The 'Murder' of Margaret Warden

 The case of Mary Elder, tried for murder of her servant Margaret Warren, has been summerised in many places in the nearly two centuries since the event. The case attracted authors like William Roughead in Twelve Scottish Trials (1913) and Haunted Dundee by A. H. Millar (1923). Even before that, there was a popular ballad floating around Dundee and south Angus entitled 'The Wife o' Denside', which had no doubt about the guilt of Mary Elder. (The version from Haunted Dundee is copied below.) The case also gained wider notoriety by a broadside pamphlet printed in Edinburgh soon after the trial there in 1828. Among the spectators in the court room was a certain Sir Walter Scott.

   The basic facts in the case is that Margaret Warden, a twenty-five year old servant to Mary Elder and David Smith of West Denside, Monikie, near Dundee, had died suspiciously after being adminsitered some drinks by elder. The poison was supposed to have been administered on 5th September, 1826, with Margaret dying three days later. The details were summarised in the contemporary broadside:

the deceased turned unwell on Tuesday, and that the prisoner
gave her something to drink of a whitish colour, in a
large dram glass, with a peace of sugar to take after it, about nine
o'clock at night, which she swallowed, and went to bed. That she
turned ill before morning, complaining much of her inside, and suf-
fering from thirst; and, on drinking water, which she always cried
for, saying her inside was burning, she immediately threw it up:
That the prisoner, on Thursday night, a witness observed, came and
asked the deceased if she thought a drap whisky would be good
for her, to which the witness, Jean Norrie, a fellow servant,who
slept with the deceased, replied, that she had got enough of that,
or something else, she could not tell what, for such purging and
vomiting she never before had seen. That Margaret Warden's
mother was sent for and came to see her on Friday forenoon, the
day she died, and said to this witness, in presence of her mother and. I
Ann Gruar, another witness, 'you ken wha has been the occasion
of my lying here, but dinna say nathing; they will get their re-
wards, but I forgive them.' That she died that night at 9 o'clock,
and her body appeared of a blackish colour.

   The background to the household was the key to what transpired. David Smith was a great deal older than his forty-two year old wife and does not seem to have been involved in what transpired. Margaret Warden was one of several servants who stayed there. She was also pregnant, allegedly by a son of the household, George Smith. There was another son and two daughters in the family. One daughter lived with her parents; the other was the farm foreman's wife. Apart from Margaret Warden, there was another female servant under the same room, Jean Norrie, though there were other servants and employees who did not sleep in. 

   In the year previous to her death, Margaret had her first pregnancy and went back home to her mother in Baldovie. Mary Elder visited her several times, and, following some harsh words and discussion, had her back at Denside after the child was born. Whether the father of this bairn was Margaret's son is not known. In 1826, Margaret and George Smith became romantically involved, and Mary was outraged and put the servant out of the house. After a fraught meeting at her mother's house, full of anger and accusation, Mary stated she would go to Dundee and 'would get something for Margaret' there. Margaret went back to Denside that night. It was inferred that Mary was bringing something which would terminate the pregnancy. 

Modern building at West Denside

   On the evening of Tuesday 5th September, 1826, Mary Elder came to Margaret in the presence of Jean Norrie, around 10 o'clock, and gave her a drink in a dram glass. It was a thick white mixture. Margaret drank it and also took a small lump of sugar to dispell its bitter taste. She was seriously ill during the night and next morning she was too sick to work. Jean asked that night if their mistress had been attending to her. 'Rather too weel,' Margaret said. When Jean said she feared her friend was dying, Margaret replied, 'Some folks would be glad o' that.' On Elder suggesting that Margaret take some whisky, Jean voiced her suspicions and said that Margaret 'had got eneuch o' that or some ither thing, she could not tell what, for sik a purgin' an' vomitin' she never saw'. Margaret said the goodwife had already given her whisky, which was burning her insides. In private, Jean advised Margaret to take nothing further from their mistress. 

When it was clear that Margaret's condition was life-threatening, her mother was sent for a doctor was summoned from Broughty Ferry. When he arrived, Dr Taylor asked if she had been given any medicine and was told she had only been administered castor oil. He asked why no doctor had been summoned earlier and was told that the patient was 'a light-headed cutty' whose complaints were not taken seriously. When it seemed clear there was no hope or treatment for her, the doctor left, believing his patient was dying with cholera. In her final hours, Margaret informed her friend Jean that the person responsible for her condition would 'get their reward'. At nine in the evening she died, just as she was trying to tell her mother what 'medicine' Mary Elder had administered to her.

