William McCombie Smith (1847 – 1905) – who was his biological father?

(Throughout the text, named McCombie individuals are frequently accompanied by their year of birth to clarify individual identity, because of the limited range of given names in use in the lineage)

Who was William McCombie Smith (1847 – 1905)?

William McCombie Smith was a Highland games athlete, schoolmaster, polemicist, author and antiquarian who was born in Aberdeenshire but spent most of his working life as headmaster of the Blackwater school in Glenshee (Perthshire).  His registered father was Morris Smith, a champion ploughman who died when William was only seven.  He was subsequently brought up by William McCombie (1805) who was a famous breeder and feeder of Aberdeen Angus cattle.  (See William McCombie (1805 – 1880), “creator of a peculiarly excellent sort of bullocks” on this blogsite).  He married the youngest sister of Donald Dinnie, the famous Deeside Highland athlete but after initially cooperating with Donald, the two fell out badly over William McCombie Smith’s claim that Donald Dinnie’s so-called world record performances could not be verified.  The relationship between Donald Dinnie and William McCombie Smith is explored in “The Life of Donald Dinnie (1837 – 1916) Revisited” on this blogsite.  The claim has been made that the biological father of William McCombie Smith was not Morris Smith but a local laird, William McCombie (1802) of Easter Skene.  The present paper explores the evidence relating to this claim.

   

William McCombie Smith

William McCombie Smith and his relationship with the McCombies

There is a very active Clan MacThomas Society, which also covers all the derivative and related surnames associated with the sept.  Its website (www.clanmacthomas.uk) contains many articles covering the history and genealogy of the clan.  While exploring this excellent site, the author came across the following explosive statement concerning William McCombie Smith.  “Oral history within the family says that William McCombie of Easter Skene was the biological father of William McCombie Smith … and that William McCombie of Tillyfour … was his guardian from the age of seven.”  Family rumour usually contains some truth, but it is frequently distorted by word-of-mouth dissemination.  However, the statement has been accepted as a hypothesis and the evidence, which has been assembled below, argues for or against the proposal.  But first it is necessary to give a brief biography of William McCombie Smith.
  

William McCombie Smith was born on 7 September 1847 at Kintocher, Lumphanan, Aberdeenshire, which lies about six miles south of Alford.  He was allegedly named after his god-parent, William McCombie (1805) and was baptised at Lumphanan in December 1847.  The parents of William McCombie Smith were recorded in the parish register as Morris Smith (his given name appeared in several spelling variants) and Elizabeth Frazer.  Morris Smith was born in 1817 near Huntly, the son of farm servants and, in time, he became one of William McCombie (1805)’s trusted and long-serving employees.  Morris was a champion ploughman who was acknowledged as one of the leading practitioners of the art in Aberdeenshire.

Ploughing matches have been held in Scotland since the late 18^th century, one of the earliest known matches having taken place at Alloa in 1784.  The Highland and Agricultural Society had been encouraging the skills of ploughmen since 1801 by the award of premiums (money prizes) to ploughmen.  These competitions were well established in the Vale of Alford by the late 1830s and typically took place in the first three months of the calendar year.

The first ploughing match detected in which Morris Smith competed occurred in February 1839, when he was a servant of William Aitken of Auchintoul, Aberchirder, about 13 miles north of Huntly.  Morris, aged 22 years, came 4^th out of 28 ploughs which started.  It is not clear when Morris took up employment with William McCombie (1805) but it was somewhere in the interval 1839 - 1845.  By the latter date he was regularly winning, or receiving a high placing, in local ploughing matches around the Vale of Alford.  These ploughing matches were often followed by a dinner (not always open to the competitors) and a dance.  The three “William McCombies” in the area, from the estates/farms of Easter Skene, Cairnballoch and Tillyfour, were all involved in these matches, for example, taking the chair at the celebratory dinner, acting as a judge of the competition, or providing a venue for the match.  Their farm servants were regular, even routine, prize-winners.  At the “Great Ploughing Match” at Leochel-Cushnie held in March 1848, William McCombie (1802) of Easter Skene made a "liberal contribution to the prizes".  Morris Smith came first.  The Aberdeen Journal commented, “An almost mathematical regularity characterised the work of Morrice Smith who has obtained at nine ploughing matches first prize and been honoured five times with the Highland Society medal.”  In the results of ploughing competitions, Morris Smith was often recorded as using a plough manufactured by Sellar of Huntly.  The last mention of Morris Smith in a ploughing context was in February 1849 when he acted as a judge in a match held at Midmar.

Before 1851, Morris Smith appeared to leave the employment of William McCombie (1805).  At the 1851 Census Morris was recorded as a 30-year-old married farm servant, born at Drumblade which lies three miles east of Huntly, and in 1851 working for farmer Alexander Duguid at Collyhill, Bourtie, 20 miles south-east of Huntly.  Morris’ wife, Elizabeth, was not with him and she has not been found elsewhere in the 1851 Census.  However, Elizabeth Smith was present in the 1861 Census, living at "Clickim Inn", Lumphanan.  With her in the house were two daughters, Catherine, born about 1850 in St Nicholas Parish, Aberdeen and Elspet born about 1854 in St Machar Parish, Aberdeen.  A search for each girl in the parish records produced no plausible birth.  However, Catherine’s death in British Columbia, Canada in 1924 has been traced and she gave her father’s and mother’s names as Morrice Smith and Eliza Fraser and her own birth date as 5 April 1850 in Aberdeenshire.

Morris Smith’s early death was recorded by the Aberdeen Journal in January 1853.  “Suddenly at Bridge of Marnoch (10m NE of Huntly) on the 4^th January Morrice Smith for many years servant to Mr McCombie Tillyfour.  He was well known in this county as the best ploughman of his day and to his skill and ingenuity much of the improvement in ploughing in the Alford and other districts of the county is to be attributed.”  He was buried at Kinnoir Churchyard, about one mile east of Huntly and close to his birthplace of Drumblade.  Fifteen years later the following notice appeared in the Banffshire Journal.  “A handsome monumental obelisk of Auchindoir freestone has been erected in the churchyard of Kinnoir bearing the following inscription:- “In memory of Morrice Smith who died 4 January 1853 aged 34 years.  Erected by his friends and fellow servants to commemorate the benefits which, as the great improver of ploughing, he conferred on Aberdeenshire”.  The subscriptions were raised by Mr McCombie, Tillyfour and Mr Sellar, Huntly.  A visit to Kinnoir Churchyard shows that the monument is, in fact, an elaborate gravestone, suggesting that Morris Smith’s grave was not originally marked.  It was a long delay between the death of Morris Smith and the raising of funds for a memorial.  Did the celebratory dinner thrown by former employees of William McCombie (1805) in 1865 provide the occasion on which the project could have been discussed and initiated?

These rather sketchy data on the Smith family raise many questions.  Why did Morris Smith leave the employment of William McCombie (1805)?  Why did his wife not travel to live with Morris Smith in his new employment position, but instead went to live in Aberdeen?  Why do the births of the two daughters, Catherine and Elspet not appear in the parish records?  What was the cause of death of Morris Smith at the early age of 34?  It seems reasonable to suggest that there was at least an upheaval in the Smith family’s life around 1850.

What were the “great improvements in ploughing” that Morris Smith endowed on Aberdeenshire?  The involvement of the firm, Sellar of Huntly, seems to give a guide.  George Sellar, the founder of the firm, was instrumental, along with William McCombie (1805) in raising funds for the memorial to Morris Smith, as well as providing the ploughs with which he performed at ploughing matches.  It would clearly be to the advantage of Sellar to have their products associated with a ploughing champion but was that the limit of the relationship?  That seems unlikely.  It also seems implausible that what was being commemorated was simply Morris Smith’s skills with the plough, fine honed as they were.  The early history of the Sellar firm was probably significant.

George Sellar started his business as a blacksmith in Cullen, Aberdeenshire in 1822 but found this village too small to give sufficient scope to his commercial ambition.  He moved to the important agricultural town of Huntly by 1847, where he designed and manufactured agricultural implements, including ploughs.  He became a regular exhibitor and prize-winner at agricultural shows with his ploughs, grubbers and drill harrows.  In its report of the 1847 Highland and Agricultural show held in Aberdeen, the Aberdeen Journal said, “Many specimens of Wheel and Swing Ploughs were shown, very neat in appearance, and apparently embodying the principle on which they were designed – namely ease of draught, conjoined with efficiency of work.  Those especially exhibited by Messrs George Sellar and Son, Huntly deserve attention.  There were three ploughs, each of which cut different shapes of furrows and either of them can be made with the greatest ease to cut furrows of any shape.  On two of them is an improved Mould Board which had been severely tried in a number of ploughing matches throughout a wide district of country and has almost invariably carried the first prizes (author’s emphasis); and at a trial by dynamometer held by the Strathisla Farmers’ Club one of them was found to be on an average of five stones less draught than any of eleven ploughs tried: - Price £4.”  It seems highly likely that these innovations in plough design by George Sellar were based on testing and feedback from the prize ploughman and that this conjectured interaction with the manufacturer was likely to have been the “great improvement in ploughing” attributed to Morris Smith.  George Sellar’s firm had become the principal plough-maker in Scotland by 1862.  Even in 1864, eleven years after the death of Morris Smith, the Banffshire Journal was still referring to his ploughing skills.  “The late Morris Smith from the Huntly district gave the first great stimulus to the improvement of ploughing in the Vale of Alford.  It was thought by many when he made his first appearance that he was gifted with more than natural powers and we believe that no ploughman has appeared superior to him in this or any country up to the present day.” 

