(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)
Introduction
William McCombie (1805) of Tillyfour was a cattle breeder,
dealer and grazier who was born in rural Aberdeenshire. Although given an early opportunity by his
father to break out from the confines of his agricultural background, he did
not take to higher education or the notion of a professional career and he
returned to the family cattle business at the first opportunity. William might then have lived his life
essentially within the confines of his local community in the Vale of Alford, a
farming area lying 25 miles west of the city of Aberdeen, growing crops,
raising and trading cattle and partaking of rural pass-times. But he did not. He, metaphorically, raised his eyes beyond
the confining horizon of the hills surrounding this verdant land. His subsequent achievements were much wider
than being a successful Aberdeenshire cattle man and they were of both national
and international significance.
William McCombie (1805) became one of the most important
developers of the Aberdeen-Angus breed of beef cattle, through selective
breeding and economic feeding of such animals.
During a serious outbreak of the cattle disease, rinderpest, in 1865 –
1866, he played a major leadership role in bringing this devastating condition
under control in Aberdeenshire, with actions which were copied nationally, and
which subsequently formed the basis for a general farm animal disease control
strategy. He engineered his own election
as a Member of Parliament for West Aberdeenshire in 1868, unopposed and without
being the official candidate of any political party. This was despite the Aberdeen Journal
aggressively portraying him as unsuitable for a parliamentary role, through a
lack of education and culture. In his
subsequent political life, he devoted himself to reforming the laws which he
saw as unfairly affecting his main supporters, tenant farmers. William was respected for his knowledge of
rural affairs, though his rough appearance and his use of the Doric language
were frequently a source of amusement for the more cultured members of
Parliament and the press. He even
received the accolade of a royal visit to his farm, Tillyfour, by his Queen,
Victoria. This was an almost unknown
honour for a commoner in those hierarchical times. His recruitment and treatment of farm
servants was particularly enlightened, even modern, in its outlook and he
openly encouraged his farm servants to move on to more responsible positions,
usually as tenant farmers themselves.
William McCombie (1805) was no ordinary man. Here is his remarkable story.
William McCombie (1805) of Tillyfour
The Origins of the McCombies
The McCombie
(then “M’Comy”) male line was present in the Southern Grampian mountains,
around Glen Isla and Glenshee, during the 17th century. John M’Comy (“M’Comy Mor” – “Big M’Comy”),
was the great, great, great, great grandfather of William McCombie (1805) of
Tillyfour. John M’Comy is known to have
been a large man with a reputation as an athlete and as a skilled and dangerous
fighter. At the end of the 17th
century he was reported to have possessed “five-score oxen and tuentie milk
kine, besides diverse horses”. The
McCombies have been involved with native Scottish cattle for at least 300
years.
M’Comy Mor
suffered two serious set-backs. Firstly,
he lost a litigation against the Earl of Airlie over the ownership of some
lands, which saddled M’Comy with significant costs. Secondly, a major feud developed between the
Farquharson family of Brochdarg and the M’Comys which led to fighting and
several deaths. Both families were
exiled from their lands in Glenisla and the M’Comys dispersed to both south and
north, the southern group settling in the counties between the Grampians and
Fife and taking the family names of Thomas and McThomas. (McThomas, the original name, evolved to
McCombie by the following stages.
McThomas – McThomie – McHomie – McOmie – McComie – McCombie.) Donald M’Comy (1647), son of John M’Comy, is
thought to have escaped north, between 1676 and 1680, over the Cairn o’ Mount
pass, which leads from the Angus glens to mid-Deeside. (Clan names were originally written with the
prefix “M’ ” but the apostrophe became corrupted to a lower case “c” and this
convention is now general.) John M’Comy
settled at Mains of Tonley, Tough, Aberdeenshire, where the family name
subsequently took on a fixed spelling of “McCombie”. In 1698 Donald M’Comy was the tenant at
Edindurnoch, which is today known as Nethertown of Tough, where he died in
1714. The McCombies have thus been
farming in the Vale of Alford and specifically around the settlement of Tough,
since before 1700. Their family motto is
“Mak siccar” (Make sure).
Geographical setting
The Vale of Alford through which the River Don runs is a
generally flat agricultural area surrounded by hills (Correen Hills, Bennachie,
Green Hill, Red Hill, Benoquahailie, Corse Hill, Pressendye, Craiglea Hill,
Coiliochbhar Hill). This was to provide
an important degree of isolation in preventing the ingress of rinderpest during
the epidemic of 1865 – 1866 (see later).
Alford is the most significant settlement in the area, originally
founded at what is now Bridge of Alford, and known, before the bridge was built
in 1810 – 1811, as “Auld Ford”. The name
was subsequently corrupted to “Alford”.
The centre of settlement moved east to the present site around the
terminal station on the Alford Valley line when the railway arrived in
1859. Kirktown of Tough was and is a
small village lying four miles south-east of Alford, which was remembered in
the following, unflattering terms by William McCombie (1805), “I distinctly
recollect that in the Kirkton of Tough there were seven houses and with the
exception of the manse and the schoolhouse every house was a low tippling
shop. The smaller tenants in Tough were
almost all smugglers and sold whisky.
The scenes that were exhibited in some parts of the parish were
disgraceful. Drunkenness and vice of
every description were a daily occurrence.
There were fights to the effusion of blood and almost the loss of
life.” Tillyfour Farm lies two miles
south-west of Kirkton of Tough. It is
not on the level area of the Vale of Alford but on the undulating (“brae-set”)
ground at the foot of Corrennie Moor.
When William McCombie (1805) took over the farm from his father, about
1824, it was largely unimproved with heather moor on the upper ground and bog
in the burn bottoms.
Success comes to the McCombie lineage
William McCombie
Smith (who was informally adopted by William McCombie (1805) and whose own
story is told in two offerings on this blogsite, William McCombie Smith (1847 – 1905) – who was his biological father? and The Life of Donald Dinnie (1837 – 1916)
Revisited) chronicled the family
history of the Thomas, McThomas and McCombie families, publishing his work in
1887. He summarised the elevation of the
McCombies after the move to the Vale of Alford as follows. "The subsequent slow but steady rise of
the family fortune and influence, through no sudden accession or fortune, but
by steady unremitting perseverance and prudence, is of itself sufficient proof
that its fortunes were laid by a race of men who, however impeded they might be
by adverse circumstances for a time, could rise superior to all ill-fortune if
unconquerable will and strength of purpose could effect it." The attributes of physical size, strength,
determination and perseverance, as will be seen, characterised other McCombies
too, including the principal subject of this study, William McCombie (1805),
though caution should be exercised in attributing such characteristics to direct
genetic inheritance. Such Victorian
suppositions were adopted in ignorance of the genetic
contribution of the many ladies who married into the McCombie clan, the
McCombie genes being diluted by 50% in each succeeding generation. William McCombie (1805), though another big
and determined man, only shared about 1/64 of his genes with M’Comy Mor.
