HISTORY OF NEWPORT AND THE PARISH OF FORGAN ; AND RAMBLES ROUND THE DISTRICT, by J. S. Neish, 1890
PART III. THE OLD COACHING DAYS - DISASTER ON THE TAY - TOM HOOD AND BALLAD JOCK
Under the most favourable circumstances the passage of the ferries in open boats was far from being a comfortable mode of transit, and in many instances it was fraught with danger. The frequent occurrence of storms in winter, and the exposure to rain and sudden squalls, even in the height of summer, were often a source of discomfort and alarm to passengers, while the detention by weather and the state of the tide was a constant source of annoyance to the public. The ferrymen were a brave and hardy class, ever ready to face the weather ; but they were rough and rude, and withal, it was said, too much addicted to the vice of intemperance, which inspired them with a spirit of recklessness and foolhardiness in the pursuit of their calling. In the beginning of the present century steam power was applied to navigation ; steamboats superseded the old-fashioned ferry boats, and the race which for centuries ferried passengers across the Tay entirely disappeared.
The first encroachment on the trade of the old boatmen was the establishment of a line of stage coaches between Edinburgh and Dundee. The first to open coach communication from Edinburgh through Fife by the ferries on the Forth at Kirkcaldy and the Tay at Dundee were Messrs. Alex. M'Nab & Co., of Edinburgh. The Royal Union coaches run by this firm took passengers across the ferry by the 'Union Coach' boats. These boats were built expressly for the company. They were well manned by picked crews, who wore the coach uniform to distinguish them from the other ferrymen. As the coach boats sailed at regular hours in connection with the arrivals and departures of the coaches, and as, moreover, they were safer and more commodious than the ordinary boats on the passage, people, though they had no intention of travelling by the coach, availed themselves of these boats in preference to the ordinary ferry boats. The Union Coaches were so successful that in a few years opposition lines were started on the same route, while coach communication was extended in connection with the Fifeshire lines as far north as Inverness. In an advertisement in the Dundee Courier of date September 14, 1827, M'Nab & Co. inform the public that the following coaches ran daily between Dundee and Edinburgh : - 'The Royal Fife and Strathmore Union' started from Princes Street, Edinburgh, at six o'clock morning, and arrived at Dundee at twelve o'clock noon, from whence the journey was continued to Aberdeen, where it was timed to arrive at nine o'clock in the evening. Fifteen hours were thus occupied in the journey between the Metropolis and the 'Granite City'. What a contrast between those good old coaching days and the state of things existing at present under the benign rule of the 'Railway King'! Following the 'Royal Union' came the 'Commercial Traveller,' which left Edinburgh at ten o'clock in the morning and reached Dundee at five o'clock in the afternoon. 'The Earl of Leven' started at half-past one o'clock p.m., and reached Dundee at eight o'clock in the evening. The fares by these coaches are not stated in the advertisement. Some idea, however, of the expense of travelling in those days may be gathered from an advertisement in the same paper some years previously. In 1816, Mr. Gordon, innkeeper, Newport, advertised to run a 'two-horse chaise' from Newport to St. Andrews twice a week, making the double journey in one day. The fares by this conveyance were - inside 4s., outside, 3s.; return tickets, 6s. and 4s. 6d. respectively. The machine only ran from Newport to St. Andrews, and, consequently, passengers from Dundee had to pay the ferry charges in addition to the coach fare. The advertiser added that passengers who preferred to cross by the 'coach boat' would be driven to and from Woodhaven - where the 'coach boat' sailed from - without extra charge.
There was another 'Royal Union' line of coaches running between Edinburgh and Dundee, owned by Mr. James Scott, of the Sun Hotel, Edinburgh, but M'Nab claimed to be the original 'Union'. The two coach proprietors had, however, coalesced and run pretty smoothly together for several years, finding it, no doubt, to their mutual advantage to be on good terms with each other. For a long time loud and grievous complaints were made by the merchants and traders in Edinburgh, and all along the coach route, regarding the systematic overcharging of parcels carried by coach. Whether the coach proprietors were deaf to these complaints or not we cannot say, but for a long time the public had no redress. At length the grievance became perfectly intolerable, and an influential meeting of merchants and others was held in Edinburgh to consider the matter, with the view of effecting a remedy. Close on the back of that meeting M'Nab & Co. announced to the public that they had discovered that the overcharges complained of had been exacted in Mr. Scott's office, and exonerated themselves from all blame., They further announced that they were the first to start coaches on that route, and that their coaches ran for several years without opposition. Although Scott called his coach the 'Royal Union' also, it had been running for several years on another road and the name was only changed, the painter performing the work on a Sabbath. From that time M'Nab & Co. cut all connection with Scott, and advertised their coaches as the only real and original public conveyance along the route in question.