Sellar plough, 1896

After the death of Morris Smith in 1853, William McCombie (1805) informally adopted William McCombie Smith, then a seven-year-old boy, taking him to live at Tillyfour House and putting him to school in nearby Tough.  Possibly this was just a conscientious action by a deeply-religious god-parent wishing to fulfil his undertaking to care for his god-son following a family tragedy, but it does seem that there would have been a simpler alternative way he could have helped, by providing financial support to Elizabeth Smith.  William McCombie Smith appears to have lived at Tillyfour House until he gained adulthood and a close relationship must have developed between the Laird of Tillyfour and his young charge.  But, curiously, neither William McCombie, nor William McCombie Smith mentioned this relationship in their extensive public utterances, written and spoken, over the coming decades.  There was no mention in newspaper reports of William McCombie Smith being present as a mourner at the funeral of William McCombie in 1880.  The only acknowledgement of a relationship that has come to light, and that was oblique, was the granting of a legacy in William McCombie (1805)’s will.  “…to William McCombie Smith son of the late Morrice Smith one hundred pounds with power to my trustees if they deem it expedient to purchase an annuity to the said William McCombie Smith with the said sum of one hundred pounds from some respectable Insurance Company…”  . 

In 1861, William McCombie Smith left school and became an employee of William McCombie (1805), working as a ploughman.  He was paid 7gns for his first 6 months’ employment.  This farm servant position appeared to continue until 1867, when William McCombie Smith reached the age of 20.  It seems that his surrogate father was trying to teach him the value of hard work, just as his own father has done to him in the 1820s.  Alexander Mitchell knew young William McCombie Smith in the period when he was a farm servant at Tillyfour and at an early age he showed a marked inclination towards academic work.  “In his early years he had a great love of books and the energy and the perseverance he showed to gain information was a very striking feature in his behaviour.  At any secession from labour, morning, noon or night a book was clutched on the first opportunity and seldom would he be found taking his meals without a book being pored over – or lying handy.  With him there was no idle time not a moment was lost.”
      

When William McCombie (1805) was planning his Parliamentary campaign in 1867 and travelling to markets all over Aberdeenshire, he appointed William McCombie Smith as his coachman, which would have allowed his young charge to see the canvassing work of William McCombie at close hand.

It was also during his farm servant days that William McCombie Smith showed a liking and an aptitude for athletic sports.  William Mitchell said of him, in or before 1865, “He was also very fond of outdoor sports".  The first sporting occasion when he was reported in the press as a prize-winner was at the 1866 Vale of Alford holiday sports.  William was 3^rd in the high leap.  In 1867 he was 2^nd in the 100 yds race at the Leochel-Cushnie Highland games out of 12 entrants.  William McCombie Smith then started to be more successful at athletic sports and in the years 1868 – 1871 he spent the summer travelling to athletics competitions, mainly in the north of Scotland, except that in the summers of 1868 and 1869 he also took part in the hairst (harvest) but that took place at a time of the year when the Highland games had mostly been completed.  In 1871 William McCombie Smith went as far afield as Dalbeattie, in Kirkcudbrightshire, where he collected seven first prizes.  In the winters in this period he attended school and in 1870 he was awarded a first-class certificate (the only one granted) for his performance in the examinations in connection with a course in Physical Geography, taught by Mr W Cramond, the parochial schoolmaster at Lumphanan, during the winter months.

Not far away, in mid-Deeside, another young man, Donald Dinnie was also starting to be noticed for his athletic prowess.  At the Ballater Highland Games of 1868, Donald Dinnie was first in many competitions.  William McCombie Smith’s performance was more modest.  He came 2^nd = in the high leap, which was won by Donald Dinnie.  The two young athletes must have got to know each other by this year, if not before.  Until 1868, William McCombie Smith appeared only to compete in running and leaping events but from the following year he started to compete in the throwing events too, most frequently the light and heavy hammer events.  Throwing events were the forte of Donald Dinnie and it may have been about this time that the Deeside champion started coaching William McCombie Smith.  The Aberdeen Free Press described William as follows, after his performances at the Leochel-Cushnie Athletic Games in 1869.  “Wm McCombie Smith, son of the late famous ploughman Morice Smith took the lead decidedly in the running.  He is an active, clean limbed chap of middle size and his neat style showed not a little of the skilled athletic’s art.”

In the summer of 1870 Donald Dinnie was absent from the Scottish Highland Games scene, competing in North America.  William McCombie Smith was at that time rapidly improving as an athlete and, together with the absence of Dinnie, William was able to return some very good performances at meetings throughout that summer in a wide variety of events.  However, in 1871, William again put in some excellent performances, winning 63 first prizes, 116 second prizes, and 37 third prizes.  Although he never reached the commanding heights of Dinnie at his best, William McCombie Smith was an outstanding all-round athlete. Much later, about 1884, there was a major falling out between William McCombie Smith and Donald Dinnie, which led Dinnie, who liked to harbour a grudge, to denigrate William’s athletic abilities. 

After the death of his father Morris Smith in 1853, William McCombie Smith’s mother, Elizabeth remarried in 1864 to Alexander Esson, a journeyman wright.  The ceremony was performed by Rev Charles McCombie (1804), minister of Lumphanan.  At the time of the 1871 Census, Elizabeth with her new husband and three children, William, Cathrin and Elspet were all present at “Railway Station”, Lumphanan.  It is not clear if this was simply a visit to his mother’s home or if William had moved permanently from Tillyfour.  He was still employed by William McCombie (1805) and at Christmas 1871 William was sent to London in charge of McCombie’s stock for sale at the Smithfield market.  While in London, William McCombie Smith met the famous Scottish war correspondent, Archibald Forbes, who had entered Paris with the Prussians in March of that year at the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War.  Forbes published an advertising puff for Smith.  “Mr. McCombie of Tillyfour, not content with beating the English with fat stock, had sent a ''henchman'' who was ready to throw the hammer, toss the caber, and run a hurdle race against any man in London.”  On his return to Scotland, William McCombie Smith was employed again as a ploughman for the rest of the winter.  The summer of 1872 was spent on the Highland games circuit where William again achieved success.

In the autumn of 1872, William McCombie Smith spent some time working as a game-watcher before being admitted to Aberdeen University (Aberdeen was the home of two separate universities, King’s College and Marischal College, until 1860 when they were merged), though his subjects of study are not known.  It is possible that his attendance at University was suggested, and perhaps paid for, by his mentor, William McCombie (1805) who harboured regrets that he had not taken care to gain more benefit from his own university attendance.  While at university William became involved with the student athletics club, though he was performing at a standard beyond most of his contemporaries, coming 1^st or 2^nd in every event that he entered in the Aberdeen University Athletic Club sports in March 1873.  Aberdeen University must have been entertaining great hopes when they took part in the Inter-University Athletic Games for the Scottish universities held at St Andrews about a week after the Aberdeen intra-mural competitions.  But in those snooty times, with their cult of the amateur, William was judged to be ineligible because he had previously competed with professional athletes, although he was a regular matriculated student, attending classes with his contemporaries every day.  William was deeply annoyed and did not hold back from expressing his displeasure in a letter to the Scotsman, part of which follows.  “I protest against their decision and hope that in future these sports will be open to all regularly matriculated students of the Scottish Universities and that next year when the Edinburgh men come to Aberdeen they will not have it in their power to disqualify any one whom they are afraid to meet in a straightforward honourable trial.  In conclusion, lest the Edinburgh University athletes should be too elated by their victories of Saturday last, I have great pleasure in presenting them with the following facts. 1.  That I am a regularly matriculated student at a Scottish University.  2.  That I am prepared to prove my ability to win 6 out of the11 events forming the programme of the Scottish Inter-University Sports from any student of the four Scottish Universities (then St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh) and am therefor the Champion University Athlete of Scotland.”  (The athletics challenge and the dubious claim to be a champion were straight out of the Donald Dinnie playbook!)  William was repaid with a dismissive reply from Edinburgh.

