from the king on the dunghill to the beggar on the throne.'  Then he corrected himself:  I mean, from the beggar on the throne to the king on the dunghill!'

   But other times it was the congregation who got misled by the speeches of the preachers, either through their own failings or because the ministers were too high falluting in their speeches.  Until the time of the French Revolution it was a widespread tendency among the ministry to make constant mention of the Antichrist in their preaching, by which they meant the Pope of Rome.  Times change, even in the kirk, and soon a milder exhortation to pray for the altar and the throne.

   Some time after this change an old parishoner approached the Rev Mr M- of Montrose and asked him earnestly:

   'Sir, I hae something to speir at ye, but ye maunna tak it ill.'

   'Na,na,' assured the minister.  'I'll no tak it ill.'

   'Ou, dear me,' said the auld wife.  'Is yon Annie Christie deid, or is she better, that ye prayed sae lang aboot, for I ne'er hear ye speak aboot her noo?'

   the minister alluded to here may be the Rev James Mitchell (1763-1835), who was a tutor and  close friend to Walter Scott, who described their association:

He was a young man of excellent disposition and a laborious student. From him I learned writing and arithmetic. I repeated to him my French lessons, and studied with him my themes in the classics. I also acquired by disputing with him (for this he readily permitted) some knowledge of school - divinity andchurch history, and a great acquaintance n particular with the old books describing the early history of the Church of Scotland, the wars and sufferings of the Covenanters, and so forth. I, with a head on fire for chivalry, was a Cavalier, my friend was a Roundhead ; I was a Tory, and he was a Whig. I hated Presbyterians, and admired Montrose with his victorious Highlanders ; he liked the Presbyterian Ulysses, the dark and politic Argyle, so that we never wanted subjects of dispute...

   Mitchell left his charge at Montrose in 1805 because of local difficulties, chief of which was 'because he could not persuade the mariners of the guilt of setting sail of a Sabbath'.


   Long ago, a newly appointed minister in Angus was coached about the character of his parishoners by a knowing elder:

   'When you ca on John Ramage o the Hillfoot, sir, ye maun speak aboot anything except plooin and sawin.'

   Why was that, the minister asked?

   'John, ye see, sir,' replied the elder,' is sure tae notice your deficiency in thae matters; and if he should find oot that ye dinna ken aboot plooing an sawin, he'll no gie ye credit for kenning onything else.'

   A different tale type is represented by the following story.  Late one Saturday night an old and rather lame Angus minister asked a servant to fetch the pulpit bible from the kirk as he was anxious to consult it for something.  The servant as first declined, saying he was too afraid to venture alone through the dark kirk-yard alone.  A conversation ensued and a compromise was reached.  The minister would accompany him, but as he couldn't walk his man would have to give him a cuddy-back.  John grumbled and mumbled, but agreed to carry the minister and fetch the bible.  On the way back, with the minister on his shoulders and large bible beneath his arm, he was alarmed to hear a voice ask from beneath a tombstone:

   'Is he fat?'

   Believing that the lurking ghost or bogle was querying his mortal burden (possibly with the purpose of devouring him),he discarded the minister and yelled,

   'Tak him as he is!' and ran away.

    Somehow the minister struggled back to the manse first.  What he said to John is not recorded.  Next day it was explained that two sheep stealers were in the area.  While one of them kept watch behind a gravestone, the other was on the look out for a beast to steal.  The overheard remark was actually a comment from the first about the size of the sheep his comrade had got hold of!