Efforts are now under way to recognise the devoted service of canine helpers through the ages
THE paths which cross-crossed the valley between Edinburgh’s Blackford Hill and the Braids Hills provided delightful views for a stroll, and insurance clerk Eric Wilson was enjoying the fresh, cool January air.
The views were delightful: he could see right across Edinburgh, past the Castle and beyond to the Firth of Forth.
But what caught Wilson’s eye on the crisp winter morning in 1911, was something far more disturbing.
Just beyond a wire fence close to a path leading to Morningside, lay the motionless figure of a woman.
Petite, around 30 years old, she was on her side. Her purple cloth jacket – trimmed with three strips of gold braid, lined with vibrant yellow and with a soft velvet collar – peeked out from under her steel grey rainproof coat. Her blue hat, loosely secured with its four pins, covered her face – thankfully, as it happened – and on her left hand glistened a gold wedding ring.
Thinking she was asleep, Wilson shouted out and rattled the fence. When she failed to stir, his stomach knotted, and he realised she was dead.
Within an hour, Harvey Littlejohn, professor of medical jurisprudence at Edinburgh University, had joined police at the scene. He was no stranger to crime and mystery. His father, Sir Henry Littlejohn, had been a forensic scientist whose student, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, credited him as an inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. What happened next would create something of a stir: Edinburgh City Police called for the dogs.
The episode appears to be one of the first times the capital’s police officers had called for trained dogs to track down a murder suspect. And even though the two bloodhounds would go on to lead the officers on something of a merry dance across fields and hilly paths, events of that January day in 1911 would help pave the way for more than a century of countless four-legged “K9” friends.
Now, in a bid to recognise years of sterling canine dedication to law and order, efforts are under way to raise £35,000 for a permanent memorial to Scotland’s dog detectives.
The GoFundMe page has been set up by serving police dog handler Carrie-Ann McNab. “Every day in Scotland a police dog helps local communities by finding missing people, criminals, recovering property or sniffing out drugs, cash, firearms of explosives,” she wrote.
“These furry heroes deserve a tribute and somewhere that their handlers and the public can go to remember them.”
In the early-20th century, however, the idea of using dogs to track and help detain criminals was still in its infancy. And while dogs were being increasingly used by police in Europe, there were concerns here that they would not be effective and, worse, might be dangerous.
A string of particularly disturbing crimes in Glasgow in 1908 helped change attitudes. Serious housebreakings in affluent Pollokshields and Kelvinside during the winter of 1908 had confounded police. “Pressure was also being brought to bear on the chief constable to solve the problem by the ‘people of influence’ who lived in these areas,” said Alastair Dinsmor, curator of the Glasgow Police Museum. “Lone police officers working the beats in affluent areas were fearful that the gangs who preyed on the large houses would attack them, should they discover them during their patrols. Something had to be done.”
As the year drew to a close, Marion
Gilchrist, 82, was found dead in her home at West Princes Street in the city, her head “practically smashed to a pulp”.
Suggestions that bloodhounds could track her attackers’ scent reached Captain FC Louden in Shropshire. A member of the Association of Bloodhound Breeders, he pointed out that trials on Salisbury Plain saw hounds successfully track a 12-hoursold scent over 15 miles – busy Glasgow streets, however, would be impossible.
He took the opportunity to correct “an erroneous impression which prevails regarding bloodhounds”.