William McCombie Smith only attended Aberdeen University during one session, 1872 – 1873 and from May of the latter year he was again competing in exhibitions and competitions organised by himself and his partners, Donald Dinnie and James Fleming, and the usual circuit of Highland Games during the summer.  They travelled all over Scotland and as far south as Leeds, where William won the 400yds race, despite falling during the event.  In the autumn of 1873, William McCombie Smith worked in Glasgow for some time as a letter-carrier.  While in the city he took the examination for entry to the Church of Scotland Training College for Teachers, based in Edinburgh.  He was also successful in securing a bursary.  The academic years 1874 - 1875 and 1875 - 1876 were occupied with his preparation for a career as a teacher.  During this period, William continued to compete on the Highland games circuit with some success, though he was over-shadowed by Donald Dinnie and, to a lesser extent, by James Fleming.  However, McCombie Smith was at a considerable weight disadvantage.  In 1875 Smith weighed 12 stone 6lbs, compared to Fleming at 14 stone 11lbs and Dinnie at 15 stone 2lbs.  Donald Dinnie accurately referred to him as a “middleweight” athlete, while he and James Fleming would certainly have been called “heavyweights”

Following the completion of teacher training, William McCombie Smith was appointed to his first teaching position at Gattonside, near Melrose.  The great advantage of teaching as a career was that it allowed William McCombie Smith to continue his athletic pursuits during the summer months, which he did during the summer of 1877.  While at Gattonside, William conducted evening classes and in March 1878 at a soiree held in the village, his evening class students presented him with a “very handsome silver watch” inscribed, “Presented to W McCombie Smith by his night scholars and friends in Gattonside as a token of their esteem 14^th March 1878.”  It appeared that William McCombie Smith terminated his employment at Gattonside about this time, possibly at the end of the spring school term.  The reason for his departure was that Nory Celia Dinnie, the youngest sister of Donald Dinnie had become pregnant by William.  The couple married in Glasgow on 20 April 1878.  Donald Dinnie’s brother Montague and his wife were witnesses.  William’s address was still given as “Gattonside, Melrose” at the registration of the marriage.  The child, Isabella Anderson Smith, was born on 7 May 1878 at Maryhill, Glasgow.  After the birth of their first child, William and Nory may well have returned to the north-east of Scotland, because during the following summer, William appeared at local highland games in the area (Lumphanan, Culter, Ballater, Kildrummy, Braemar, Aboyne) and his home was recorded as Lumphanan.  William and Nory Celia went on to have a family of seven, the other six receiving the following given names, Cuthbert Dinnie, Nory Dinnie, Elsie Montague, Eliza Fraser, William McCombie and Celia Hay. 

William McCombie Smith worked for one term as the English master at High Harrogate College, a boarding school in Yorkshire, during 1878.  It seems likely that that term was at the start of the academic year 1878 – 1879.  For some reason he gave up the job after a single term.  William was then appointed as master of the Blackwater school (sometimes called Blacklunans school), Persie in 1879.  It is possible that the appointment started early in the year and may even have been the reason for him giving up his prestigious post in Harrogate.  Persie was an estate and a small settlement in north-east Perthshire at the southern end of Glenshee and in the winter of 1878 – 1879 the area suffered very severe weather. During the summer of 1879 William McCombie Smith again performed at several Highland games meetings, including the Glenlisla games at Alyth for the first time.  This town lies on the south side of the Grampian mountains about 14 miles from the Blackwater school.

William McCombie Smith’s athletic career continued until 1903, two years before his death.  However, there was a progressive tailing-off in activity.  Fewer events attempted at one meeting, fewer meetings, meetings mostly local, entry in restricted rather than open events, over-40 competitions (and then over-50, followed by over-60), increasing attendance as a referee or judge rather than as a competitor, all these trends being evident.  In total, William’s athletic career would be judged to have been a success.  In 1901 at the Railway Hotel, Blairgowrie, William was presented with his portrait and a purse of sovereigns by his many friends to mark 35 years associated with athletics both as a performer and as a journalist specialising in athletics.  In total he won 1025 athletics prizes.  As William McCombie Smith’s athletic performances declined, other, mostly intellectual, pursuits took over his attention.

A compulsion to write

It was pointed out above that William McCombie Smith was from an early age addicted to books, even when working as a farm servant.  This passion for the written word progressively developed into a writing compulsion.  Whatever was occupying his thoughts at a given time had to be expressed in the written word.  His outlets were various.  Newspapers and journals, such as the People’s Friend and the People’s Journal both radical in outlook and dedicated to promoting the interests of the working man, regular publishers and the correspondence columns of more general newspapers.  The prospectus of the Dundee People’s Journal, which was first published in 1858 contained the following.  "In this new journal our aim will not be to write down but to write up to the good sense of the working-classes, whose interests will be carefully considered, and a considerable portion of space devoted to the discussion of questions in which they are specially concerned.”  Its distribution was largely in Edinburgh, Glasgow and the eastern counties of Scotland north of the Forth. 

But, despite William’s facility with language, he was a poor public speaker and perhaps he recognised this deficiency in himself.  There was another aspect to his mental and emotional constitution which should be noted.  He was insensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others, quick to start a dispute, superior in attitude and crushing in his criticisms of those who held different views from those he owned.  In modern parlance he lacked emotional intelligence, a defect recognised by Robbie Burns in the couplet, “O wad some Power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us!"  These characteristics may not have been unrelated. 

William McCombie Smith was widely-read and prided himself on basing his theorising on a sound factual basis.  He would no doubt have approved of another famous Robbie Burns poetic insight.  “But facts are chiels (fellows) that winna ding (can’t be overturned) and downa be disputed.”  Unfortunately, William tended to think that he was the arbiter of what facts were relevant to a given issue and usually failed to consult others before putting pen to paper.  William was truly a polemicist, but his theorising was usually well in advance of his practical experience.  Also, organisational acumen was not his forte.

Politically, William McCombie Smith was a radical (one who advocates thorough political or social reform) and a supporter of the Liberal Party.  He espoused the cause of the working man and particularly despised large landowners who created sporting estates with their holdings rather than using them for agricultural purposes.  As a result of all these factors conspiring together, William McCombie Smith frequently published his offerings, whether political, social or cultural, in The People’s Journal and The People’s Friend, newspapers aimed at a working-class audience.  Even when William wrote fictional stories, they would be based on subjects or geographical areas he knew well and would have an educational message for his readers. 

Volunteers

As early as 1873 William attended the Volunteer games at Kildrummy along with Donald Dinnie and James Fleming.  Dinnie was a Volunteer himself but it is not known if his two companions had joined the movement at that stage.  After William McCombie Smith’s appointment to the Blackwater school he joined the Alyth Volunteer Corps as a private and this association was maintained until at least 1896, still with the rank of private.  William took up an interest in competitive rifle shooting, taking part in inter-battalion shooting matches.  His abilities were good enough for him to travel to Bisley in Surrey for Volunteer competitions in 1890.  (William’s son, Cuthbert, served in the Imperial Yeomanry during the Second Boer War where he saw much active service, being shot and injured and having several near misses, including his horse being shot from under him and having his helmet riddled with bullets at the Battle of Paaderberg.)

School and community activities 

William acted as librarian for the Blacklunans library and organised an annual concert in support of library funds.  He also gave talks to the Mutual Improvement Society in Glenisla.  Public lectures he gave included one in 1881 on the topic of “Cattle Breeding and practical suggestions to farmers”.  This would have been informed by his years in association with William McCombie (1805).  In 1884, after the opening of a new school building at Blackwater, William proposed starting a class on the Science of Agriculture for young farmers and others. He continued his own formal education and in 1883 he was one of two local candidates, both certified teachers, who were successful in the Aberdeen University Local Examinations.  He also attended and passed the Teachers’ Saturday Drawing Class of the Blairgowrie School Board.  Not all his community activities were local to Blackwater.  In 1889 he gave a reading at the annual concert and ball of the Strathdon Debating Society.    

Poetry and music  

William McCombie Smith’s father-in-law, Robert Dinnie was a significant author and antiquarian and in 1887 he handed over to William several unpublished poems, with authority to publish them.  William was writing poetry from at least 1865 (aged 18) and in 1894 he won a prize from “The People’s Journal” for his own volume of poetry, “Upon the mountains let us march”.  William was keen on traditional Scottish music and in 1890 he wrote the words to the tune “The Piper Weird” by the noted fiddler James Scott Skinner.  The two had a close relationship, Skinner later dedicating his tune “Wamble Mountain Ramble” to William McCombie Smith.  In 1895 William wrote a glowing tribute, “James Scott Skinner, Composer and Violinist”, which appeared in “The People’s Friend”.  Another cooperation between McCombie Smith and Scott Skinner occurred in 1903 in the aftermath of the suicide of Sir Hector Macdonald, a famous Scottish soldier, who was the son of a crofter but ended his career as a Major-General.  A lament was written by McCombie Smith to “Fighting Mac” and the melody was by his fiddling friend.  William also produced a short paper on Durward Lely, “Scotland’s famous tenor” also in “The People’s Friend”.  Another article by William, was published in 1896 on the relationship between Robbie Burns and his publisher Mr Thomson, appearing in the same outlet.

Literature

The following is a selection of William McCombie Smiths literary oevres.