Although the
McCombies continued to farm in the Vale of Alford, they were successful in
other spheres of activity too. They
became merchants in Aberdeen and manufacturers of snuff at Lower Kennerty Mill
in Peterculter. Individual McCombies
also bought farms and estates. Thomas
McCombie (1762) bought the estates of Easter Skene, Jellybrands and
Asleid. His brother Charles McCombie
(1764) acquired the farm of Tillyfour and another brother, Peter McCombie
(1767) gained the Barony of Lynturk, another estate. All these properties lie, except Easter
Skene, in the immediate area around Alford.
It is not the purpose of this story to detail all the achievements of
the McCombie clan after their translocation to the Vale of Alford, but brief
sketches will be given of several of William McCombie (1805)’s contemporary
relatives who played cameo roles in his story.
Contemporary relatives of William McCombie
(1805)
James Boyn McCombie (1808), son of Thomas McCombie (1762), was a
successful advocate in Aberdeen, being a partner in the firm of Murray and
McCombie for many years. He inherited
the estate of Jellybrands but appears not to have occupied it, since he had a
family home in Albyn Place, a fashionable street in Aberdeen. Despite having a retiring disposition, he
became Dean of Guilds in 1842, which gave him representation on the Town
Council. He wrote the will of William
McCombie (1805).
Charles McCombie (1804) was the eldest son of Charles McCombie
(1764) and was for many years the minister of Lumphanan, near Alford. William McCombie Smith said of him, “Few men
have ever led a more unblemished life or approached nearer to the ideal of a
perfect Christian gentleman”. The farm
of Tillyfour passed to the ownership of Charles McCombie (1804) on the death of
his father. Charles (1804) was devoted
to his congregation and leased Tillyfour to his next brother, William McCombie
(1805) and much of the story that follows involves that farm directly.
Peter McCombie
(1767) had no children and he passed on the estates of Easter Skene and Lynturk
to the oldest son of his brother, Thomas McCombie (1762), in 1824. This nephew was William McCombie (1802). He
was another physically imposing McCombie who was also a farmer and cattle
breeder and who developed an Aberdeen Angus herd almost as well-known as that
of William McCombie (1805). William
McCombie (1802) lived a life of substantial business success, coupled with
great personal tragedy – see William
McCombie Smith (1847 – 1905) – who was his biological father? - on this blogsite.
William McCombie (1809) was the son of another McCombie farmer,
William (1771) who owned the farm of Cairnballoch, Alford. William (1809) worked for his father and
inherited Cairnballoch on his father’s death in 1849. But this William McCombie (1809) was no
routine farmer’s son. He enjoyed only a
village education but, through self-improvement under the encouragement of his
mother, he became a well-known author, social reformer, supporter of the Free
Church and owner and editor (between 1853 and 1870) of the Aberdeen Free
Press. William McCombie (1809) was, as
will be seen, an active supporter of the Liberal Party.
Thomas McCombie (1819) was a younger brother of both Charles
McCombie (1804) and William McCombie (1805).
He left Scotland for the Australian colonies in 1839 and settled in Port
Philip, becoming a member of the Legislative Assembly and of the Executive
Council of Melbourne. He retired back to
Aberdeenshire in 1859, due to ill-health and died at Tillyfour Cottage in 1869.
Charles McCombie (1764) and cattle
dealing.
According to
William McCombie (1805) his father, Charles (1764) wore the “garb of Old Gall”
(traditional Highland dress) until the age of 25 (about 1790). He was a major cattle dealer involved in
buying cattle from local fairs in the North East and the Highlands, droving
them to the south of Scotland and selling them, mainly at the Falkirk Tryst. It was the most important cattle fair in Scotland
during the 19th century, where animals would be bought for fattening
and onward sale, often in England. On
one occasion Charles McCombie (1764) drove 1500 cattle to Falkirk, which
indicated the scale of his operations.
However, his aspiration was that his sons Charles (1804) and William
(1805) should not follow him in the cattle business but should be educated to a
higher level and join the learned professions.
Charles was intellectually inclined and graduated from Marischal College
in Aberdeen with the degree of MA in 1820.
Later, in 1860, he was awarded the higher degree of LLD from the same
institution. Charles (1804) was
licensed by the Presbytery of Alford in March 1826 and ordained as the minister
of Lumphanan the following August, a position he held until his death in 1874.
William McCombie
(1805) did not take to academic work, unlike his elder brother and after two
sessions (years of academic study) at Marischal College, starting in 1819, his
progress had been so poor that he left and returned to the family farm,
Tillyfour by 1821. He was a bright young
man, but he lacked interest in the subjects he encountered at university. Later he would regret not having applied
himself to his studies. William’s lack
of culture, his use of the Doric language and his stilted public speaking
stigmatised him as someone who had enjoyed only a village education. To some this made him unsuitable for public
office.
As a child
growing up on a farm and as a youth, all that had ever interested William (1805)
was farming and more specifically cattle.
He took a fancy to one of his father’s bulls and used to sneak out at
night to give the animal extra feed. As
a result, the animal developed rapidly to the amazement of his father. Perhaps this experience also taught the
aspiring cattle farmer that an animal’s feeding regime was a significant factor
in its development? After his premature
return from university, his father put William (1805) under the supervision of
his overseer at Tillyfour and for two years William worked as a ploughman,
sharing fully the life of his father’s farm servants. Was his father emphasising to his second son
that a farming life is a hard life? In
1824 it is thought that William McCombie (1805) leased Tillyfour from his
father. Charles McCombie (1764) died in
1836 and the ownership of Tillyfour then passed to his eldest son, Charles
(1804), the Minister of Lumphanan. In
turn Charles (1804) leased the farm to his next brother, William (1805).
Scotland’s native cattle
The appearance of
Scotland’s original native cattle is unknown, but it is likely that they have
always been a rather heterogeneous bunch, due to local inbreeding in
semi-isolated populations, a degree of natural selection by harsh conditions
(low temperature, poor feed) and artificial selection of “good animals” (more
docile, better draught animals, more milk, etc) from which to breed. One variant which seems to have been
recognised for several hundred years was the usually polled and often black
cattle of the north east, which typically occurred from Angus through to
Aberdeenshire and along to Moray, though they also existed in the
Highlands. They appear to have been
represented, along with horned cattle, in Pictish stone carvings from about 600
AD and in the 16th century there were definite written refences to
them, for example, John Cumyng of Culter took possession of “unum bovem
nigrum hommyle” in 1523. During
Dr Johnson’s tour of the Highlands in 1773 he noted, “…of their black cattle
some are without horns, called by the Scots “humble” cows”.