   Margaret Warden was buried on Sunday 10th September. Rumours began circulating in the area that Margaret's death was connected with the fact that she was pregant by George Smith. Several weeks later she was disinterred and the body disected in the kirk-yard. Some particles of poison were taken from her stomach. Dr Taylor said that the accused had repeatedly enquired if Margaret's violent vomiting would cause an abortion, adding, 'I dinna care though such a thing [a miscarriage] should happen, for the gude man would tear down the house if he ken'd it.' Mary Elder was questioned by the sheriff in Dundee and, despite denying poisoning her servant, was placed in jail there. 

  The trial took place on Monday 19th February, 1827, and it attracted wide attention from people in Edinburgh, among them Walter Scott, who wrote in his journal:

Dined at Sir John Hay's, where met the Advocate
and a pleasant party. There had been a Justiciary trial
yesterday, in which something curious had occurred. A
woman of rather the better class, a farmer's wife, had been
tried on the 5th for poisoning her maid-servant. There seems
to have been little doubt of her guilt, but the motive was
peculiar. The unfortunate girl had an intrigue with her son,
which this Mrs. Smith was desirous to conceal, from some
ill-advised puritanic notions, and also for fear of her husband.
She could find no better way of hiding the shame than giving
the girl (with her own knowledge and consent, I believe)
potions to cause abortion, which she afterwards changed for
arsenic, as the more effectual silencing medicine. In the
course of the trial one of the jury fell down in an epileptic
fit, and on his recovery was far too much disordered to permit
the trial to proceed. With only fourteen jurymen it was
impossible to go on. But the advocate, Sir William Eae,
says she shall be tried anew, since she has not tholed an
assize. Sic Paulus ait—et rede quidcm. But, having been
half-tried, I think she should have some benefit of it, as far
as saving her life, if convicted on the second indictment.
The advocate declares, however, she shall be hanged, as
certainly she deserves. But it looks something like hanging
up a man who has been recovered by the surgeons, which
has always been accounted harsh justice.

   

Defence lawyer Francis Jeffrey in 1825

   The defence at the trial contended that the young woman had committed suicide. Despite plenty of witnesses piling up corrobarative circumstantial evidence, and the widespread belief that Mary Elder had the motivation, means and opportunity to get rid of her awkwardly pregnant servant, the jury did not wholehertedly agree. Witnesses included Dr Dick, an old friend of the accused who said that Mary had asked him to procure arsenic for rats which were plaguing the farm. The lads who slept in the bothy at Denside vehemently denied there was any rodent problem there. The eloquent closing defence given by Francis Jeffrey was delivered to jurors at one in the morning.

  Next day the jury delivered the verdict 'not proven'. Some culpability was suspected, but guilt could not be established. Or it may be that they mostly believed she was trying to end the life of the unborn child rather than its mother, and for this she did not deserve death. For one, Walter Scott was outraged by this:

At Court, and waited to see the poisoning woman. She is clearly guilty,
but as one or two witnesses said the poor wench hinted an
intention to poison herself, the jury gave that bastard verdict,
Not Proven. I hate that Caledonian medium quid. One who is
not proven guilty is innocent in the eye of the law. It was a face
to do or die, or perhaps to do to die. Thin features, which had
been handsome, a flashing eye, an acute and aquiline nose, lips
much marked, as arguing decision and, I think, bad temper
— they were thin and habitually compressed, rather turned down
at the corners, as one of a rather melancholy disposition.
There was an awful crowd; but sitting within the bar, I had
the pleasure of seeing much at my ease ; the constables
knocking the other folks about, which was of course very
entertaining.

   Scott also remarked, more pithily, after the trial, 'Well, sirs! All I can say is, if that woman was my wife, I should take care to be my own cook.'

  A. H. Millar transcribed the ballad about the supposed murderer in 1884 from an old bed-ridden lady named Barbara Hodge, living at Downfield in Dunee, who was one of the witnesses at the trial. She had formerly been a servant alongside lamented Margaret Warden at Denside. And she had no doubt about her former employer's guilt.