Railways have now superseded the stage coaches, but yet it may be said of these old-fashioned conveyances, if they were slow, they were at least a comparatively safe mode of travelling. Accidents did occur, but as compared with modern railway collisions these were trifling in their nature. About the close of the coaching era an accident, which resulted fatally, occurred on the road near Newport, by which Mr. Alexander Kidd, father of our respected townsman, Mr. W. Kidd, bookseller, Whitehall Street, was killed almost instantaneously. Mr. Kidd carried on business as a wright in Newport, and was much respected in the neighbourhood. On the morning of Wednesday, 24th February, 1836, he went to Cupar on business, and returned with the 'Kingdom of Fife' coach in the afternoon. While the vehicle was proceeding slowly down the slope on the road leading to Newport Inn, and when near the toll bar, he left his seat on the front of the coach on the left hand side while the machine was in motion, for the purpose of crossing a field as a short cut to his home. In coming down he slipped and fell in front of the fore wheel, and before the driver could pull up his horses the two wheels passed over his body, crushing his breast in a dreadful manner. Some persons who witnessed the accident, carried the unfortunate man to the footpath, and despatched a messenger for a neighbouring blacksmith, in the hope that bleeding might prove restorative. Life, however, was found to be extinct. This melancholy event caused a gloom to fall over the little community, the more so that the deceased left a widow and several young children to lament his loss.
But to return to the ferries and the ferrymen. In the year 1815, the attention of the public in both counties was directed to the system - or want of system - which at that time characterised the management of the ferries. The public were roused to action by a terrible disaster which occurred on the Tay, on the forenoon of Sunday, 28th May, 1815. A pinnace, under the command of a man named John Spalding, capsized when about half-a-mile from the Fife shore, and out of twenty-four or twenty-five persons on board, only seven were saved. The accident - which was entirely due to the recklessness of the boatmen - happened in this manner:-The pinnace, 'Nelson', partly owned by John Spalding and a man named Stark, left the Craig Pier about ten o'clock in the forenoon for Newport, with an over-freight of passengers on board, some of whom, it was said, were on their way to Kilmany to hear the late Rev. Dr. Chalmers preach his farewell sermon in Kilmany Kirk previous to his leaving for Glasgow. Spalding, the captain of the pinnace, was a rough, reckless character, of Herculean proportions, and was popularly known by the nicknames of 'Ballad and Cossack Jock'. During the wars of the great Napoleon he had been in the habit of composing ballads against 'Boney', and singing them through the Streets of Dundee, and for his minstrel talents he had been dubbed with these distinguishing soubriquets. By this time, however, Jock had abandoned the Muse, and taken to the life of a ferryman. Jock was a rough sort of a fellow, but a great favourite amongst his fellow-townsmen, and it is said that the money with which he purchased the boat, or his share in it, was subscribed by a few friends in Dundee. Besides being over-loaded, the pinnace took a Tayport yawl in tow, on board of which was a man named Brown. A strong gale was blowing from the south-east against the ebbing tide, causing a heavy swell in the Firth. The sand bank opposite the Craig had been left bare by the tide, and the boat was rowed close along the shore as far as the east harbour to double the eastern end of the bank. When the bank was cleared the huge lugsails were hoisted and belayed tight, and the boat headed for the Fife side. At first the main sheet was close reefed, but Jock insisted on putting more sail on, and, in spite of the remonstrances of those on board, he let out the reefs and unfurled the whole breadth of the canvas. Under such a press of sail, and with a stiff breeze, the pinnace plunged madly on her course, the seas flying over her bows. The passengers began to get alarmed, and insisted on the crew shortening sail. But Jock was obstinate, and an angry altercation ensued. When within half-a-mile of the Fife coast, the man at the helm left his post, either to clear the yawl's tow- rope, or else to assist in taking down the main lugsail. The craft, left to herself, swung broadside on to the wind, when a sudden gust caught her sails and threw her on her beam ends, and, before the sails could be let loose, the boat filled with water and sank. Most of the helpless passengers went down with the sinking craft, but a few were left struggling on the surface, and six were picked up by the man in the Tayport boat. With great presence of mind, he cut his tow rope as the pinnace was sinking, and thus saved himself and his boat.