These cattle were
known by a variety of names, such as Doddies and Hummlies, sometimes with a
regional identifier attached, such as Angus, Aberdeen or Buchan, or simply
“black cattle”. Both “dodded” and
“hummled” are Doric words meaning “polled” or lacking horns. Cattle with horns can be de-horned, but it is
a painful process for them. On the other
hand, some cattle are naturally polled due to the presence of a dominant gene
variant, and inbreeding between polled animals will eventually make the
condition exclusive in a population of cattle.
The Doddies and Hummlies of north east Scotland were naturally polled
and it is possible that this trait, once it appeared, was deliberately
selected, to help in making the animals more manageable. By the end of the 19th century,
selective breeding had made the Doddies almost always black, though sometimes
with an area of white on the undersides.
This was not the case a century earlier, when Doddies could be black,
brown (sometimes called “red”), black and white or brown and white. Robert Walker’s famous herd of Doddies at
Portlethen were dark-coloured but slightly brindled.
Other
recognisable cattle breeds were also present in north-east Scotland, the most
obvious one being the Highland, with its large spreading horns and shaggy
coat. But there were other breeds
too. Galloway cattle were naturally
polled and often black. At 19th
century cattle shows, they were often lumped in with the polled cattle of the
north east, though they were subsequently separated into their own class, for
example at the International Agricultural Show at Battersea in 1862. Aberdeen and Angus polled cattle were then
judged together as a single class.
Modern Galloways are often “belted” and instantly recognisable.
Buchan in the
north-east part of Aberdeenshire has for many years been a centre of cattle
production, especially the district around Turriff, Maud and Old Deer. A great cattle fair, called the Aikey
Fair, was held on a hillside between Maud and Old Deer. William McCombie (1805) recalled It was “a
sight I shall never witness more to see the whole hillside covered with
innumerable herds of Buchan hummlies”. About 1800 two types of cattle were
recognised in Buchan, horned and polled and they were present in about equal
numbers. According to Mr William Forbes
of Ellon, the Buchan polled animals themselves appeared to be of two
types, large and small. The small was
rather puny with thin flesh and was badly used.
It was the crofter’s cow and was able to survive the winter on oat and
bere (barley) straw and water alone, if necessary. The larger polled cattle were also variable
in appearance and physiology, one type was mostly black with white udders and
sometimes the whole of the undersides white.
They did not withstand poor feeding as the small animals did, but with
better treatment gave a good milk yield.
Many of the large animals were well-fleshed, brindled polls and were the
finest-looking animals in Buchan. Some
were good milkers but some went to flesh and fat when well fed. The polled cattle were the dairy stock and
produced good butter in summer and autumn, but the butter was hard and white in
winter. The markings of the polled
cattle of Buchan differed from farm to farm and the different colours were
often given a local name. The Strichen breed was mostly brindled, The Gowanfold
were black with a white belt. Another,
“rigget”, type was black with a white ridge along the back. The most usual kind was black or black with a
little white below. This description
provides clear evidence that the polled Aberdeenshire cattle were quite
heterogeneous and not much inbred at the start of the 19th
century.
Aberdeenshire
horned cattle were favoured by some farmers in the south because they could
thrive on poor feed. At one time
there was a substantial trade with Cumberland for horned Aberdeen cattle at the
Falkirk Tryst held at Michaelmas. One Carlisle farmer claimed that these
Aberdeenshire horned cattle would even consume his horses’ litter. The horned Aberdeenshires were sent on from
Cumberland to Barnet in the spring to be fattened on the marshes and sold in
London in July and August. (Queen
Elizabeth I granted a charter to the Lord Mayor of Barnet to hold a fair twice
yearly, originally in June and October.
The fair concentrated on livestock.
In 1834 40,000 animals were reported to be on display and it was the
largest such market in England.) Robert Walker, a famous cattle breeder
from Portlethen, described the Aberdeen horned breed as, “Never such compact
and handsome animals as the polled.
Generally, more leggy and stronger in the bone but good feeders and
excellent beef”. William McCombie (1805)
described them as being similar to Highlanders but with lighter coats and with
white horns ending in black tips. In the
early years of the 19th century about ¾ of the cattle in
Aberdeenshire were polled and ¼ horned. The horned Aberdeenshire cattle tended
to be displaced by the Doddies as the 19th century wore on. At the Highland and Agricultural show at
Aberdeen in 1858, no Aberdeenshire Horned cattle came forward in their category
and it was subsequently dropped. In 1870
William McCombie (1805) described the Aberdeenshire horned cattle as being “almost
extinct”.
William McCombie
(1805) also recognised another breed present in the north-east, which he called
“Highland Hummlies. They were often
distinguished by a brown ridge along the back and, it is presumed, they were
polled. William (1805) did not hold this
breed in high esteem. “Highland
Hummlies are rubbish and refuse to put on weight.”
William summarised his opinions of the other cattle breeds
present in Aberdeenshire, besides the Highland Hummlies. “Highlanders are restless and not suited to
indoor feeding. Good Aberdeen or North
Country crosses are rent-payers.
Galloways are good on poor land.
Aberdeen Angus and Aberdeen and North Country crosses are best suited to
the conditions in Aberdeenshire.”
The Aberdeen and Angus polled cattle
Following the Act
of Union of 1707, there was a substantial increase in trade between Scotland
and England and part of that increased economic activity was the greater flow
of cattle from north to south.
Increasingly, cattle became a tradable commodity and surplus animals
were sent south in the droves. This
rising demand eventually led to more attention being given by farmers to the
feeding and breeding of animals to increase their weight. Although some selective breeding of Doddies
occurred in the late 18th century this may have been in relation to
the need to have larger draught cattle.
It was not until the early 19th century that distinctive
herds of polled cattle were produced which had been selected for beef
production characteristics. This was
rather later than the emergence of distinct breeds, such as Longhorns and
Shorthorns, in England. Prominent early
breeders of polled cattle in the North-East were Hugh Watson of Keillor in
Angus, before 1830, William Fullarton of Ardovie, Brechin, from 1833, Lord
Panmure in Angus, from 1835, and a few other farmers from the Mearns. (Until 1834 William Fullarton and his
farm at Ardovie were in trust as his father died when he was young. When he took over management of the farm
there were only three black cows on the place.
Thus, he started cattle breeding as a very young man. Lord Panmure was born a Ramsay in 1771. He was the second son of Lord Dalhousie, but
he took the surname Maule in 1787 when he inherited the Panmure estates from a
maternal great-uncle.) In 1839, John
Collier, son of Thomas Collier, factor for the Panmure Estates went north with
a commission from Lord Panmure to purchase six of “the best polled Buchan
heifers to be obtained”. Lord Panmure
then undertook a programme of systematic mating. “Panmure” was one of the products. He was a very successful bull and eventually
came into the possession of William McCombie (1805), via Mr Fullarton and Mr
Farquharson Taylor.
