The Edinburgh reverend who stole literature long before The Book Thief

‘Degradation’ of a Kirk minister foreshadows modern bestseller, writes David Walsh

There could be very little common ground between a fictional 12-year-old girl in war-torn Nazi Germany and a real 19th century Scottish man of the cloth – besides a mutual appreciation for stealing books, that is. In Markus Zusak’s seminal novel, The Book Thief, young protagonist Liesel Meminger develops a taste for purloining books (at great danger to herself and her new family) to satiate her growing appetite for words. Close to two centuries before Zusak’s book was released, in 1830, there was a similarly lightfingered individual at work in Edinburgh – the very real and somewhat infamous Reverend Duncan Mccaig.

In the early 19th century, books were still very much a luxury item. Whether or not his motive was money-related remains unclear, but the good Mccaig managed to avoid suspicion for nearly a year after carrying out a spate of thefts from booksellers across the city. Ironically, Mccaig’s downfall came when he pilfered a bible from merchant, Walter Richardson.

Pretending to browse before stashing it under his cloak, the Reverend left the stolen bible with a waiter at the Reading Rooms below Richardson’s premises for safekeeping. By chance, Richardson heard that a bible had been left there and was awaiting collection. A trap was set to catch the book thief. After lying in wait, astonished police apprehended the clergyman, catching him red-handed with the stolen book. On searching his lodgings, officers found 20 other books that had been reported stolen, including copies of Johnson’s Dictionary, the works of Robert Burns, Latin Synonyms, the works of Sophocles and The Complaint or Night Thoughts. Mccaig’s fate was sealed.

An account of Mccaig’s sensational trial appeared in The Scotsman, dated 8 June 1831. The courtroom “was excessively crowded” with spectators and the evidence was overwhelming – Mccaig was beyond help. Summing up, the three justices felt compelled to throw the book at the clergyman, sentencing him to 14 years’ penal servitude in Australia. The Lord Justice Clerk was particularly damning: “I am quite sure that there is nothing I can say that could aggravate the feelings of degradation which must swell your own breast. To conceive it possible that a minister of a Chapel of Ease in Edinburgh should have descended to the commission of such crimes affords one of the most melancholy examples of the depravity of our nature that has ever come to under my observation.” Having pleaded not guilty, Mccaig “maintained the greatest composure, and heard his sentence with almost apparent indifference.

On 14 October 1832, the disgraced Mccaig boarded the prison ship Circassian in Plymouth bound for the penal colony of Port Arthur in Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania).

Transportation to Australia had reached its peak by the 1830s and as 0 How The Scotsman of 1831 reported Reverend Duncan Mccaig’s downfall 2 A modern reinvention, the award-winning bestseller The Book Thief with most transported convicts, Mccaig was barred from ever returning to Scotland. By the 1850s, however, colonists had grown resentful of felons being foisted upon them, and the punishment began to wane.

Arriving in Tasmania on 16 February 1833 after a four-month voyage, Mccaig was entered into Port Arthur’s records as being 31 years of age with a “fresh” complexion, reddish beard, brown hair, and hazel eyes. Next to profession, the clerk scrawled “clergyman – Scotch church.”

For the crime of stealing, Mccaig would have been forced to work long hours in one of the penal station’s micro-industries – shipbuilding, shoemaking, smithing, timber, and brick making. His prison conduct records show he was punished several times for his “inability to do the quantity of work required”.

It was noted, however, that he was of “good character, courteous and respectable”, which goes some way towards explaining why authorities granted him an early release.

It’s perhaps fitting that the both Mccaig and Liesel Meminger ultimately found redemption in the written word. Death – who acts as a narrator in Zusak’s novel – alludes to Liesel becoming a writer when he finally comes to claim her as an old woman.

Released from captivity in 1841, Mccaig settled as a free man in the north of the island, where he worked as teacher. He died on 26 February 1849. In the census the previous year, Mccaig is recorded as a professional person living alone – and still clinging to the beliefs of the Church of Scotland.

“One of the most melancholy examples of the depravity of our nature”