THE WIFE O’ DENSIDE.

Ye'll a’ ha’e heard tell o’ the Wife o’ Denside,
Ye’ve surely heard word o’ the Wife o’ Denside,
Wha pushioned her maid to keep up her pride,
An’ the Deevil is sure o’ the Wife o’ Denside.

The Wife o’ Denside, the little wee buddie,
She tried to tak’ up the trade o’ the howdie,
But ah! ha, ha! her skill was but sma’,
For she pushioned baith lassie an’ bairn an’ a’.



Her tippet was brown and her veil it was black,
An’ three lang feathers hung ower her back,
Wi’ her purse by her side fu’ o’ guineas sae free
That saved her frae death at the Cross o’ Dundee.



Oh! Jeffrey, oh! Jeffrey, ye hinna dune fair,
For ye’ve robbed the gallows o’ its ain lawfu’ heir.
An’ it hadna been you an’ your great muckle fee
She’d hae hung like a trout at the Cross o’ Dundee!

Further Reading

Nigel Gatherer, Songs and Ballads of Dundee, John Donald, Edinburgh, 2000.

Forbes Inglis, Murders and Misdeeds: Angus and Dundee, 1765-1900, The Pinkfoot Press, Balgavies, 2013.

A. H. Millar, Haunted Dundee, Malcolm C. McLeod, Dundee, 1923.

William Roughead, Twelve Scottish Trials, William Green & Sons, Edinburgh & London, 1913.  

Besom Jimmy Homesick Blues - A Lost Lost Angus Hawker and Songsmith

What connects Bob Dylan and the Ancient City, Brechin?

The correct answer is, of course, nothing. Nothing, directly that is. Despite having once owned Aultmore House near Nethy Bridge, the bard was not known to have slipped across the country for the sake of sitting on a dreich day in venerable Glebe Park watching Brechin City. Blowin' in the Wind indeed (apologies!) 

So, no direct connection. But there is a very tangental one, if you'd care to follow me. 

In the late19th century Brechin was home to a characted named Besom Jimmy, whose birth name was James Henderson, whose only known gift to posterity was a song called Come A' Ye Tramps and Hawkers. Jimmy was evidently a hawker himself, though I don't know whether he was as well-travelled as the protagonist of his ballad boasts. In fact, I know nothing more about him (though any facts would be gratefully received). 

Jimmy is all but forgotten, but his song achieved an amorphous afterlife which is typical of the kind of popularity which folk songs sometimes achieved, being spread much more far and widely than most other types of popular music in the 20th century, entirely through repitition from one performer to another. 

We can trace the song being sung in the trenches of World War One by a fellowGordon Highlander (possibly George Robertson Stewart), who passed it on to his comrade Jimmy MacBeath of Portsoy. This Jimmy was a character who earned his living on farms and going around the markets on north-east Scotland, singing for agricultural workers. The American folk collector Alan Lomax encountered Jimmy at Elgin and took him to Turriff to record him. Lomax described him as a 'sporty little character, with the gravel voice and urbane assurance that would make him right at home in skid-row anywhere in the world: as sharp as a tack, dapper, tweed suit, quick blue eyes, as fast on his feet as a boxer'. An EP of his reportoire including our song was released in 1960, although Lomax recorded him singing Come A' Ye Tramps and Hawkers in 1951.

Another version of the song had been recorded in 1956 in Dundee. The singer this time was Davie Stewart, a traveller and musician from Buchan, who lived in Dundee for a while in the 1950s. He too was an ex-Gordon Highlander and a friend of Jimmy MacBeath. Among the folk luminaries who have also recorded the song are Robin Hall and Jimmie MacGregor, the Dubliners (with Luke Kelly singing), and Bert Jansch.

 The ealy Dylan, a folk polymath, absorbed elements of the Scots song via the influence of Canadian folk singer Bonnie Dobson (according to the book The Formative Dylan by Todd Harvey).

Bonnie Dobson

   Dobson's version of the late-Victorian New Brunswick ballad Peter Amberley incorporated elements of Come A' Ye Tramps and Hawkers and was the basis of Dylan's 1962 composition The Ballad of Donald White. Despite this Scottish-sounding name, Bob's song was about a fellow American. The thread of tradition had wound a circuitous path to reach him, and who's to say whether the celebrated Nobel laureate has ever heard of Besom Jimmy of Brechin?