Hugh Watson was
the most significant of these early polled cattle breeders and he is generally
described as the originator of the breed.
His family had been keeping such animals since about 1735. Hugh Watson became a tenant of Keillor farm
in 1808 and selected the most desirable beasts with which to found his
herd. His most famous animals were the
bull “Old Jock”, calved in 1842 and the cow “Old Grannie”, calved in 1824,
though he had other important animals which were not recorded in the herd book
(see below). Most Aberdeen Angus cattle
today are direct descendants of Hugh Watson’s famous animals. William McCombie (1805) did not start
systematic breeding of polled cattle until 1844, when he bought the heifer
“Queen Mother”, a daughter of “Panmure”, at Mr Fullarton’s sale. He then bought the bull “Angus” from Hugh
Watson three years later. William McCombie
(1805) recognised Hugh Watson as “the first great improver of Aberdeen
and Angus polled cattle”. The feeling of
admiration was mutual. In 1860 at the
sale of Tillyfour cattle at Dorsell Farm, Hugh Watson said of William, “I know
of no man who more deserves your approbation.
If zeal, perseverance and great judgement can carry a man honourably
through the world, he possesses the whole of these to a great extent. I know of no man whose friendship I am more
desirous of cultivating than that of Mr McCombie.”
It was not until 1839 that the Highland and Agricultural
Society recognised the polled cattle as a distinct group with their own
competitions, though Hugh Watson was exhibiting polled animals before this
date. William McCombie (1805) first
exhibited dodded cattle at the Highland and Agricultural show held in Aberdeen
in 1840.
In 1862 the first
Herd Book for black polled cattle was published, to allow breeders to establish
pedigrees before they purchased stock.
It had a separate section for polled Galloways. The compiler was Edward Ravenscroft, who was
the editor of the Banffshire Gazette. He
had also been the editor of the Aberdeen newspaper “The Constitutional”
and editor of “The Scottish Farmer”. His
early work on gathering data for the herd book suffered a set-back when there
was a fire at the Museum of the Highland and Agricultural Society in Edinburgh,
where his records were being stored, in 1851.
A start on data gathering was recommenced in 1857. Hugh Watson’s “Old Jock” became No 1 and “Old
Grannie” had the first entry for a cow in the first volume of the herd
book. Details of the herds of 17
breeders were included, constituting 336 bulls and 846 cows. Only 44 persons subscribed for a copy
of the herd book, which suggests that at that time the full value of the breed
had not yet been appreciated.
Hugh Watson’s herd was in existence for 53 years from 1808
to 1861 when it was finally dispersed.
Only 23 bulls and 22 females from this herd were mentioned in the herd
book, which was remarkably low, given the herd’s significance in the definition
of the breed. Hugh Watson’s name was not
on the list of those parties who collaborated in producing the book. According to his son, William, Hugh Watson
was not consulted in the preparation of the book. This appears not to be the whole truth. Edward Ravenscroft, the book’s editor,
visited Keillor on two occasions for information, but this was refused. Ravenscroft may have been alluding to this
unfortunate episode when he said of the data collection, “in some cases where
assistance was naturally looked for, obstacles were thrown in the way of
procuring information”. Due to some
unknown reason Hugh Watson felt slighted and “vowed he would never make known
the pedigrees of his cattle”.
Apparently, Hugh Watson did keep detailed records for his herd but Mrs
Watson, sharing her husband’s sense of grievance, burned all the records before
the Keillor dispersion sale, without informing anyone of her intentions! As a result of this stooshie (row), little is known directly of the
selection methods of the great man, though it is presumed that he chose animals
with the best conformation and then pursued inbreeding to fix the desired
characteristics. Thomas Jamieson, the
agriculture lecturer from Marischal College referred to the first edition of
the Polled Herd Book in the following terms.
“When I occupied the post of Fordyce Lecturer at Marischal College,
Aberdeen, I devoted some attention to the subject of polled cattle…all the best
blood of the Aberdeen and Angus doddies traced back to three fountainheads, Mr
Fullarton’s “Black Meg”, the bull Panmure from Brechin Castle and the Keillor
Jocks. Unfortunately, the first volume
of the herd book is a complete mass of confusion in regard to the pedigrees and
history of these animals at least…” The
Keillor Jocks (except “Old Jock”) were not included.
Hugh Watson of Keillor
Hugh Watson of Keillor
In 1862 there was
no generally-agreed name for the breed.
That did not come until the formation of the Polled Cattle Society in
1879. In fact, the meeting at which the
Society was formed was the last public appearance of William McCombie (1805)
before his death. The aim of the Society
was “to maintain unimpaired the purity of the breed of cattle hitherto known as
Polled Aberdeen or Angus cattle and to promote the breeding of these
cattle. To collect, verify, preserve and
publish the pedigrees of the said cattle and other useful information relating
to them. To further the above objects by
continuing the issue of the publication called “The Polled Herd Book”. The first president of the Society was
Charles Gordon, the 11th Marquis of Huntly, who lived at Aboyne
Castle and who had become a Doddie afficionado.
Two vice-presidents were proposed, William McCombie (1805) of Tillyfour
and Sir George Macpherson Grant of Ballindalloch who became an enthusiast in
1861, though there had been Doddies at Ballindalloch for a long period. By the time of formation of the Society the
centre of activity for selective breeding of Doddies had moved from Angus to
Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire (and later to Banffshire). The Society debated the name to be used for
the dodded breed and decided on the compromise of “Aberdeen Angus”, though
arguably the components of the name should have been reversed to give
precedence to the county of Angus. At
least in America this breed of cattle is often referred to by the shorter name
“Angus”. Edward Ravenscroft agreed to
sell the copyright of the Herd Book to the Society and was retained as the
book’s editor.
But the
consequences of creating a herd book for Aberdeen Angus cattle apparently were
not all beneficial. William McCombie
Smith claimed in 1885 that it engendered a clique of herd owners, all
benefiting from the demand for this breed of cattle but whose herds were not
all composed of quality animals. “So
notorious is this becoming and so many veritable trash find their way into the
Herd Book that unless the Polled Cattle Society adopt measures to make quality
as well as a mere register of names an indispensable requisite for admission
into the Herd Book, a pedigree will soon become of no more value than the paper
it is written on.” As will be seen elsewhere
(William McCombie Smith (1847 –
1905) – who was his biological father?), William McCombie Smith did not hold back from making pointed
criticisms of anybody or anything in any circumstance!
The main
qualities of the Aberdeen Angus breed which made them so popular, throughout
the 19th century and beyond, as beef cattle were docility,
hardiness, ability to maintain condition, early maturity, tendency to fatten
quickly, laying on flesh evenly and in the most valuable parts, requiring
minimal space in cattle courts, having high quality milk and marbled, high
value meat, with little offal.