“The beauties of cloud and sky: four sunsets” People’s Friend, 1895

“Adventures at the Goldfields” Weekly News Christmas Edition, 1897

“A race for a wife: A story of Braemar” People’s Journal Summer edition, 1898

“A Glenisla youth’s romantic career” People’s Friend, 1898

Athletics journalism

Much of William McCombie Smith’s career and interactions as an athletics journalist was dealt with in the article, “The Life of Donald Dinnie (1837 – 1916) Revisited”.  William’s major work in this area was his book, “The Athletes and Athletic Sports of Scotland”, published in 1891.  It was originally published as a series of separate articles in the Dundee People’s Journal.  The articles and the book seriously annoyed Donald Dinnie, at the time living in Australia, because it claimed that Dinnie, who liked to style himself “Champion of the World”, could not formally claim a single world record in any athletics event, because his performances were not undertaken under controlled conditions and the performances accurately or objectively measured, recorded and archived.  McCombie Smith was careful to say that in his opinion Dinnie was the best all-round athlete that had ever been produced but that did not mollify Dinnie, who took McCombie to be saying that his claims were bogus.  Although Dinnie was a difficult person, who could manufacture a grievance from a flimsy base, he was not the only athlete to take issue with William McCombie Smith.  The Aberdeen Journal contained many letters in its correspondence columns from athletes aggrieved with reported details of their performances.  Many complained that they had not been consulted by McCombie Smith.

In 1896, William McCombie Smith, rather pompously, published an article entitled “The Championship Meeting its design and aims.”  He then went on to show lesser mortals how to do it by organising a professional championship meeting at Stirling.  It was a disaster.  The Dundee Courier’s account is informative.  “The championship meeting of professional athletes, pipers and dancers of Scotland, promoted by William McCombie Smith, took place at Stirling on Saturday and turned out a huge fiasco.  There were the elements of an interesting gathering in the meeting and had it been properly billed and advertised there would doubtless have been a large turnout of spectators.  During the whole afternoon there would not be more than 500 persons on the ground a number that would not pay expenses by a long way.  The few events that came off dragged greatly and before the finish most of the spectators had left the field whilst others were having competitions on their own account, never heeding the professional items that were going on.  The intended programme consisted of five events in piping, dancing, running, jumping and heavy athletics, but only the latter part was carried through in its entirety.  ….  In the piping and dancing, only a few first-class men came forward and most of them took umbrage and would not compete.  ….  In the racing events, only the mile race was run and Craig, Inverness gained it.  He was the only competitor and to make a race P Cannon, Stirling, who was a spectator, stripped and ran with Craig.”

William felt very strongly that the distinction between amateur and professional athletes should be abolished and that all competitions should be open.  This opinion was no doubt stimulated by his own experience as a student when he was banned from an inter-university athletics match because he had competed with professionals.  In March 1897 he agreed to give a lecture on this topic at Pitlochry.  In order to reach the Perthshire town from Persie he first made a six-mile walk through deep snow, intending then to catch a coach for the rest of the journey.  However, the coach was not running – due to deep snow, so he had to continue on foot for a further five miles before getting a sleigh ride for the remaining distance.  During the lecture he felt faint at one stage, a symptom that he put down to the hot atmosphere in the lecture room.

During 1898 William McCombie Smith was contracted to referee a tug-of-war match between the town of Kirriemuir and Dundee police.  McCombie Smith then caused a controversy by permitting the police team to use heel rings to improve their grip.  Kirriemuir called foul when they lost, and the dispute quickly escalated to the trading of letters in the local press between Mr Dixon of Kirriemuir and William McCombie Smith, with the former threatening to sue.  McCombie Smith replied that Mr Dickson was being silly in threatening to pursue him for the money.  He reminded Dixon that he was a signatory to the agreement which said that the referee’s decision was final and binding.  Dickson did not let matters lie and accused McCombie Smith of other bad decisions.  As usual the Blackwater schoolmaster put these complains down with brutal straightforwardness.  “A man who signs an agreement that explains as clearly as words can do that he was to engage in a 12ft pull and persists in maintaining that six and six make six is beyond hope of reasonable argument.”

Antiquity

William McCombie Smith had a deep interest in the genealogy of the McCombie family and spent many years on his research on this topic.  The product was the book, “Memoir of the Family of M’Combie.  A branch of the Clan M’Intosh.  Compiled from history and tradition”.  It was published in 1887.  This book has a chapter devoted to William M’Combie of Tillyfour and another to William M’Combie of Easterskene and Lynturk as well as chapters on the M’Combie antecedents in Glenshee.  A revised edition published in 1890 under the title, “Memoir of the Families of M’Combie and Thoms, originally M’Intosh and M’Thomas”.   In addition, it had chapters on the descendants of M’Comie Mhor who travelled south into exile.  They used the family names of MacThomas and Thoms.  The new edition of the book was a result of Sheriff Thoms contacting William McCombie Smith and providing him with the genealogy of the MacThomas/Thoms side of the family.  Sheriff Thoms paid McCombie Smith’s life membership of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and the costs of publishing, in return for these additions to the revised version of the book.  Sheriff Thoms believed he was the head of the clan and that appears to have been his motivation for his financial contributions.  William was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in April 1891.  He was proud of this literary achievement and donated a copy of the revised edition of the book to Queen Victoria, which she graciously accepted.  William also made donations of his book to various public libraries around Scotland, including Dundee Free Library.

William made a small, but insignificant, contribution to the practical archaeology of the Glenshee/Glenisla area in 1895, when he undertook an excavation of a knoll in Glenbeg which was suspected of containing a grave.  Nothing was found.

Political activism and journalism

Of the multifarious activities which crowded William McCombie Smith’s mature adult life, political activism, promoted by voluminous writing for the usual McCombie Smith print outlets and, inevitably, accompanied by McCombie Smith-stimulated disputes and acrimony, was the dominant theme.  Within this radical political mix, the issue from which many others devolved was land ownership and land use.

William McCombie Smith’s views on land seem to have been influenced by his reading of the works of Thomas Carlyle.  Carlyle was born at Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire and he was famously argumentative and disagreeable but a highly intelligent man and a complex thinker on social issues.  He produced work on the French revolution and on the oppression of the working classes in England.  In his book “Past and Present” he dealt with the gross inequality between the rich and the poor.  "The condition of England...England is full of wealth...supply for human want in every kind; yet England is dying of inanition (exhaustion through lack of nutrition)".  Carlyle’s solution was some form of command economy in place of the “anarchy of supply and demand”.  This analysis struck a chord with William and he made a similar diagnosis for Scotland’s societal problems.  In 1880, shortly after his installation as schoolmaster at the Blackwater school, he gave a talk to the Glenisla Mutual Association of the topic of “The laws of landlord and tenant as indicated in the works of Thomas Carlyle.” 

Highland sporting estates were a bête noire of William’s.  He believed that the use of land in the Highlands for sporting estates, instead of for productive agriculture was unacceptable.  Indeed, he viewed land as a common good where the proprietors should not be free to do as they pleased with land.   “The temporal ownership of the land of any nation is vested in the whole nation.  No single individual of that nation can become absolute owner of the smallest portion of it.  The title deeds whether received direct from the sovereign hundreds of years ago or from a lawyer yesterday confer the right only to the conditional use of the land they refer to.  A nation is simply a large Co-operative Society.”  He became involved in acrimonious exchanges of letters with various pseudonymous correspondents in the newspapers of north-east Scotland.  William’s letters were usually long and convoluted in their arguments.  The debate often degenerated into personal abuse, a typical example being from “Astonished”.  “I am almost inclined to think that he (McCombie Smith) is more remarkable for his powers of body than strength of mind.”    Some doubted that there was much land in the Highlands that could be turned over to regular agriculture (“Astonished” was one of them) and that in any case sporting estates brought benefits to the Highlands in terms of employment for gamekeepers and other servants and the major increase in spending that occurred each autumn.  Other correspondents agreed with McCombie Smith’s line.

The laws dealing with the relationship between landlord and tenant were another bone of contention for William McCombie Smith, just as they had been for his guardian, William McCombie (1805) and William McCombie (1809) the editor of the Free Press and fellow radical, especially relating to tenant improvements which were appropriated by the landlord without compensation.  This vituperative correspondence continued throughout the 1880s and 1890s.

William McCombie Smith also produced his own schemes for regeneration of the economy of the Highlands, including the formation of massive artificial lochs to be devoted to raising fish and a network of narrow gauge railways to service the transport needs along the glens.  These schemes were typical of William’s theoretical approach and lacked any practical appreciation of the problems involved in their realisation.

In 1893 William McCombie Smith drafted his own Land Bill for Scotland which proposed giving many new rights to the occupiers of land to the extent that the proprietors effectively would have lost control of what they owned. It would also have required a massive new bureaucracy to administer the many functions intermediating between landlord and tenant.  The Bill was a noble effort but was politically naiive.  Also, William, bright though he clearly was, had no experience of drafting Parliamentary legislation.  The Bill was heavily criticised and got nowhere, lacking sponsors in Parliament where the power still lay with the big landowners.

The criticism of landlords occasionally strayed into the criticism of individuals, one such landowner being William Cunliffe Brooks of Glentaner on Deeside (see “William Cunliffe Brooks and the Glen Tana Dream” on this blogsite).  Brooks was a wealthy Manchester banker who bought the Glentaner sporting estate and spent lavishly on developing it into an earthly paradise.  Many farm houses and other buildings on the estate were improved or renewed through uneconomic spending which could not be rentalised, much to the benefit of the tenant farmers.  This construction boom gave employment to many local labourers and craftsmen for over three decades.  William Cunliffe Brooks was very popular on Deeside with all classes in society, so it is not surprising that there was opposition to the views of William McCombie Smith. 