The Perambulation of Parishes and Riding of the Marches

 The old custom of perambulating - carefully walking - the boundaries of parishes, burghs and estates is no longer practised in Britain, except in a few places. (In Scotland, Lanark is one example of where it still occurs.) Boundaries would have been important, in temporal and spiritual terms, since pre-historic times and we know that Roman and Anglo-Saxon societies had formalised rituals for marking the perimeters of lands. Perambulations in medieval Angus typically relied on prominent natural landmarks (rivers, hills, forests) and man-made features (roads, bridges, mercat gates) as boundary markers. Perambulations combined legal, social, and spiritual functions. In Scotland, we have less early records of this important collective recognition of where community territory ended. This post looks at the scattered local records, and if they do not tell a complete tale, at least they give some small glimpses into the far past.

  One theory (among many) about the purpose of Pictish sculptured stones is that they had a territorial significance. If not quite as crude as 'keep off this land', they may have visually advertised which kindred or important landowner owned the particular estate on which they were situated. There's nothing to say that - if this was indeed the case - that the stones might have contained other meanings, served other purposes. 

                                                                Kinblethmont Pictish Stone

                                                    

   Coincidentally or one, one of the early records of officials formally marking the boundaries of lands comes from the estate of Kinblethmont, Inverkeilor parish, which was a possession of Arbroath Abbey, which seems to have been a Pictish estate, jusdging by the presence of a Class I Pictish stone there. The first record of the perambulation here was in 1219, and one point of interest is the thorough Gaelic character of the names of the men who took part in the proceedings:

Gilpatrick mac Ewen, Dunachy filium Gilpatrick, Malcolmum fratrem Thayni de Edevy, Gillecryst fil' Ewen Costr', Gillecryst hominem com' de Anegus, Keraldum fratrem Ade Judicus, math'm filium mathei filii Dufyth de conan.

Another list has the following:

Hugh of Cameron, sheriff of Forfar, Angus son of Earl Gillebride of Angus, Robert of Inverkeilor, W de Monte Alto, Adam of Nevay, Donald son of Macbeth MacYwar, John ab of Brechin, Morgrund his son, Adam de Bonvill’ [Benvie?], Robert of Rossie, Duncan of Fearn, Adam steward of Arbroath, Thomas son of Richard son of Adam Garmund, Gille Isu, thane of Idvies, Nicholas brewer of the king, Roger, mareschal of the bishop of Brechin, Walter de Balliol.

   The records of Arbroath Abbey record another perambulation of Kinblethmont in 1227, and the names again are a mixture of Celtic and English-Norman. The centuries after the Scottish take-over of Pictland (if it was such) are fascinating for the glimpses of personal names from different ethnicities in Angus:

Kerald Judex de Anegus, Adam Judex domini Regis, Angus filius comitis, W de Monte Alto, Duncanus de fernevell, Giladr’ mac leod, Ricardus flandrensis, Gilescop mac camby, Patric fothe serviens domini episcopi sancti Andree, David senescallus de Rostynoth.

   The dispute seemingly continued because at the king's court in Forfar in 1227 the 'good men of Angus' were summoned to swear an oath to the vailidity of the 1219 perambulation.

   Nearby, the lands of Conon were also owned by Arbroath Abbey and a perambulation took place here in 1254, and the list of those present shows a decline in Gaelic names:Magister Nicholas of Hedon, dean of Moray, Sir John Wishart, Sir Henry the knight, socius of Peter Maule, Duncan of Fethyn, Roger of Balcathie, Duncan the judew, Mael Isu of Idvies, Eustace of Glasterlaw, Duncan of Downie and many others. Although some men were upper class, others were from their households or officials of local government.

   One of the pragmatic reasons for perambulations was to settle disputes between adjoining estates when there was some dispute about them. With or without the need for perabulations, disagreements about the extent of lands proliferated. The monks of Arbroath Abbey and Sir Thomas of Rattray disagreed about the extent of Kingoldrum. Rattray and his wife acknowledged the extent of the land in justiciary court on 1253. The monks were not shy in pursuing landowners who impinged on their territory. Also in 1253, Alan Durward was forced to accept the abbey's statement about the border between their lands and his. The following year, the abbey pursued Peter Maule regarding the boundaries between their lands of Conon and Tulloch and his territory of Panmure. The two parties met on Cairnconon Hill on 22nd June 1254, and neutral men were present, including Sir William de Brechin, Gilbert de Haya and Robert de Montealto.