William McCombie (1805)'s prize polled bull 1858
William McCombie (1805)'s prize polled bull 1858
Aberdeen Angus cattle breeding
The practice of
animal breeding was essentially in a pre-scientific state throughout the 19th
century. This was a period before
biologists had rediscovered Gregor Mendel’s fundamental principles of
inheritance in 1901. The few general
ideas about inheritance which were understood were, that like tends to beget
like, that repeated inbreeding can produce offspring which suffer health and
infertility problems, and that crossing of different breeds often produced
animals of greater size and faster growth.
In 1870, Mr Thomas F Jamieson, sometime Lecturer in Agriculture at the
University of Aberdeen, but also a cattle farmer at Ellon, spoke locally on
“The principles of breeding domestic animals”.
He pointed out that many of the desirable characteristics in cattle,
such as milk production and weight-gain, “will be inherited to a considerable
degree by their offspring”. If a
programme of inbreeding was being contemplated, then it was important that the
best animals should be selected as a starting point. Further, if the animals in the starting group
were already closely related, then little further advance would be made by
selective inbreeding. In fact, the most
successful breeders of Aberdeen Angus cattle, probably including Hugh Watson
and certainly including William McCombie, followed this breeding regime in
generating their herds. Bloodstock sales
were held regularly, and elevated prices were paid for animals of a good
conformation. Such animals were
regularly passed between the leading herds and the herd book, when introduced,
supported the buyers in making informed decisions. At the end of his career as an Aberdeen Angus
breeder, Hugh Watson held a great sale of his Keillor herd in 1853. It attracted an enormous audience, such was
the status of this herd, 300 people sitting down to the lunch before the
auction started. Both the Rev Charles
McCombie (1804) and William McCombie (1805) were present. William (1805) bought a cow for £24, a heifer
for £21 and a pair of Angus stots (bullocks)
at £29. William McCombie held his first
such sale of stock in 1850 and disposed of about 256 animals for over £8621
(about £1,035,000 in 2018 money by an RPI methodology). Selling cattle was a significant source of
income for the owners of herds with high status. By the end of the 19th
century it was said that no polled herd of consequence in the country was
without specimens or descendants of the Tillyfour herd.
The alternative
strategy for cattle breeding was to cross two different breeds of animal,
generating so-called hybrid vigour in the first generation. In the early 19th century the
Shorthorn was one of the most popular beef animals in England. Improved Shorthorns were present in
Aberdeenshire from 1827, when they were introduced by Alexander Hay of Shethin,
and were well established by 1840.
Crossing became very popular, as the hybrid animals were larger and grew
more quickly than the pure breeds.
Shorthorn – Aberdeen Angus crosses (usually shorthorn bulls crossed with
Aberdeen Angus cows) became so popular that they seemed to threaten the future
of pure Aberdeen Angus herds by herd contamination. Crossing of the hybrids was often continued
beyond the first generation, resulting in gene segregation and animals of great
diversity of appearance and physiology, compared with the first-generation crosses, which were fairly
homogeneous. William McCombie (1805),
who described such herds as “mongrel”, said of this process, “The first cross
is a valuable animal but in many cases our breeds are running riot among one
another. I need not tell you the
result.” He continued with the
inbreeding strategy, since the pure Aberdeen Angus did not need so much food as
the crosses, and the carcass quality of the pure-bred animals was superior and
thus commanded higher prices. It is
interesting that a discussion was held at the Highland and Agricultural Show in
1856 on the relative merits of crossing versus inbreeding, when William
McCombie (1805) made clear his support for herd purity. But it is important to bear in mind that both
Hugh Watson and William McCombie (1805) were careful to select for fertility
along with other characteristics. Hugh
Watson’s famous polled cow, “Old Grannie” was highly fertile. When she died at the age of 33 (probably from
a lightning strike), she had produced 25 calves.
William McCombie
(1805) summarised his own approach to polled cattle breeding as follows. “Laying the foundation of a breeding
stock will be the first matter under consideration. We are met here at the very outset by the
advocates of blood and those of selection.
Much may be said, and volumes have been written in favour of both. My experience leads me to take a middle
course between the two and to keep in view both the one and the other. …. Buy a good bull and get heifers from markets
in the area where pure polls are to be found.
Choose with care according to the characteristics you want. Cows which produce good calves keep. Dispose of those which “cry back” and fill
their places with new selections. Use
careful and repeated selection. It is
important to choose a bull of good pedigree rather than one of good appearance
but questionable pedigree. The latter
will do incalculable mischief if put to cows of good pedigree. A first-class sire is only proved by
testing.” In support of his “middle
ground” strategy, William noted that inbreeding had its limitations and
drawbacks. “It may be pursued for a time
until the type is developed but to continue for any length of time to breed in
and in is not only against my experience but, I believe, against nature.”
It appears that William McCombie, while being generally
sound on animal breeding, may have harboured at least one utterly fanciful
notion. Professor Robert Wallace,
Professor of Agriculture and Rural Economy at Edinburgh University, in his book
“Farm live stock of Great Britain”, published in 1889, believed that an object at which an animal looked while conceiving
sometimes governed the colour of the young.
William McCombie (1805) appeared to follow this belief by putting a high
fence around one of his fields to prevent his black polled Angus cows from
seeing the red cattle of his neighbours and thus running the risk of producing
red calves! A visitor to Tillyfour in
1878, in conversation with James Whyte the Tillyfour overseer reported, “and
bitterly does Whyte lament a shapely heifer of the genuine Pride blood who has
cried back to the original Angus red; she is an outcast, a pariah and treated
as such, despite her breeding”. Did her
dam peep through the fence? In North
America today, Angus herds are described as “Black” or “Red”, depending on the
coat colour which has been fixed in them, there being no longer an obsession
with extirpating all non-black variants.
Hybridisation
Hybridisation
with shorthorns and purity of Aberdeen Angus herds became a contentious issue
for a while. Mr Jamieson, the
cattle-breeding lecturer, made the intriguing suggestion that some of the
characteristics of the Aberdeen Angus breed had been acquired from the Shorthorn
due to hybridisation and back-crossing to pure Aberdeen Angus animals. Elsewhere, it was also claimed that
Hugh Watson’s famous Smithfield polled heifer had a remote dash of Guernsey
“blood” in her. Disputes at cattle shows
sprang up over the status of a show animal as a cross or a pure bred. At the Smithfield Cattle Show in 1857,
William McCombie (1805)’s best polled ox came second to one entered by Mr Heath
of Norwich. McCombie protested that the
winning animal was the result of a cross between a shorthorn bull and a
Banffshire cow. McCombie’s objection was
over-ruled since the animal afforded “no indication whatever of being other
than a pure bred Scottish ox” and the committee rejected pedigree information
as irrelevant! They justified their
decision on the basis that their judges knew what they were looking at. “There is sufficient progress made in the
country on the physiology of breeding to enable men of standing and experience
to form an unerring judgement as to the presence of alloy blood in animals.”
