All the fun of the fair in Dundee... with added murders

Stobs Fair in Dundee was so synonymous with violence that as it drew to a close each year, attendees began to prepare sticks and bludgeons for attack and defence. Their efforts were never in vain. The Dundee Advertiser in the early 1800s reported bloodshed and murder on an epic scale. It was a free-trade fair, one of the few times when non-native business people were allowed to sell in the burgh.

Stobs Fair also served the ancient purpose of allowing the population to release pent-up frustration in the style of the Roman saturnalia festival, when unbridled licence was permitted.

In 1809, according to former city librarian AH Millar, an army recruiting party turned up at the fair to persuade sturdy but inebriated farm workers to join the fight against Napoleon. It did not end well. Some local kicked in the skin of a drum belonging to the 25th Regiment of Foot and a riot broke out.

Soon swords and bayonets were being thrust at locals and one was so badly injured he died next day, reported the Dundee Advertiser.

Two wounded soldiers were carried unconscious from the field. This incident prompted authorities to employ porters to keep order at future fairs but one of them ended up with his skull cleft by a sword.

In 1823 the Advertiser reported: “The fair sustains its ancient character for drinking, rioting and mischief. Twelve constables were despatched by the magistrates but they had little effect.”

One of the most shocking slayings happened at the close of the 1824 fair.

Nine young masons who had been working at Duntrune arrived at the fair to collect their wages from their boss.

Two of them saw the employer off the site while the others went to Stobs Toll-house, a licensed premise. Drinkers there did not want company and a mob of 14 set about them with clubs and hatchets. John Allan, one of the masons, was killed.

The mob then rampaged through the fair ground attacking the public and leaving one ploughman close to death. John Allan was buried in the Howff amid a public outpouring of grief.

“Soon swords and bayonets were being thrust at locals