Although Brooks had not created the sporting estate, he did move some tenants to new locations.  In 1893 William McCombie Smith took exception to a notice posted by Brooks on a right of way in Glentaner.  “It is requested that no one will pass without notice so as to avoid the danger of being shot accidentally in the forest.”  This action was described in the Aberdeen Journal as, “Unpardonably insolent”.  This elicited a letter from a farm servant on the Glentaner estate objecting to the way Brooks had been portrayed. People he removed had been placed in better conditions than they had previously enjoyed.  At Ballaterach farm he has built bothy accommodation for the farm servants which was comfortable and modern, with each man having his own bedroom.  William Cunliffe Brooks had not neglected the welfare of the farm servant at Glentaner.  In typical McCombie Smith fashion, this defence of Brooks was rejected.  He has removed tenants (it is true he removed a few tenants) and he has devoted land which could (had decades before) supported 50 people to the use of deer and game. McCombie Smith’s disdain for wealthy incomers was illustrated by his statement in the Aberdeen Journal that one stalwart peasant is of more value to Scotland than all the deer and all of Brooks’ money.  Not many in Aboyne and the surrounding district would have supported that proposition.

Part of William McCombie Smith’s prescription for curing the ills of Scotland was to call for independence but his castigation of wealthy English statesmen, journalists and the English visitors who came north for sport in the autumn was interpreted by some as stepping over the boundary between national pride and corrosive nationalism.  One of William’s antagonists, Mr T Scollay, wrote.  “Mr McCombie Smith is evidently inclined to disregard my counsel for moderation.  So far from seeing anything reprehensible or in any way wrong in the intemperate practice some Scotchmen are addicted to of giving expression in the guise of patriotism to their ill feeling towards England and Englishmen he is inclined to regard it as a rather laudible thing to do – the duty in fact of every Scotchman and the only real evidence of his patriotism.”  This view was probably over-egging the argument against William McCombie Smith, though he thought of Scotland as an oppressed country and as an ignored country in its interactions with its larger southern neighbour.

In the run-up to the 1892 General Election, William McCombie Smith was very active at meetings involving the prospective candidates for West Perthshire.  His sympathies were emblazoned on his sleeve.  At a meeting addressed by the Liberal candidate, Mr Ure, at the Blackwater school and chaired by William, the visitor was well-received with no heckling and a unanimous vote of confidence at the termination.  In contrast, when Sir Donald Currie, the Conservative candidate addressed a meeting in Kirkmichael, the visitor was subjected to a severe and persistent barracking, with McCombie Smith being a leading voice.  He presented Sir Donald with a long list of questions over a wide range of subjects, but with land issues the predominant theme.  However, McCombie Smith’s questioning became so hostile that he lost the sympathy of many in the audience, one member suggesting that the meeting had had enough of his questions.  Sir Donald by the end was giving non-answers in response to his intemperate interrogator.  The Dundee Advertiser described William McCombie Smith as “an impatient radical” – an accurate assessment.

Another topic related to land ownership on which William McCombie Smith held strong views and on which he wrote extensively was the subject of poaching.  He saw poaching as a romantic pursuit practised by the working classes against the despised landowners, supported by the Game Laws, in reserving game for their own enjoyment and at the same time depriving ordinary people of land to farm and thus earn a living.  William opined, “Ordinary legitimate shooting lacks the charm of poaching.”  In 1889 a Mrs Matheson was convicted of poaching on her husband’s farm on the evidence of a single game-watcher who claimed she had been setting snares for grouse.  William donated 2s towards her fine and costs of £3 9s.

In a series of articles in the Dundee People’s Journal under the title, “The Romance of Poaching” he was again intemperate in his criticisms of the owners of sporting estates and propounded the idea that land should be in common ownership and game removed from the protection of the law.  That way poaching would cease to exist as everyone, including tenant farmers and farm servants, would be free to shoot wild animals and the game populations would decline rapidly.  In effect he was prophesying a revolution (“Landholders have been acting up to that belief (that they could do what they liked with their land) for over 200 years now, but there are abundant proofs that the people will not tolerate such an absurd notion much longer.  Every nation depends for its existence on the land it occupies.  Every human being born into a nation is part of that nation and as a consequence has a right to part of the land.”)  He even appeared to be encouraging some kind of direct action.  “It is time the working men all over the country reminded landholders that the land of the country belongs to them as well as to the landholders and that it is time landholders began to understand that they are expected to use the land for the national good not for their own selfish profit and amusement.  When they are made to do that there will be no more gamekeepers and poachers.”  An editorial in the Dundee People’s Journal hinted that they found William’s views on this subject a bit extreme. “Perhaps all our readers will not see eye to eye with Mr McCombie Smith, but they will recognise that he treats a difficult question in a thorough and radical fashion.”

The death of William McCombie Smith

William McCombie Smith had suffered for some time from gastric ulcers and after a brief period of two days of incapacitation, he died suddenly of a ruptured lesion on 29 June 1905 at Blackwater schoolhouse.  He was 57.  An obituary appeared in the Dundee Evening Telegraph which referred to both his ceaseless activity and his association with controversy.  “The deceased gentleman was in apparently his usual vigorous state until quite recently and his robust personality and ready pen were at the services of the community as freely as ever.  ….  Needless to say, the pronounced form in which Mr McCombie Smith expressed his opinions went against the grain of many of the community and he was never without a small controversy on his hands.  ….  His life altogether was always fairly crowded with work of one kind or another.”  The newspaper also commented that Blackwater was a rather small school “for a man of his undoubted force of character and general range of ability.”

A moving description of William McCombie Smith’s funeral was also published in the Dundee Evening Telegraph.  It is quoted here extensively for its emotional power.

“Standing in the playground I watched the figures of the glen folks as they came from under the shadow of the Grampians or along the paths and up the glens.  Farmers in their gigs, young men on foot, neighbours of all classes assembling in the neighbourhood of the schoolhouse.  The schoolchildren gathered together in the playground, the ministers stood on the doorstep and all the mourners quietly gathered together.  As the words “I am the Resurrection and the Light” rang out I looked at the faces of the men as they listened to solemn messages and it seemed to me that the groups would have served to picture a gathering of Covenanters.  Old men with furrowed faces, men in the prime of life, stalwart young men whose features manifested strength and determination, it was essentially a gathering of men of the type upon which the crowded centres depend for full supply of the forces that count in the making and maintenance of national life.  The prayer over, the children fell into line behind the hearse and we moved off adown the glen.  As we wended our way under the trees the sun was shining the birds a-singing and the Blackwater sounding a melodious requiem.  At the parting of the road leading between the hills to Kirkmichael the children all stood to watch as all that was left of the Maister turned from the glen he loved so well.  As the long line of country traps passed along between the waving fields and beautiful hedgerows I looked beyond to the hearse with its wreath-covered burden, to the everlasting hills all aglow in the brightness of the westering sun and I realised the great gulf fixed between town and country.  ….  In the country where men and women have their work to do and do it bravely, they realise some things that we are apt to forget.  In the old kirkyard at Kirkmichael we laid the whilom (former) champion to rest and the Glen folks some of whom had left home in the early forenoon turned their faces towards Glenshee and the Grampians and some of them at least were thinking of the day when they may lead the way towards that Auld Kirkyaird.”

The gravestone subsequently erected over William McCombie Smith’s mortal remains reads as follows.   

William McCombie Smith FSA Scotland

Who died at Persie 29^th June 1905 aged 58 years

Erected by many friends

In memory of his work as Schoolmaster Journalist and Athlete

Also the memory of his daughter Eliza Frazer died 29^th March 1902 aged 15 years

Nory Dinnie died at Port of Montieth 25^th March 1909 aged 26 years

The life of William McCombie (1802)

Born the eldest son of Thomas McCombie (1762), William McCombie (1802) was favoured by his inheritance of the Easter Skene estate, comprised of six farms and most of the village of Kirkton of Skene, on his father’s death in 1824.  He also fell heir at the same time to the snuff mill in Peterculter.  William’s holdings further increased in 1833, when he inherited the estate of Lynturk, near Tough, from his uncle, Peter McCombie (1767), who had no children.   In 1876 on the death of Rev Charles McCombie (1804), his cousin and tenant of part of Lynturk, William McCombie (1805) urged the laird of Easter Skene to buy the farm of Tillyfour, but he claimed he could not see his way to do that and the farm was purchased by its tenant, William McCombie (1805) instead.  In 1832 William McCombie (1802) commissioned Aberdeen’s city architect, John Smith, to build him a new house on his Skene estate – Easter Skene House. 

 

Easter Skene House

Apart from farming at Easter Skene, William McCombie (1802) also served on the boards of several companies, including the Aberdeen Fire and Life Assurance and Annuity Company, the Scottish Australian Investment and Insurance Company and the Aberdeen Town and County Bank.  William McCombie (1802) was thus wealthy.  Throughout his life he was generous in his support of good causes.  Those favoured with his donations included the Association for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland, an appeal on behalf of unemployed operatives and labourers in the Highlands (1848), the Association for promoting improvement in the dwellings and domestic condition of agricultural labourers in Scotland,  the St Nicholas Town Bells appeal, the British Association for the Advancement of Science Aberdeen meeting, a memorial of the late Prince Consort (1862) and an appeal to raise a statue of Queen Victoria (1869).