(author’s emphasis). This statement was elsewhere described as an “insane
dogma”. William McCombie (1805) did not
meekly accept the decision. He returned
his second prize to the show committee and circulated a printed sheet
demonstrating that Heath’s animal was indeed a cross, which was against the
Smithfield Club’s rules. He was ignored
and eventually the spat died down. It is
ironic that William McCombie (1805) was later, in 1862, accused of a similar
offence. An article in the Elgin Courant
described one of McCombie’s prize animals as a “wonderful prize ox” but then
went on to damn it with- “He is a first cross, being bred from a pure Shorthorn
bull and an Aberdeenshire cow”. This
damaging article drew a pained response from William McCombie (1805), who then
proved from his pedigree that the animal was pure-bred. The newspaper accepted that its journalist
had made an error. William McCombie
Smith recounted in 1885 that, as far as he was aware, all the cattle in the
Tillyfour herd (and he had been familiar with it since about 1855) were
pure-bred Aberdeen Angus with no admixture of Galloway “blood”.
Definition of
“Polled”
Another dispute
arose concerning what definition of “polled” should apply to animals entered in
show categories. Naturally-polled
animals sometimes carry horny nodules, “scurs”, under the skin on the top of
the head, which can be free or attached.
William McCombie (1805) raised this question of the definition of
“polled” with the Committee of the Royal Northern Agricultural Society. McCombie (1805) proposed that animals with
free scurs should be considered polled but those with attached scurs should be
defined as “horned”. His definition was
accepted but did not resolve the issue as the following year a flesher, Mr
Martin, presented an ox for showing with one attached and one free scur! It is also known that William McCombie (1805)
was in the habit of having scurs cut out of his cattle, including from the
famous bull, “Hanton”, which exhibited scurs.
The presence of
scurs in polled cattle is determined by a gene which is independent from that
determining horned/polled status, but which interacts with it during
development. The scurring gene exists in
two forms, one determining scurring and the other its absence. In female polled animals it is necessary for
two copies of the scurring gene variant to be present for scurs to be formed
but in male polled animals only one scurring variant is necessary. This definition, seen from a modern
perspective, appears utterly trivial and is inappropriate as a means of
deciding if an animal is, or is not, of the Aberdeen Angus breed.
Droving
In the late 18th
century and early 19th century, some cattle dealers bought cattle at
district markets and employed drovers to drive them south. Other dealers, including Charles McCombie
(17
64) and his son William (1805), conducted the droving themselves. Droving was a costly and hazardous
business. Cattle were droved in a lean
condition and needed some grazing, which was not always adequate, on the
journey. Cattle could go lame,
especially after hard road surfaces were introduced and to guard against this
outcome cattle were sometimes shod, or partially shod. But cattle, being even-toed ungulates (unlike
horses which are odd-toed) required up to two shoes per foot, making a maximum
of eight in total. Other hazards
included cattle thieves and river crossings.
In one night, Charles McCombie (1764) lost 17 “Old Caithness runts” to
drowning while attempting to cross the River Spey.
Many cattle were
droved over considerable distances.
Charles McCombie (1864) travelled as far as Skye, Caithness and
Sutherland to buy cattle. His son, William McCombie (1805), also undertook
droving, which involved long hard journeys, on foot or horseback, for many days
to get the animals safely to market.
In 1800 about 8,000 cattle were droved south annually from
Aberdeenshire. Droving was generally
done in the summer and early autumn, when some grazing was still available, to
sell the cattle on at cattle markets, “trysts”, in the central lowlands for
overwintering and fattening before being sold in the big towns and cities of
England and Scotland. Trysts were held
in Perthshire towns, such as Crieff and Comrie, in the mid-17th
century but in 1785 a new tryst was established at Falkirk, which was nearer to
the ultimate marketplace. The Falkirk
Tryst became the biggest and most important cattle market in Scotland. At the busiest times there could be 150,000
cattle, sheep and horses present at the sale ground, accompanied by 2,000
drovers with their ponies and dogs.
Buyers would attend at Falkirk from all parts of Britain. Large sums of cash changed hands and there
was a constant risk of robbery. William
McCombie (1805) said, “My father and I always had about the best cattle at
Falkirk Tryst”.
After his
probationary period as a ploughman, William McCombie (1805) undertook some
limited cattle dealing on his own account.
His first purchase received a withering judgement from his father, Charles,
who said they “had not the countenance of beasts”. William then leased a grass park with a partner and put the newly purchased cattle there
to fatten. The sale of the animals made
a modest profit of £15. Sometime in the
period 1824 – 1829, Charles McCombie (1764) retired and William (1805) then
leased Tillyfour farm from him. (It is
generally stated that this was in 1824 but proof seems to be lacking.) He continued his father’s business as a
farmer and cattle dealer, retaining his father’s old customers, who were mostly
in East Lothian, Midlothian and Fife.
Initially, lacking capital,
William bought animals on commission for dealers in the south, but abandoned
this trade after experiencing difficulties in settling-up after the drove. He then bought on his own account, but on a
modest scale. “I found it a safe plan to
buy a small drove well. It was only a
little trade that I carried on - I never had fewer than 7-10 and my largest
droves never exceeded 18 score (18-20?). As a consequence, my losses were not heavy
nor my profits very great.” William
(1805) continued in the droving trade for about 20 years to the mid-1840s, but
improvements in transport infrastructure and agricultural practice
progressively brought about a marked change in the business model for raising
cattle in Aberdeenshire. Of this period
of his life he wrote, “The business of dealing in north country cattle
became worthless. I bade Falkirk adieu
and turned my attention entirely to the rearing and fattening of cattle at
home.”
Turnips, phosphate
fertilisers and over-winter feeding of cattle
Although William
McCombie is most often remembered as a cattle breeder who greatly improved the
economic characteristics of Aberdeen Angus cattle through selective breeding,
it is also important to keep in mind that he was at the forefront of the
revolution in the economic feeding of these animals to optimise weight gain and
early maturity. Indeed, he held himself
to be more significant as a feeder of cattle than as a breeder. “I can hardly speak with the same
authority as a breeder generally that I can as a feeder, yet I have been a
close observer now for many years and devoted my earnest attention to the
improvement of the Aberdeen and Angus polled breed of cattle with respect to
size, symmetry, fitness of bone, strength of constitution and disposition to
accumulate fat, sparing no expense in obtaining the finest animals from the
purest stock.”
