Letters offer rare insight in to the mind of a child killer

Over the last few days, Courier journalist Chris Ferguson has been digging into his store of archive stories, some of which have appeared in the e-book, Monsters, Ministers and Mayhem. Today, we visit Forfar to hear about disgraceful behaviour that shocke

execution. His friend, the Oathlaw minister, tried to secure commutation of sentence. He visited Edinburgh to interview judges and intervened on Robertson’s behalf. Secretary of State for Scotland Sir George Grey ruled out a reprieve.

Harry Stuart spent his free time with Robertson and their letters are a rare record of a condemned man’s thoughts. Robertson wrote that his pious parents wanted him to continue his schooling then learn a trade, but he only wanted to work with horses.

From aged 14, he lived in a bothy where he saw no good: “Our masters never curb us for wonder and so they care no more for us than the horses. We were always flitting about and cared for nobody. We grew regardless of God and man.

“The women servants have been my ruin. Warn them not to come near bothies and so entice away young boys. Some kent how they laid snares for me when I was a young boy.”

When he stepped up to the gallows, the crowd of 2,500 was composed chiefly of women and girls.

Behave yourselves, please!

Creeping desecration of the Sabbath unleashed a bellowing outburst from The Courier’s leader writers in 1852.

They condemned a rise in profane behaviour and judged Dundee to have become the least decorous town in Scotland.

While they defended individual liberty, they also warned a oncecherished Scottish institution was becoming sullied by coarse conduct.

Their words were prophetic. Just over a decade later, an outrage on the Forth coast tainted the Scottish Sabbath forever and brought shame on the nation.

In Dundee, Sabbath problems were caused by people with low standards of personal behaviour.

On Sunday mornings, drunks would stagger half-asleep in front of families on their way to church. The Courier noted that idlers in their working clothes engaged in disgusting ribaldry at street corners. Gangs of youths would tear down trees and insult respectable people.

Working women considered it superfluous to dress in a becoming manner and would stroll the streets staring rudely at people, determined to pass the day in indolent idleness.

Standards did not improve across Scotland and in 1864, an incident at North Berwick was greeted with sorrow by Sabbath keepers.

A French schooner ran aground early one Sunday, and while locals saved the crew, there followed a rise in bestial displays of self-indulgence. Locals pounced on the ship’s 2,000 casks of brandy. Little attempt was made to stash the casks – locals cracked them open immediately, drinking deep, straight from the barrels.

When dawn broke there was a scene of devastation.

Witnesses describe only the number of inebriates lying at high water mark but the condemnation of this corruption of the Sabbath perhaps hints that even more disgraceful licentiousness was taking place.

The Courier printed this observation of the incident: “If the London papers had told us of such doings in Margate, what a cackling we should have had at the profanity and godlessness of the Cockneys.

“But these drunken, thieving wreckers were the Sabbath-loving Scots people, our austere and religious peasantry.”

The paper added that it hoped the incident would provoke thought in those capable of thinking.

“While locals saved the crew there followed a rise in bestial displays of selfindulgence

This photograph of East High Street, Forfar, was taken well after James Robertson was held in a death cell in the town. It was clearly taken in 1953 in the run-up to the Coronation. The photograph below was taken in 1959 and shows cars parked outside Forfar Mart during a period of snow.