The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
‘Navvy riot’ sparked by food price-rise rumour
Fake news is nothing new – in fact, it sparked a riot in Stonehaven which left one man dead, others beaten in the street, and shops and homes attacked and wrecked.
All of this broke out because navvies working on building the Aberdeen railway line mistakenly got it into their heads local shopkeepers were pushing up prices to rip them off.
The murder and mayhem which ensued on January 5 1848 – families arming themselves with swords to fend off home invasions, police fighting their way clear of a mob, a horseback dash into Aberdeen to raise the militia – shocked the quiet Mearns town.
But local historian Dr Keith Stewart said the infamous navvy riot, i nv o l v i n g Hi g h l a n d e r s working on the railway, was based on rumours and misunderstanding.
“At the time, the railway had cut their workforce and their wages”, said Dr Stewart, former vicechairman of Stonehaven Heritage Society, adding the navvies were staying in lodgings in the town but had to buy their own food.
On top of the pay cut, the already disgruntled Highlanders were finding food prices going up in local shops, almost doubling, and blamed the store owners for trying to make money out of them when they could least afford to pay.
“They took it into their heads that ‘I’m paying too much for this, they’re just trying to rip me off ’,” said Dr Stewart.
“But it was just because of the increase in the cost of provisions. There had been a crop failure in 1847 and that’s why you had prices going up. It had nothing to do with shopkeepers raising prices so they could make more money out of the navvies.”
Prices apart, tensions had been simmering between the locals and the Highland workers before
the riot broke out on January 5 – which the people of Stonehaven then still celebrated as Christmas Eve, following the old calendar.
The Stonehaven Journal reported the “fatal riot” and said: “The immediate cause… can be distinctly traced to a brawl which took place on the evening of Saturday week previous between a party of the townspeople and some of the navvies in which the latter were defeated.
“Since then, the labourers engaged in that fight seem to have propagated among their comrades a fierce spirit of revenge.”
Dr Ste war t said the trouble started when Gaelic- speaking navvies gathered in Stonehaven’s Market Square to air their grievances and were clearly looking for a brawl.
The Press and Journal of the day reported those navvies who weren’t armed went into Dunnottar Woods to cut branches as clubs. They then marched on the town rampaging as far as the pier, then back towards Market Square “shouting and smashing every window where a light appeared”.
One of their unfortunate victims was a William Murray, who had come from Forfar to see friends and was attacked and “bludgeoned around the head” in the town’s Ann Street.
The P&J reported: “The unfortunate man, Murray, was found lying in a state of insensibility by a girl who was passing, and on
being carried to Mr Milne’s in the Old Town, it was found that his back was b r o ke n , and his skull fractured. He was only able to say ‘I am murdered, and the navvies have done it’, when he died.”
So severe was the situation, that one of Stonehaven’s most famous sons, Captain Robert Barclay – the “celebrated
pedestrian” who walked 1,000 miles in 1,000 days – took action.
“He just did the sort of thing he always did and got on a horse and went straight to Aberdeen to get the militar y, and they arrived in Stonehaven the next day,” said Dr Stewart
The morning after the riot , the town ’s Superintendent of Police,
Alexander Weir, swore in about 150 special constables from the town’s men. Along with the militia, the y descended on the navvies’ lodgings and rounded up the ringleaders.
Four men were eventually found guilty of mobbing, rioting, malicious mischief, assault, and culpable homicide. Two were jailed for 18 months, one for a year, but a Donald Davidson was found to be “more culpable” than the others – he might have landed the fatal blow on Murray – and was sentenced to seven years’ transportation.
Hi s victim, William Murray was buried at Kirkton of Fetteresso.
Today, the extraordinary events of 172 years ago are all but forgotten in Stonehaven.
But Dr Stewart is bringing them back into the spotlight by writing a piece about the riots for the Tolbooth Times, produced by Stonehaven Tolbooth Association.
He said: “You have to remember your history, even the unsavoury side, just to understand what has gone on in the past. And, after all, someone died.”