In the following article Sue Mowat corrects some common misconceptions about an unusual small building in the Abbey churchyard and also tells of the opening of the first museum in Dunfermline. The Abbey Graveyard Toolhouse by Sue Mowat Near the east gate of the Abbey Churchyard stands a small building that is sometimes said to be a morthouse for keeping bodies safe before burial. The plot where it stands has also been pointed out as the site of the graveyard’s pauper burial place, but both of these allegations are very far from the truth. The ‘morthouse’ was actually built as a very upmarket toolshed and the place where it stands was never used for burials of any kind because it was too waterlogged. The story of the toolhouse begins in 1895, when an Archaeological and Museum Society was founded in Dunfermline with Andrew Carnegie as its patron. The Society held a series of lectures on suitable subjects but its main aim was to establish a museum in the town and it decided that the rooms in the Old Tower over the Pends would be the best place for this. One of these rooms had been used for many years by the churchyard Superintendant, gardener and gravediggers to store their tools, so the Society agreed to build a new tool store for them. At the Heritors[1] meeting of 29 August 1896 the Rev Mr Stevenson, the Honorary Secretary of the Archaeological Society, submitted plans drawn up by the prolific local architect John Houston for an alternative accommodation for the...
The Abbey Graveyard Gun
By Sue Mowat Guns were a hot topic in Dunfermline in the summer of 1857, more specifically the town’s newly-acquired trophy of the recent Crimean War. Among the Russian armaments captured at the fall of Sevastopol had been more than 300 cannon from the fort of Redan. They were of no use to the British army, and the Government, left with the problem of how to dispose of them, came up with the idea of distributing them among the cities and chief towns of Britain and her Empire, as memorials of victory in the Crimea. The antiquarian Ebenezer Henderson, whose pride in his native Dunfermline knew no bounds (although he actually lived in St Helens) was outraged that his town was not considered sufficiently important to be offered a Russian trophy. He successfully lobbied the Government for redress and in 1857 a gun was duly allocated to Dunfermline. Henderson’s efforts were not, however, received with universal enthusiasm. Feelings about the Government’s gift were certainly mixed among the members of Dunfermline Town Council, especially when they discovered that all they had been given was the barrel of the cannon. The town would have to pay for a gun-carriage for it to rest on and its freight from London to the Forth. Although everyone knew about the gun, and its cost and possible location had been informally discussed, the news was officially broken to the Council by Provost Robertson at a special meeting on Saturday 13 June 1857. The Fife Herald’s report of the meeting...
Battle of Kinghorn
The Battle of Kinghorn by Dr. Jean Barclay DID YOU KNOW.. ..that in 1796 Dunfermline`s Provost and some of his councillors were kidnapped and held captive in the black hole in Inverkeithing? If you think that elections nowadays get a bit nasty you want to look back to the 18th century when they frequently became heated affairs involving mobs, threats, fisticuffs and bodily harm. At the end of the eighteenth century, in a Scottish population of about 1.5 million, only around 3000 adult males had the vote. Scotland could return 45 MPs to the Parliament in London, 30 representing counties and 15 representing groups of burghs. Dunfermline was part of the electoral constituency of the Stirling Burghs alongside Stirling, Inverkeithing, Queensferry and Culross (then in Perthshire). Each burgh, whatever the size, had one vote and the council (of 20 or so members) elected a delegate or commissioner to represent them at the election in the returning burgh. This delegate was obliged to return the majority vote, whatever his own politics might be. At a time of great animosity between the Whig and Tory political factions, elections could be devious and tumultuous affairs. Although the majority of people could not vote, they could be roused to frenzy on behalf of their favoured candidate, especially when bribed with money or drink or threatened with loss of employment. Elections were frequently rigged and the electors, usually local councillors, were occasionally spirited...
The Last Clay Pipe Manufacturer in Fife
Here, George Beattie gives us another article in a series on Dunfermline’s Industrial Past, with the history of a firm which made and sold clay pipes for over eighty years in Dunfermline. William Richmond, Clay Pipe Manufacturer By George Beattie In October 1937, an article in the Dunfermline Press saw Henry Richmond repudiate a press claim, in another newspaper, that a Mr William Stewart, who had died the previous week in Cupar, was the last clay pipe manufacturer in Fife. Henry, who was the son of William Richmond, went on to explain that although he now ran the Dunfermline business on his own, he had at one time around the turn of the century employed five men, turning out some 240 gross of clay pipes a week. He recalled how he often went around the district with his father’s horse drawn lorry heavily laden with nothing but clay pipes. Henry admitted that, as a result of the increased popularity of cigarettes and the introduction to the market of cheaper ‘briars’, the vogue of the clay pipe had suffered a drastic set-back in recent years. However, he still did good business with the coal miners of Fife, who still preferred their clay ‘cutties’. Moulds, of malleable iron, for producing clay pipes in a number of shapes and designs cost a guinea or more in Henry’s younger days, but by the 1930s he only had six in use. The manufacture of one clay pipe was the result of eight different processes, all carried out by hand. ...
Dunfermline’s Prison
“PRISON – WHIT PRISON?” By George Robertson DID YOU KNOW…. that there was a prison in Dunfermline until 1950? Take a walk down Dunfermline High Street today and ask anyone where Dunfermline Prison was and it is almost certain, in the majority of cases, you will be met with a shrug of the shoulders, a blank look and the reply – “Prison – whit prison?” Perhaps the reply is to be expected since the prison referred to, having been in use for over 100 years, ceased to exist around 50 years ago. Having established that there was a prison, the questions to be answered now are why was there a prison in Dunfermline and where was it situated. The 1839 Prison Act was the culmination of much agitation by Prison Reformers such as Elizabeth Fry, who wished to see an improvement in the conditions under which prisoners were held. Dunfermline was no exception to this necessary improvement as prisoners were kept in the Old Town House, the forerunner of our current City Chambers, under conditions which were probably no better than anywhere else in the country and consequently, in the early 1840’s work began on a new prison in what is now Leys Park Road. The architect for the building was Thomas Brown, Jnr., of Edinburgh, who had been appointed Architect to the Prison Board of Scotland during 1838. By January 1845, the prison building work had been completed at a cost of approximately £2070 and by the end of the year it had housed 262 prisoners, all serving...