William McCombie (1802) was a farmer and was always personally active in the management and development of the Easter Skene estate, the farms of the Lynturk estate being generally let to tenant farmers, including his cousin, William McCombie (1805).  In 1824 on assuming ownership of Easter Skene, the estate was in a generally undeveloped condition with much heather-covered high ground and boggy low ground.  He cleared the high ground and drained the low ground, planted trees, built about 30 miles of stone dykes to enclose the land and installed access roads.  By the end of his life there was no undeveloped land on the Easter Skene estate.  The laird of Easter Skene’s herd of polled black cattle dated back to the early 1840s and was the earliest such herd of significance, pre-dating even the herd of his cousin, the laird of Tillyfour.  Unlike many herds started by wealthy landowners, the Easter Skene doddies were developed entirely with economic considerations in mind.  There was no buying of expensive beasts from prestigious herds but, even so, an excellent lineage of animals was established within a few years which eventually achieved success in the showring and even supplied animals to the breeding stock of other owners, including William McCombie (1805).  William McCombie (1802) won a first prize for his cattle in 1845 and in 1861, at the Mar Agricultural Association show, he won the silver medal for the best Aberdeenshire bull under 8 years and was second in the category for one-year- old polled queys (heifers).  Over his lifetime he won about 300 prizes.

In a speech given in 1870, William McCombie (1805) spoke approvingly of his cousin, the Laird of Easter Skene, referring to him as a kind and considerate landlord who lets his farms at moderate rents, who keeps no head of game, who lives among his people as an enterprising improver of the soil, a breeder of cattle and a winner of many prizes in the show yard, a warm supporter of the Volunteer cause and a gentleman of the kindest heart and most agreeable manners.  A measure of his popularity can be gauged from his generosity towards tenants, servants and neighbours, such as the provision of a dinner for his tenants and their families and some friends to celebrate the marriage of the Prince of Wales in 1863 and the loan of a park for the Skene annual picnic in 1880.  In return he was frequently entertained, for example to a dinner and ball by the Easter Skene tenantry in 1867.  At that event the farmers’ wives and young ladies presented William McCombie (1802) with “a handsome gold signet ring as a token of esteem”.  One servant, Helen Michie, served the Laird of Easter Skene for 46 years and worked for him from at least 1839, when she was 25, if not before.

The Laird of Easter Skene also involved himself in public affairs.  He was a Commissioner of Supply for about 65 years and in 1867 at the age of 65 he took on the role of captain in the recently-formed 3^rd Aberdeen Rifle Volunteers.  In 1857 at the Aberdeen Autumn Circuit he was placed on the jury for the trial of one John Booth for murder.  His fellow jurors elected him as their chancellor (foreman).  He also served as a JP for more than 60 years.

William McCombie (1802) was educated at Marischal College, graduating in 1820.  He was described as being physically strong, tall and imposing.  At the age of 70 he was the tallest man in his company of 100 Volunteers and was unbent in stature.  One of the laird of Easter Skene’s enduring passions was athletics.  His father had been a champion stone-putter on the links at Aberdeen and William established the Skene Games about 1869.  According to William McCombie Smith, Donald Dinnie, George Davidson and Kenneth McCrae, all leading heavy athletes, liked to attend the Skene games out of respect for William McCombie (1802).  Of course, his cousin, William McCombie (1805) was also an athletics enthusiast.  The Laird of Easter Skene was fond of the Doric language and of the national musical idiom and he was a patron of fiddle players.  Politically he was a Conservative of a mild type but was never a party-man with an unshakable belief in a fixed political ideology.

The Laird of Easter Skene had a keen interest in history and genealogy which dated back to the early 1820s and stayed with him all his life.  He built up a substantial library of antiquarian books at Easter Skene House.  William had a passion for the origins of his clan in Perthshire and Forfarshire.  In 1827 he visited Glenisla and Glenshee and made two further visits after that time.  On one occasion he was accompanied by his brother James Bain McCombie, the Aberdeen advocate and another time his companion was his son-in-law, the Rev Dr Taylor, minister of Leochel-Cushnie.  Lord Airlie told William McCombie (1802) that it would give him great pleasure to see the McCombies settled once more in Glenisla. 

Personal tragedy blights the life of William McCombie (1802)

William McCombie (1802) married Katherine Ann Buchan Forbes in March 1831.  She hailed from a well-connected family of Aberdeenshire landowners, being related to Sir Arthur Forbes of Craigievar and to the Farquharsons of Brochdarg, who developed an ancient grudge with McCombie’s own relatives.  The couple had one child, Thomas, who was born in 1832.  Sadly, Katherine died in 1835 barely four years into her marriage and Thomas died in 1841, aged nine.  Both Katherine and her son Thomas were buried in the kirkyard which lies just outside the gates of the Easter Skene estate.  William did not remarry and after his death in 1890 the estates at Easter Skene and Lynturk passed to his relative, Peter Duguid who adopted the family name McCombie, becoming Peter Duguid McCombie.  This account of William McCombie’s married life is standard and given by other authors.  However, it is possible that, prior to his marriage to Katherine Forbes, he was the father of a child.

The Rev Alexander Taylor, the minister of Leochel-Cushnie and Miss Jessie McCombie of the parish of Skene had their banns of marriage duly intimated in December 1850 and were married on 9 January 1851.  The Rev Taylor was 44 at the time, while his bride was exactly half his age.  The report of the marriage in the press (the Aberdeen Journal, the Aberdeen Herald and General Advertiser, the Elgin Courier, the Elgin Courant and the Stonehaven Journal) described the bride as the daughter of William McCombie of Easter Skene.  No record has been found of a press retraction, or apology for a mistaken statement and no record has been found of a marriage involving William McCombie (1802).  The Taylors quickly had a child, Isabella, after the marriage but, tragically, Mrs Jessie Taylor (nee McCombie) died at the age of 23 shortly afterwards.  She was buried in a quiet corner of the churchyard at Leochel-Cushnie, where her husband, Rev Alexander Taylor had been the minister since 1839.  At the 1881 Census, Isabella Taylor was recorded as the unmarried granddaughter of William McCombie, living at Easter Skene House.  William McCombie (1802), who as head of the household was the author of this information, would thus have been the father of Isabella Taylor’s mother, the late Mrs Jessie Taylor.  In conclusion, it seems highly probable that William McCombie (1802) was the biological father of an illegitimate girl, Jessie McCombie who was born about 1829.  No plausible record has been found for the birth or baptism of the girl in the Parish Records.  Perhaps her birth was never registered?  No compelling evidence to suggest the identity of the child’s mother has been uncovered.

Death of William McCombie (1802)    

William McCombie (1802) died on 4 July 1890 aged 88, a few days after suffering a stroke.  He was buried on 10 July in the same plot as his late wife and son in Kirkton of Skene churchyard.  Many distinguished citizens from Aberdeen attended the service, 20 carriages being needed to accommodate them all on the journey from the Granite City.  Relays of tenantry carried the coffin down the tree-lined avenue from Easter Skene House before handing over to a party of pall-bearers led by his nephew and heir, Mr Peter Duguid, an Aberdeen advocate.  Shops in the village were closed and curtains drawn in the houses.  Local people seemed genuinely moved by the death of their Laird, who had held sway at Easter Skene House for 66 years.  William McCombie (1802) had left a testamentary trust to administer the affairs of his estate. One of the executors being Mr Peter Duguid.  The trust required the trustees to execute a deed of entail on the land of Easter Skene and Lynturk, the first proprietor of these lands being Peter McCombie.  Each heir to the lands was obliged to add the surname “McCombie” to his own and to maintain the traditional arms and the designation “McCombie of Easter Skene and Lynturk”.  Unsurprisingly, Peter Duguid was happy to be transformed into Peter Duguid McCombie.  Personal estate left by the Laird of Easter Skene amounted to almost £6,000, which was insufficient to pay off his debts and funeral expenses.    The herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle, so painstakingly assembled by William McCombie (1802), were sold off about a month after his death.

Memorial to William McCombie (1802) Kirkton of Skene

Could William McCombie (1802) have been the father of several illegitimate children?

It seems highly likely that he was the father of Jessie McCombie with an unknown mother before his marriage to Katherine Forbes.  Then there was the curious case of the second “William McCombie Smith”, born in 1840 in “Lyn” whose birth seems to have been concealed for some years (see below).  Another interesting fact, which could have been relevant in this regard, was the birth of illegitimate twins to Ann Moir, a servant to the Laird of Easter Skene in 1857.  The births were concealed for some time.  Alexander Rae, another servant was reputed to be the father and the eventual registration of the births of the twins attributed fatherhood to him, though Alexander Rae claimed that he and Ann Moir were married, which was untrue.  The pair were convicted of concealment of a birth to which they pleaded guilty.  In mitigation William McCombie (1802) gave a good character reference to the pair and declared that the two intended to marry, though that marriage has not been found.  But all these data give no more definite answer to the question posed than, “he might have been the father of several illegitimate children”.  Following the funeral of William McCombie (1802), the Minister of Skene said of him.  “His kind and sympathetic nature led him into familiar intercourse with all classes of the community. ….  He had a genuine reverence for religion and for all that was good and worthy; and though he was not perfect (author’s emphasis) any more than the rest of his fellow creatures, his good Christian qualities shone out with a mild and pleasant light which won the hearts of all who knew him.”  Now these were strong words to use about the just-deceased Laird of Easter Skene and must refer to something significant.  But what?  One final point on this matter arises from the wording of his will.  “… the said William McCombie died at Easter Skene aforesaid domiciled there upon the fourth day of July 1890 predeceased by his wife and without lawful issue surviving".  Did these words admit that illegitimate issue of William McCombie (1802) were living, or was this just legal boiler-plate that might have been included in the will even though no illegitimate offspring were thought to be extant?