Agriculturally,
Aberdeenshire has both an advantage and a matching disadvantage which derive
from its geographical position. Firstly,
long summer days give very good growing conditions, but cold, dark winters
limit the length of the growing season.
During the 1820s the production of turnips (“neeps” in Doric) was
introduced to the county, though they had been grown elsewhere in Britain since
the 18th century.
Aberdeenshire soils are suited to this crop but benefit from a liberal
addition of phosphate fertilisers. The
initial source of such artificial manures was crushed bones. In 1825 there was a trade in beef and horse
bones in Aberdeen but no indication that this was related to agricultural
fertilisers. However, by 1827, J Ramage
of 85 Broad Street, Aberdeen was advertising ground bones as a fertiliser for
turnips, “The superiority of ground bones as a manure for turnip crops although
not generally known in this county has from many years’ experience been fully established throughout
England and the South of Scotland.” By 1832 large quantities of bone dust were
being applied at a treatment, with a cost per acre of £2 15s - £3 15s. By 1840
bone mills to crush animal bones were common in all districts. Later, guano
(seabird excreta) became available, imported into Britain from the Peruvian
Chincha Islands from 1841 and it was available in Aberdeen through Nisbet and
Robertson, Marischal Street, from that year.
In the following year guano was widely advertised in Aberdeen and was
supplied by at least two merchants. The
cost of guano fertilisation was about £2 per acre. Even after guano became available there
remained a substantial market for crushed bones. In July 1845 the Aberdeen Lime Company
imported 135 tons of bones from Stettin and the Aberdeen Commercial Company
took in 60 tons of bones from Schleswig.
By 1875 more than 25,000
tons of phosphate fertilisers were being applied annually on Aberdeenshire
farms. The best producers of turnips, which included William McCombie (1805),
achieved crop yields exceeding 30 tons/acre.
Other crops also benefitted from the application of artificial
fertilisers and the introduction of superior seed varieties. William McCombie farmed a varying area of
leased land, but typically about 1200 acres, most of which was down to grass
and his practice was to add fertiliser liberally on his farms, despite the land
being difficult to plough, as it was “brae-set” (sloping). Usually, he grew
about 200 acres of turnips each year, but in addition he grew bere (barley) and
oats. He also used rye grass, which had
superior nutritional characteristics to native grasses, in some of his
pastures. William McCombie (1805) credited
Captain Stoddart of Cultercullen with developing the profitable system for
fattening animals locally in Aberdeenshire.
Stoddart was a remarkable figure who leased his farm for “three
nineteeners” (19-year leases). He was born in 1783, died in 1880 and only
retired from farming two years before death.
Philosophically, William
McCombie (1805) was inclined to use the best possible animals, techniques and
equipment in all aspects of his business.
Thus, he sourced the best breeding animals from the most prominent
herds, he bought the best seed from Aberdeen seed merchants, such as William
Drummond and Sons, and Ben Reid, he used liberal applications of fertiliser and
he was prepared to learn from the experience of others. For ploughing he employed both work oxen
(Aberdeen polled or horned beasts) and horses and on several occasions the
newspapers remarked that his horse purchases were of the best animals. For example, in 1855 he bought a horse “one
of the most powerful we have seen 18 hands from Mr Walker, West Side,
Brux”. Interestingly, the seed merchants
would boast in their advertisements that they supplied seeds to William
McCombie (1805). (Once oxen had been
used for work their meat quality degenerated and was fit, in McCombie’s own
words, “only for ship beef”.)
Such was the
growth in his production of cattle that William (1805) had to put some animals
out to turnips as far away as Morayshire and he often sourced turnips from
local farmers in the Vale of Alford.
William also advertised for additional staff, for example in September
1856 he wanted “4 to 6 additional experienced cattlemen” and in August 1861 he
needed “3 or 4 cattle feeders” for the coming winter. By 1867 he had acquired a two-horse
mechanical reaper by Kemp, Murray and Nicholson. However, it is important to bear in mind that
he did not throw money at farming in an obsession to use the latest
techniques. Everything he did was
considered and new practices were only introduced after a careful economic
evaluation. An
indicator of William’s success as an arable farmer was his regular winning of
prizes for his crops (many were first prizes) at local agricultural shows, from
1856 onwards, such as that held annually by the Vale of Alford Agricultural
Association, which had been founded in 1831.
These crops included Bere, Barley and Sandwich oats, but particularly
turnips of several varieties, such as Swedish red-topped.
These improvements in crop
production, introduced progressively from the late 1820s, allowed farmers to
feed their cattle in cattle courts during the winter in Aberdeenshire, rather
than drove them south in a lean condition. (New cattle courts were built at Tillyfour by
William McCombie about 1840. “The
steading and farm buildings consist of a large hollow square in which long
byres large open courts and boxes and a powerful water mill and barn run into
and intersect with each other in a regular and simple plan”). Thus, farmers added value to the
production process. William McCombie was
the first farmer in the Vale of Alford to introduce such practices. His animals took well to the regime of winter
feeding on turnips. They had good weight
gain and the flavour of the meat was excellent, consequently commanding a high
price at market. By the mid-1840s
William was producing about 300 beef cattle for sale each year. But having the
ability to fatten cattle at home over winter was only advantageous when the
means became available to get the animals to market without losing condition. An alternative to droving was required.
A
transport revolution
The markets for
fat cattle of the highest quality lay largely in England and particularly in
London. Aberdeen harbour was handily
located 25 miles from the Vale of Alford and initial shipments of cattle were
sent south by sea, using both sailing vessels and steamers. The main transporter of cattle from Aberdeen
was the Aberdeen and London New Shipping Company (later the Aberdeen Steam
Navigation Company) which was founded in 1821.
Initially it used sailing vessels but from the late-1820s it had
steamers available. Two vessels
particularly mentioned by William McCombie (1805) were the “Duke of
Wellington”, a wooden paddle steamer launched in 1829 and the “City of Aberdeen
1” (other vessels later carried the same
name) launched in 1835, which had a similar specification. These early
steamers were used for conveying passengers (often prominent members of the
North-East aristocracy, such as the Duke and Duchess of Gordon), general goods
and livestock. London passage fares in
1844 were Main cabin (provisions included £2 17s 6d with Steward’s fee 2s 6d),
Second cabin £1 15s + 1s 6d, Under 13 half fare, Deck (Common soldiers and
sailors) 17s 6d. Mr James Anderson of
Pitcarry, near Inverbervie, Montrose, was the first farmer to ship cattle from
Aberdeen to London. In 1830 several
hundred cattle were exported to England by sea. A typical report, from the Aberdeen Journal
of April 1844, recorded that the ““City of Aberdeen” arrived on Tuesday
forenoon in London with 213 cattle and a large cargo of general goods and the
same night, the steamship “Duke of Wellington” with 274 cattle, principally
lean stock intended for Barnet Fair next week.