Among the passengers were two boys named Scott, sons of George Scott, merchant tailor, Dundee. The eldest boy, Hugh, leaped from the sinking boat and swam to the yawl, and was taken on board. He then stretched out an oar to his younger brother, James, who was floating near, and kept him afloat till he was rescued by the assistance of Brown, who also succeeded in saving other five of the unfortunate crew and passengers. The names of the others saved were :- John Stark, one of the crew ; David Brown, boatman, Tayport ; Thomas Rollo and George Wilson, boatmen's sons ; and William Ramsay, currier, Dundee. The following is a list of the names of those who were drowned :- John Spalding, captain of the boat ; David Melville ship carpenter, Dundee, and his son, thirteen months old ; John Luke, flaxdresser, and his son, seven, and daughter, fifteen years of age ; Captain Dickson, St Andrews, and his cabin boy, named Melville ; Robert Penman, son of Mr. Penman, blockmaker, Dundee ; Robert Stark, son of John Stark ; John Wilkie, twelve years, son of David Wilkie, carter ; Robert Smith, currier, and Alex. Smith, coppersmith - both fifteen years of age ; William Taylor, apprentice ropespinner ; a boy named Fenton, and a lad named John Burnett, son of William Burnett, shipmaster. It seemed that the lad Burnett had lost his mother two years previously, and after her death he had taken on himself the entire management of his father's house and care of five children, a duty he had performed most nobly and well.
The accident was witnessed from Newport, and a boat at once put off to render assistance, but by the time the scene of the catastrophe was reached, the last of the passengers had sunk to rise no more. Nothing more could be done, and the boat returned to Newport with those who had been saved, where they were kindly treated by Mr. Gordon, innkeeper, and all the inhabitants of the village.
It was reported that the crew of a pinnace who witnessed the accident acted in a very heartless manner. They were on their way across the river, and passed so close to the scene of the accident that the face of Captain Dickson was recognised as he was struggling for life in the water; and though they were within an oar's length of a woman, whose arms and clothes were seen floating on the surface, yet the crew only hauled their main-sheet for a minute, and then held on their course, leaving the poor creatures to their fate. If this be true, it reflects severely on the character of some at least of the boatmen of the Tay.
A few days after the ill-fated boat floated, and was picked up and brought to land, when it was found that all her sails were set and securely fastened down. The bodies of the unfortunate passengers and crew were recovered in the course of a few weeks, that of 'Cossack Jock' being amongst the last to be cast up by the tide. The following ludicrous incident connected with the finding of Spalding's corpse is related by Thomas Hood, author of 'The Song of a Shirt', then a young man, living in Dundee. The story, which we give in full, appeared in Hood's Own Comic Annual and is entitled - 'THE APPARITION'
'To keep without a reef in a gale of wind like that - Jock was the only boatman on the Firth of Tay to do it.
He had sail enough to blow him over Dundee Law.
She emptied her ballast, and came up again with her sails all standing; every sheet was belayed with 'a double turn'.
I give the sense rather than the sound of the foregoing speeches, for the speakers were all Dundee ferry boatmen, and broad Scotchmen, using the extra wide dialect of Angusshire and Fife.
At the other end of the low-roofed room, under a coarse white sheet, sprinkled with sprigs of rue and rosemary, dimly lighted by a small candle at the head and another at the feet, lay the object of their comments - a corpse of startling magnitude. In life poor Jock was of unusual stature, but, stretching a little perhaps, as is usual in death, and advantaged by the narrow limits of the room, the dimensions seemed absolutely supernatural. During the warfare of the allies against Napoleon, Jock, a fellow of some native humour, had distinguished himself by singing about the streets of Dundee, ballads - I believe his own - against 'old Boney'. The nickname of 'Ballad Jock' was not his only reward. The loyal burgesses subscribed amongst themselves, and made him that fatal gift, a ferry boat, the management of which we have just heard so seriously reviewed. The catastrophe took place one stormy Sunday, a furious gale blowing against the tide down the riverr - and it is anything but what the Irish call 'weak tay' at such seasons. In fact, the devoted 'Nelson', with all sails set, fair weather fashion, caught aback with a sudden gust, and, after a convulsive whirl, capsized and went down in forty fathoms, taking with her two-and-twenty persons, the greater part of whom were on their way to hear the celebrated Dr. Chalmers, even at that time highly popular, though preaching in a small church - I forget the name - in Fife. After all the rest had sunk in the water, the huge form of Jock was observed clinging to an oar, barely afloat, when, some sufferer probably catching hold of his feet, he suddenly disappeared, still grasping the oar, which afterwards springing right up into the air as it rose again to the surface showed the fearful depth to which it had been carried. The body of Jock was the last found ; about the fifth day it was, strangely enough, deposited by the tide at the threshold of his own dwelling at the Craig, a small pier or jetty frequented by the ferry boats. It had been hastily caught up, and in its clothes laid out in the manner just described - flying as it were in state - and the public, myself one, being freely admitted as far as the room would hold. It was crowded by fishwives, mariners, and other shore hunters, except a few feet next the corpse, which a natural awe towards the dead kept always vacant. The narrow death's door was crammed with eager listening and looking heads, and, by the buzzing without, there was a large surplus crowd in waiting before the dwelling for their turn to enter it.