Was William McCombie (1802) the biological father of William McCombie Smith?

The short response to this question is that the answer is not known, either way, with any degree of confidence.  However, it is fascinating to consider the circumstantial evidence which bears upon the issue.  So, what is known of William McCombie (1802), William McCombie (1805) and William McCombie Smith which might be circumstantially relevant?

The style of the name “William McCombie Smith”

Commentators dealing with the relationship between William McCombie (1805) and William McCombie Smith usually suggest that the given names “William” and “McCombie” were a tribute to the Laird of Tillyfour from a trusted employee, Morris Smith, the registered father of the boy.   It was unusual for an employee to name his child after his august employer.  William McCombie (1805) had many servants, including those who were employed for multiple years and established a position of trust with the master, but who do not seem to have gone down the route of naming a child after William McCombie.  It was even more unusual for the employer to agree to act as god-parent. The question ought to be asked: “Was there some special reason why William McCombie (1805) granted this favour to the son of Morris and Elizabeth Smith?”

It should also be pointed out that in working class families pre-1900, the use of a surname as a second given name could indicated illegitimacy.  It was a convenient way to identify the child’s father, when he or she would otherwise only inherit the mother’s surname.  But in this case Morris and Elizabeth Smith were married.  Even so, were they indicating that the biological father of their son was called “William McCombie”?  In case any reader finds this suggestion to be testing the boundaries of the credible, there was another “William McCombie Smith” who had been born in the same area a few years previously.  In the Old Parish Records for Leochel-Cushnie is the following entry, made in 1845, after the entry for 17 July of that year.  “Thomas Smith in Lyn (Lynturk?) and Jane Christie his wife had a son born 24 Ap 1840 named William McCombie”.  So, who was the father of this second William McCombie Smith and why was his birth apparently obscured or even concealed for five years?  The concordance of name, location and time period between the two “William McCombie Smith”s suggests this may not be coincidental.  There were no other “William McCombie Smith”s in Scotland before or after this period.

Mrs Elizabeth Smith

“I have often seen Mr Smith’s mother; she was of medium height stoutly built with round and most comely features and dark crimped hair.  In her younger days I should say such a handsome woman was very seldom met with and it would be impossible now.”  This telling and possibly significant remark was made by Mr Alexander Mitchell, a colleague of William McCombie Smith in his farm servant days.  William’s mother appears to have been an attractive woman and may well have caught the attention of the Laird of Easter Skene who in early 1847 had been widowed for 12 years.  Morris Smith would certainly have been known to William McCombie (1802) from ploughing matches and perhaps other agricultural events and it is feasible that the Laird of Easter Skene was also familiar with his wife, being on easy terms with all levels of society.  The post-ploughing match ball would have been such a social occasion when the Laird of Easter Skene could meet with the female relatives of the ploughmen and William McCombie Smith was conceived during the ploughing match season.  William McCombie Smith attributed some of his success in life to the support of his mother, but never mentioned Morris Smith as an influential factor.

Disruption in the Smith family 

Morris Smith rose to a responsible position with William McCombie (1805) in the late 1840s, yet by 1851 he had moved to a new position with farmer Alexander Duguid, who farmed 236 acres at Bourtie.  Morris’ wife was not recorded as being with him.  She was known to have been living in Aberdeen between at least 1850 and 1854.  There seemed to have been some disruption in the Smith family in the late 1840s.  Interestingly, Alexander Duguid was the brother of Peter Duguid, a major landowner, also in Bourtie.  This Peter Duguid must have been a close friend of William McCombie (1802) since he was nominated as a trustee of his estate.  Peter Duguid of Bourtie was also a pall-bearer at the Laird of Easter Skene’s funeral.  Did Morris Smith obtain his new position to take him away from an uncomfortable situation in the Vale of Alford and was William McCombie (1802) influential in finding him a new job? (Incidentally, Peter Duguid of Bourtie was not closely related to Peter Duguid of Cammachmore, an Aberdeen advocate, another trustee, another pall-bearer and the inheritor of the entailed estates of Easter Skene and Lynturk.)  This confusing and possibly difficult time for the Smith family was further compounded by the sudden death, cause unknown, of Morris Smith in January 1853.

Why did William McCombie (1805) become the guardian of William McCombie Smith about 1853?

Possibly this was just a conscientious action by a deeply-religious god-parent wishing to fulfil his undertaking to care for his god-son following a family tragedy, but it does seem that there would have been a simpler alternative way he could have helped, by providing financial support to Elizabeth Smith, which would have allowed her seven-year-old son to continue living with his mother in the locality.  Could it be that the Laird of Tillyfour considered William McCombie Smith to be a McCombie and that he felt a special responsibility for his upbringing?  He appeared to use the pattern of his own upbringing as a model for the rearing of William McCombie Smith.  Hard work as a farm servant followed by a period of time at Aberdeen University.

Did William McCombie Smith think of himself as a “McCombie” rather than as a “Smith”?   

In terms of shared characteristics, William McCombie Smith adopted an amalgam of the interests of the “three Williams”, the Laird of Tillyfour, the Laird of Easter Skene and the editor of the Aberdeen Free Press.  Smith’s passions were athletics (Tillyfour, Easter Skene), antiquity and family history (Easter Skene), radical politics (Free Press), political activism (Tillyfour, Free Press), journalism, and polemics (Free Press), authorship (Tillyfour, Free Press), traditional music (Easter Skene), Volunteers (Easter Skene).  It should also be pointed out that William McCombie Smith was very bright but also disputatious and clearly lacked emotional intelligence.  The McCombies were also a very bright lineage, as shown in the article, “William McCombie (1805 – 1880), “creator of a peculiarly excellent sort of bullocks”, but one member particularly had a facility for being blunt to the point of rudeness, William McCombie (1805). (Since the original version of this account was published in 2018, circumstantial evidence has emerged which suggests that William McCombie (1809) of Cairnballoch and the first editor of the Aberdeen Free Press should also be kept in mind concerning William McCombie Smith's biological parentage.  In addition to the similar characteristics between the two summarised above, there was another remarkable trait that the two shared to a marked degree: early-blossoming literacy, a passion for thinking and a compulsion for writing.  Geographical proximity should also be born in mind.  The farm of Cairnballoch lies only about 3 miles north of Kintocher where William McCombie Smith was born in 1847.  Finally, between 1845 and 1851, William McCombie (1809) supported local ploughing matches on 14 occasions.  Circumstantial evidence? Yes, but it should still be kept in mind.)

Whether these characteristics were acquired by genetic or social inheritance is, in a way, immaterial.  William McCombie Smith looked and acted like a McCombie.  His attitude to his registered father was quite different.  Morris Smith was, despite his lowly origins, an achiever, being recognised as the best ploughman of his age in Aberdeenshire and he may have made significant contributions to innovation in plough design.  Although his son can have had little memory of him, he was a father of whom a son could be proud.  Yet he never wrote about Morris Smith or his achievements despite his registered father belonging to the very social class whose interests William McCombie Smith campaigned for so vigorously.  On the other hand, he wrote extensively and in glowing terms about both the Laird of Tillyfour and the Laird of Easter Skene.

Throughout his life, William McCombie Smith presented himself with all three name components, as though McCombie was a part of his surname rather than a given name.  Also, William McCombie Smith was known to his friends by the familiar term of “McCombie”.  The given names of William McCombie and Nory Smith’s children had strong links to the Dinnie, McCombie and Smith families (except perhaps “Anderson” whose origin is unclear) but there was no use of “Morris”, the name of William McCombie Smith’s registered father, which seems rather strange.   Donald Dinnie’s older son was called Cuthbert and he proved to be a skilled Highland dancer before his tragic early death in1879 from consumption.  William McCombie Smith and Cuthbert Dinnie both appeared in the same Highland games while Donald Dinnie was away in America in the summer of 1870, so the two clearly knew each other.  William McCombie Smith’s older son was also given the names “Cuthbert Dinnie”.  He proved to be a capable Highland athlete and he presented his name as “Cuthbert Dinnie McCombie-Smith” when competing.  This tradition appears to have been maintained by the descendants of William McCombie Smith.  Is this a subtle indication of their acceptance of, even pride in, the alleged parenthood of William McCombie Smith?

