The tale of the butler of Westwood House
The Courier and our friends at West Lothian Local History Library have teamed up to help readers take a trip down Memory Lane.
We will be featuring regular photos and details from West Lothian’s past.
This week we tell the story of a butler in trouble.
Westwood House near West Calder was a fine mansion house that was overwhelmed by the Five Sisters shale bing in the 1940s and 1950s.
Here’s an earlier snippet about Westwood House, which fascinated us.
It’s almost unbelievable that an employer would waste court time by prosecuting his butler for such a slight offence!
Here’s the story as reported in the Courier of December 23, 1876.
William Parkinson, a quiet respectable looking young man, was brought before Sheriff Home at Linlithgow, charged with having within the mansion-house at Westwood, near West Calder, stolen seven cutlets of rabbit and one cutlet of bacon, the property of his employer Capt. Robert Stewart of Westwood.
The accused admitted that he had taken and eaten the articles after he had removed them from the breakfast table.
He also admitted that it was part of his bargain with his master that his wages were fixed on the footing that he was to have no food in the house.
However, he denied that what he had done was a theft, because the articles had not been used at the breakfast table, and were, therefore, to be considered as scraps, which, being hungry, he was entitled to eat, according to the custom of butlers.
The Sheriff remarked that the subject-matter of the charge was small, and it might be that some masters would not take the trouble of putting a stop to impudent peculations of this character, but that, in the light of the agreement, he could not but consider that there was a relevant charge of theft.
After proof being led, the Sheriff found the butler guilty of theft, but dismissed him with an admonition.
We decided to find out a bit more about this man who would actually prosecute a hungry servant for eating what was going to go to waste anyway.
It turns out he was a depute-Lord Lieutenant of West Lothian, the convener of the Commissioners of Supply (forerunner of the County Council), and a member of this committee and that committee.
He acquired his military rank as a Captain in the Indian Army where he took part in quelling the Indian Mutiny, or, as it is now called, the First War of Independence.
The Courier obituary in 1913 reports that he‘exercised much tact and sagacity’– though these don’t seem much in evidence in this particular case!
But the Courier also reports that‘he always kept before him the motto,“Economy with efficiency”- that sounds more like our man!
He was a great walker, and when he had a meeting to attend in Linlithgow, he would often walk there rather than hire a carriage.
Despite his parsimony, and the fact that Westwood estate was small, comprising as it did of only three farms, the mineral rights for the coal and shale beneath his land had made him a wealthy man.
Look after the bacon cutlets and the pounds will look after themselves.