   The following centuries have a peppering of references to perambulations in different parts of the county, including one of the lands of Auchterlony in 1397, when one of the participants was Michael Durham of Grange.

   The larger burghs in Angus also made great show of inspecting their marches from medieval times onwards, with much religious pomp and ceremony. Dundee's march ceremonies went into abeyance at the Reformation, but it was brought back in a more secular form in 1582, with a resolution stating that the provost, bailies, council and deacons of craft should annually on the 3rd of May pass through the burgh. They would visit all communities and made note that the gates, wynds, vennels, passages and middens were all in good order. The ceremony (if it might be called that) continued through the 17th century. On 21st April 1668 the records state:

The Counsell ordaynes that all those in the roll for ryding of the townis merches be warnit to that effect, each person under the payne of fyve poundis Scots, to be payit by each contravener absenting himself the tyme of ryding the merches prescryit by the former acts.

   On 12th May 1668:

The Provest maid report that the townis merches were redden this day aucht dayes, and that they had found on merch stone in the Magdalen gair out of the way, and thairfor ordayned to provyd ane other to be put out in the place thairof; as also gives power to the provest, bailies, and the Dene of Gild to meet with the laird of Monorgane for righting the passage of the water of Dichty in relation to their mylnes; as also ordayne the thesaurer to provyd ane march stone to be placed quhair thair was on formerlie; as also ane other marh stone at Baldovalne mylne. It was ordered that the interruption maid at the ryding vpon ane bark as they did ryd downe to the Craif be the eastmost end of their march be extracted, and layed up in the townis chest.

   The riding of the marches was a formal and splendid event in Arbroath, perhaps a result of its long association with the abbey. On 12th March 1778 the provost, bailies and council, with by their officers, e deacons of the trades, and by the land labourers or carters, all on horseback, and with the accompaniment of music, perambulated the burgh bounds, the proceedings of the day being wound up with considerable festivity. Anciently, the ceremony of riding the marches was frequently performed. It was one of the customary celebrations in connection with St. Thomas’s Day. 

   Forfar has long been fortunate to possess extensive lands held by the town council for the benefit of the community, dating back to time immemorial. Traditionally, the riding of the marches—was conducted every three years until the outbreak of the First World War. However, it has never been revived in its original form. In more recent times, these ridings evolved into inspections of  farms and properties. An annual water inspection was introduced and has, to some extent, taken the place of the traditional riding. Although no formal riding has taken place since before 1914, the council has occasionally dedicated a day to visiting and inspecting all the farms within the town’s holdings.

  In 1965  a symbolic riding of the marches was organised. The chosen date was July 3, concluding Visitors’ Week. Flags and banners adorned public buildings as, at 9:30 a.m., the  officials gathered at the Cross—once the site of the ancient Mercat Cross, the traditional assembly point for burghal processions—outside the town and county hall. They were warmly welcomed by a large crowd of townsfolk and visitors. The town clerk read the proclamation of the riding. The procession, headed by a piper and followed by supporters, set off and marked certain significant points by planting a tree.

The first stop was at North Mains Farm, then they went to the Lemno Burn where the Forfar marches with the lands of Carsegray. A second tree was planted at Pitreuchie. They then climbed Balmashanner Hill and a third tree was planted. The fourth and last tree was planted by the Dean Bridge, where the town’s lands meetthose of the Earl of Strathmore. 

The Forfar Perambulation at Balnashanner Hill

Works Consulted

Anonymous, The Municipal History of Dundee (Dundee, 1878).

Sir Robert Douglas, The Baronage of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1798).

Rev. James Ogilvy Haldane, Kingoldrum Parish, New Statistical Account, Volume XI (1845).

Matthew H. Hammond, A Prosopographical Analysis of Society in East Central Scotland. circa 1100 to 1260, Unpublished Phd. Thesis (Glasgow, 2005).

F. Marian Macneill, The Silver Bough, Volume 4, The Local Festivals of Scotland (Glasgow, 1968).