On a sudden, at a startling exclamation from one of those nearest the bed, all eyes were directed to that quarter. One of the candles was fluttering and sputtering near the socket, the other just twinkling out and sending up a stream of rank smoke ; but by the light, dim as it was, a slight motion of the sheet was perceptible just at that part where the hand of the dead mariner might be supposed to be lying by his side. A scream and shout of horror burst from all within, echoed, though ignorant of the cause, by another from the crowd without. A general rush was made towards the door, but egress was impossible. Nevertheless, horror and dread squeezed up the company in the room to half their former compass, and left a far wider blank between the living and the dead. I confess at first I mistrusted my sight ; it seemed that some twitching of the nerves of the eye, or the flickering of the shadows thrown by the unsteady flame of the candle, might have caused some optical delusion ; but after several minutes of sepulchral silence and watching, the motion became more awfully manifest, now proceeding slowly upwards, as if the hand of the deceased, still beneath the sheet, was struggling up feebly towards his head. It is possible to conceive, but not to describe, the popular consternation - the shrieks of women - the shouts of men - the struggles to gain the only outlet, choked up and rendered impassable by the very effort of desperation and fear - clinging to each other and with ghastly faces that dared not turn from the object of dread. The whole assembly backed with united force against the opposite wall with convulsive energy that threatened to force out the very sides of the dwelling, when - startled before by silent motion but now by sound - with a smart rattle something fell from the bed to the floor, and disentangling itself from the death's drapery, displayed a large pound crab. The creature with some design, perhaps sinister, had been secreted in the ample clothes of the drowned seaman ; but even the comparative insignificance of this apparition gave but little alleviation to the superstitious horrors of the spectators, who appeared to believe firmly that it was only the Evil One himself transfigured. Wherever the crab straddled sidelong, infirm beldames and sturdy boatmen equally shrank and retreated before it ; ay, even as it changed its place, to crowding closely round the corpse itself, rather than endure its diabolical contact. The crowd outside, warned by cries from within of the presence of 'Mahound', had by this time retired to a respectable distance, and the crab, doing what herculean sinews had failed to effect, cleared for itself a free passage through the door in a twinkling, and with natural instinct began crawling, as fast as it could clapper-claw, down the little jetty before mentioned, that led into his native sea. The Satanic spirit, however disguised, seemed everywhere distinctly recognised. Many at the lower end of the Craig leaped into their crafts, one or two even into the water, whilst others crept as close to the verge of the pier as they could, leaving a thoroughfare - wide as 'the broad path of honour' - to the Infernal Cancer. To do him justice he straddled along with a very unaffected unconsciousness of his own evil importance. He seemed to have no aim higher than salt water and sand, and had accomplished half the distance towards them, when a little decrepit poor old sea roamer, generally known as Creel Katie, made a dexterous snatch at a hind claw, and, before the crab-devil was aware, deposited him in her patchwork apron with an 'Hech, sirs, what for are ye gaun to let gang siccan a braw parten?' In vain a hundred voices shouted out - 'Let him bide, Katie - he's no canny'. Fish or fiend, the resolute old dame kept a fast clutch of her prize, promising him, moreover, a comfortable simmer, in the meikle pat, for the benefit of herself and that 'puir silly body, the gudeman'. And she kept her word. Before night the poor devil was dressed in his shell, to the infinite horror of all her neighbours. Some even said that a black figure, with horns and wings and hoofs and forked tail - in fact old 'Clootie' himself - had been seen to fly out of the chimney. Others said that an unwholesome and unearthly smell, as of pitch and brimstone, had reeked forth from the abominable thing through door and window. Creel Katie, however, persisted, ay, even to her dying day and on her death-bed, that the crab was as sweet a crab as ever was supped on ; and that it recovered her old husband out of a very poor low way - adding, 'and that was a thing ye ken, the de'il a De'il in the Dub o' Darkness wad ha'e dune for siccan a guid man and kirk-gaen Christian bodie as my ain douce Davie.' '
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