It was also the case that McCombie Smith and the Laird of Tillyfour, though they must have developed a close relationship over the years from sharing a house, never publicly mentioned the guardianship that was entered into at a very early age.  William McCombie Smith’s reference to the pride that the Laird of Tillyfour took in the athletic prowess of his servants and his frequent recital of their achievements to visitors to the farm is instructive.  None of the other Tillyfour servants had the athletic abilities or the consequential awards which remotely approached those of McCombie Smith, yet he failed to mention his own name in this context. The only acknowledgement of a relationship that has come to light from the Laird of Tillyfour, and that was oblique, was the granting of a legacy in his will.  “…to William McCombie Smith son of the late Morrice Smith one hundred pounds with power to my trustees if they deem it expedient to purchase an annuity to the said William McCombie Smith with the said sum of one hundred pounds from some respectable Insurance Company…  “.  There was no mention in the newspaper reports of the funerals of the Laird of Tillyfour and the Laird of Easter Skene of the attendance of William McCombie Smith.  It seemed as if the three of them were trying to maintain some public distance, perhaps not wishing to draw attention to their friendships?

In 1887, William McCombie Smith published “Memoir of the Family of M’Combie.  A branch of the Clan M’Intosh.  Compiled from history and tradition.”  This book dealt extensively with the origins of the family in Glenshee and Glen Isla and must have involved William McCombie Smith in extensive documentary research, in order to create his published work.  In addition, there were separate chapters on the Laird of Tillyfour and the Laird of Easter Skene.  This choice must indicate that he wanted to say something about these two, admittedly distinguished, McCombies.  There was nothing about other still living or recently dead, but equally distinguished, family members such as, Thomas McCombie (1819) the legislator in Australia, James Boyn McCombie (1808) the Aberdeen advocate, or William McCombie (1809) editor of the Aberdeen Free Press.  Also, there was nothing about other McCombies from the previous century who had also achieved distinction, such as Thomas McCombie (1762), father of the Laird of Easter Skene.  This restricted choice is likely to indicate that the Laird of Tillyfour and the Laird of Easter Skene held a special place in William McCombie Smith’s personal pantheon.  The debt he owed to William McCombie (1805) was clear but why did William McCombie (1802) gain such admiration?  Taking an overview of the chapter on the Laird of Easter Skene, the reader is drawn to the conclusion that the work is a eulogy from beginning to end, even though the two men did not share a political philosophy, which was the most dominant interest of McCombie Smith’s life.  It is also clear that McCombie Smith knew the Easter Skene and Lynturk estates in great detail.  Given that the Laird of Easter Skene had an enduring interest in antiquity and his own family history, and built up an outstanding library, it is to be wondered if this interest may have been the stimulus for McCombie Smith to research and write his book.  The two men surely knew each other very well.

There is a curious feature of William McCombie Smith’s career which requires explanation.  In spite of being highly literate and highly active in publishing he chose to settle into a job at the remote Blackwater school in Glenshee, to which he devoted most of his professional life.  The Dundee Evening Telegraph described the school as, “…a rather small school for a man of his undoubted force of character and general range of ability”.  William McCombie Smith certainly seemed to consider himself a Highlander.  In 1889, after an inter-battalion shooting competition, which his 4^th Battalion lost, he substituted for the commanding officer, Major Munro who had to leave early, in making a speech to the Volunteers.  He assured his friends that although they had been beaten, they had too much Highland blood in their veins to be discouraged (author’s emphasis) and that they would endeavour to turn the tables next year.  He also won a poetry competition with the emotively-titled offering “Upon the mountains let us march”.  If, additionally, he thought of himself as a McCombie, there is an obvious explanation for his devotion to Blackwater and the surrounding area.

If today a journey is taken south through Glenshee, a short distance beyond the Spital of Glenshee will be found a notice advertising the Clach na Coileach (Stone of the Cockerel) a large rock at the side of the road where the members of the Clan McThomas traditionally met, where significant events in clan history took place and which today still acts as a meeting point for clan adherents.  A few miles further south is the Blackwater school, now an outdoor centre, with its attached schoolmaster’s house, where William McCombie Smith worked.  It is the nearest school to the “Stone of the Cockerel”.  In the 1820s, Lord Airlie, whose ancestors had been in dispute with the Clan MacThomas, told William McCombie (1802) that it would give him great pleasure to see the McCombies settled once more in Glenisla.  William McCombie Smith was aware of this statement.  It seems plausible that he saw taking the job at the Blackwater school as fulfilling his destiny, as a McCombie and a Highlander, to return to the traditional lands of the Clan and to serve the people there.

Hypothesis

Although no single piece of circumstantial evidence presented above constitutes proof of the veracity of the hypothesis that William McCombie Smith’s biological father was William McCombie (1802), the Laird of Easter Skene, collectively, the circumstances described support the hypothesis, as suggested in the following hypothetical scenario.

William McCombie (1802) the Laird of Easter Skene was the proprietor, through inheritance, of a substantial number of farms, both around Kirkton of Skene and around Tough.  He was an affable and popular landlord who enjoyed good relationships with people at all levels in society, including his tenants and their farm servants.  He was a practical farmer and worked hard to develop his land around Kirkton of Skene, giving him a good understanding of the issues faced by his tenants.

William’s affluence allowed him to indulge his particular interests in the history of his family, traditional music, physical sports, the Volunteers, cattle breeding and deserving causes.  He was supportive of the farm servants and their pass-times, such as Highland games and ploughing matches.

During the 1820’s William, who was a tall, strapping young man managed to make a local girl pregnant.  The child was acknowledged by him as his daughter.  Later he married a lady from the landed proprietor class to which he belonged but, tragically, his wife and the only child of the marriage, died young.  He was widowed at the age of 33 and without a legitimate successor at the age of 39.  William did not remarry but was very popular with the local farmers’ wives and young ladies and he subsequently sought intimate company with ladies who came within his sphere of social contacts, including female farm servants and the wives of male farm servants.  Occasionally, pregnancies resulted, and it required some use of his influence and possibly his money to cover these fruitful liaisons.  The church locally did not approve of his behaviour, but his power and influence was able to overcome any discontent shown by the local minister.

One lady who took the Laird of Easter Skene’s fancy was Elizabeth, the attractive wife of the champion ploughman, Morris Smith.  At the time, Morris Smith was an employee of William McCombie’s tenant, friend and cousin, William McCombie (1805).  Elizabeth Smith produced a son in 1847.  Morris Smith was unhappy with the situation but heavily dependent for employment on the McCombies.  The Smiths decided to give the boy the names “William” and “McCombie” to indicate his true parentage.  However, the liaison between Elizabeth Smith and William McCombie (1802) caused friction in the marriage and Morris Smith left the employment of the Laird of Tillyfour to work for Alexander Duguid at Bourtie.  The brother of Alexander Duguid was a close friend of the Laird of Easter Skene and he may have used his influence to get a new position for Mr Smith.  Elizabeth Smith left the district and went to live in Aberdeen for some years. 

Tragedy followed for the Smiths when Morris died suddenly in 1853.  William McCombie (1805) felt a particular responsibility for William McCombie Smith, partly because of the good working relationship he had had with Morris Smith and partly because of the parentage of William McCombie Smith and the difficulties engendered in the Smiths’ marriage.  He agreed with Elizabeth Smith that William McCombie Smith would move to Tillyfour and be looked after by his servants and himself.  William arranged his schooling at Tough, his subsequent apprenticeship as a ploughman at Tillyfour and his spell of higher education at Aberdeen University.

It became clear during his upbringing that William McCombie Smith was highly intelligent and addicted to books and ideas.  He fell under the influence of the McCombies immediately surrounding him and adopted many of their interests.  At some stage he was told of his true parentage and thereafter viewed himself as a McCombie and not a Smith.  He proved to be an able athlete and also turned his scholastic aptitude to the history of the McCombies, perhaps stimulated by William McCombie (1802).  Becoming a schoolmaster was a natural progression for William McCombie Smith because it allowed him to pursue his intellectual activities, including his developing political inclinations, and compete in Highland games during the summer months.

Believing himself to be a McCombie he jumped at the chance to apply for the job of headmaster of the Blackwater school in Glenshee, located as it was close to the traditional meeting place of the McCombies, the Cockstane.  To him that was more important than seeking a more prestigious role at a school in a city such as Aberdeen or Dundee, where he would surely have shone.  He then had everything that he desired, and devoted his life to serving the historical area from which the McCombies had sprung 200 years previously, comfortable that a McCombie had at last returned to Glenshee.

Can this hypothesis be tested?

Two approaches suggest themselves for testing this wild and, possibly to some, outrageous hypothesis.

Firstly, there is probably still a lot of documentation which has not been consulted and which may turn up facts which  support or undermine the hypothesis, which is assuredly wrong in many details.

Secondly, sequence analysis of Y-chromosome DNA may give a more direct test of the basic question: was William McCombie (1802) the biological father of William McCombie Smith.  What would be required, as an absolute minimum, would be DNA samples from one patriclinal (male-male-male,etc) relative of William McCombie Smith and one patriclinal relative of Donald McCombie (1647).  If the two samples of DNA had identical, or near-identical, Y-chromosome DNA sequences that would be strong support for William McCombie Smith’s biological father being a patriclinal relative of Donald M’Comie (1647), which would of course include William McCombie (1802) but also the other male McCombies who were living in the area in the late 1840s.

Don Fox

20180529 
donaldpfox@gmail.com