These animals were all in fine order and walked ashore at the Company’s
new premises, 257 Wapping.”
The length of the voyage
depended largely on the conditions.
Storms could drive sailing vessels back to port, unable to make
progress. Animals could be injured or
killed by rough seas and, in extremis,
the master of a vessel might have to resort to throwing cattle overboard to
lighten his load. In December 1844, the
“City of Aberdeen” encountered very stormy weather on her passage from Aberdeen
to London. Fourteen of the cattle she
was carrying were so severely injured that they had to be slaughtered on board,
before reaching the capital. The early steamers were rather under-powered and
the time to complete the 540-mile journey to London under good conditions was
about 45 hours, but in May 1844 the “Duke of Wellington” recorded a passage of
135 hours due to storms. By the 1860s
much more powerful steamers, such as the “City of Aberdeen 2” were engaged in
cattle transport and journey times became quicker (about 36 hours) and more
predictable.
However, it was the extension
of the railway network to Aberdeen which brought about the biggest change in
cattle transportation from Aberdeenshire to the south. The railway reached Aberdeen in 1850, the
line along the Dee Valley opened in 1853 and the Alford Valley line opened in
1859. This last development took rail
transport to within three miles of Tillyfour, with the construction of a
station at the village of Whitehouse. An
open railway truck would carry five or six large animals and these trucks were
usually attached at the back of passenger trains. Mr Hay of Shethin, near Tarves, was the first
farmer to consign cattle from Aberdeen by rail in 1850 and he was also the
first Aberdeenshire man to win a prize for cattle at the Smithfield show. In the year after the initiation of the rail
service from Aberdeen, 12,000 cattle were sent by this means to Edinburgh,
Glasgow and London at a cost of £3 per animal.
There was then some price competition between steamers and railway
trains, which reduced prices in 1865 to 21/- per animal by steamer and 25/- per
animal by train. Transit times were not
very different, the City of Aberdeen 2 taking about 36 hours to reach the
capital, while the trains took 30 – 35 hours.
By 1870, 40,000 animals were annually being sent south from Aberdeen,
with 90% destined for London. Increasingly, though, animals were slaughtered
locally, and the carcasses transported south, but this mainly applied to the
cheapest stock. Best quality beasts,
such as those produced by William McCombie (1805) were still exported live.
Initially, William McCombie
(1805) favoured the steam ships over the railways for several reasons. The shipping companies took responsibility
for animals injured or killed on the journey and compensated the shipper, while
the railways did not. Also, the care the
animals received on board ship was much superior to that provided by the
railway companies. Additionally, it was
William’s opinion that the jolting caused by shunting operations was
particularly upsetting for the cattle.
He further criticised the railways for unpredictable delays. In the early years about ¾ of his animals
were dispatched south by sea. However,
following a public spat in the press with a railway manager, the railways upped
their game. In 1865 William McCombie wrote
to the papers complimenting the Highland Railway and the Great North of
Scotland Railway on their treatment of his animals which were sent to the
Highland Society’s show in Inverness by railway truck.
William McCombie (1805) was
careful to prepare his animals for transport, either by sea or by rail. Usually they would have been kept in the
cattle courts for some months before the journey and thus endured relatively
immobility. McCombie would train his
cattle by putting them out to walk and so condition them for the ordeal to
come.
The Great
Christmas Market at Smithfield, Islington, which took place annually in early
December was the busiest time for cattle transport from Aberdeen. In December 1864 the Aberdeen People’s
Journal wrote, “Enormous numbers of fine cattle from the counties of Aberdeen
and Banff passed along the Great North of Scotland and Scottish North Eastern
Railways on Thursday on their way to the great Christmas Market at
Islington. There were at least four
trains of trucks. One train of 16 trucks
containing some splendid-looking animals came down the Alford Valley line at
mid-day, the stock being chiefly drawn from the herd of the famous breeder Mr
McCombie of Tillyfour”. William McCombie
(1805) typically sent 35 – 40 of his best animals live to Smithfield. He had “MxC” clipped into the hair on the
rumps of the animals he sent to London, clearly wishing to publicise the origin
of his cattle once they reached the sale ring.
William McCombie’s strategy
As early as 1832, William McCombie (1805) entered cattle in the local
Alford summer show and was awarded a first prize, but it was not until 1840,
when he achieved success at the Highland and Agricultural show, that he gained
more than a local reputation as a cattle producer. The strategy by which William McCombie became
a regular winner at the most important shows in Britain and France is
illustrated by the following quotation, taken for a speech he gave at a dinner
given in his honour in 1862. It shows
his analytical mind at work in defining a problem, setting a plan to overcome
that obstacle and consistently delivering the plan.
“Gentlemen I was led by a father, whose memory I revere, to believe
that our native polled cattle were peculiarly fitted for our soil and climate,
that properly bred they would rival even Shorthorns in symmetry and quality of
flesh. I resolved that I would endeavour
to improve the native breed and I have devoted all my energies to accomplish
that purpose. For many years I was an
unsuccessful exhibitor at the Smithfield Club shows. I then went to Baker Street (the location of the Smithfield show) and
examined the cattle and the particular points most favourably looked upon in
Baker Street. I selected the animals I
considered best suited for the market in Baker Street; I doubled trebled and
quadrupled their supplies of cake (a
concentrated feed supplement) and at last I attained the object of my
ambitions. English agriculturalists had
always maintained that Scotch cattle could never take a first against the
Shorthorned, the Hereford and the Devon breeds.
I have given them reason for changing their opinion.”
It is important to note that the strategy was two-pronged, firstly,
choose the animals with the desired conformations to show and, secondly, feed
them optimally. These animals (other
than the bullocks!) were then used as breeding stock. In the mid-19th century there was
a general belief that characteristics acquired during life could be passed on
to the offspring and for William McCombie (1805) and other leading cattle
breeders, having this dual strategy of choosing the best animals as breeding
stock and feeding them well made sense for producing superior animals in the
following generation. It was not until 1889
that Weissman, a German biologist, proved that acquired characteristics were
not inherited, by docking the tails of mice serially for several generations,
without effect on tail length of the offspring.
William
McCombie (1805) sent fat cattle to the Birmingham and Smithfield shows as early
as 1840. Systematic selective breeding
of his Aberdeen Angus herd began about 1844 but it was not until about 1858
that he really started to be noticed nationally as a leading producer of polled
Aberdeen and Angus cattle. From 1859 to
1864 he won first prize at Smithfield for the best polled bullock and in 1861
the prize for the best polled heifer. It
thus took about 15 years for his dual strategy of breeding and feeding to
propel him to the pinnacle of achievement for polled black cattle
production. Aberdeen producers of high
quality cattle, led by William McCombie (1805), generally did well financially
in the period 1850 to 1880.
When he was buying cattle
for fattening, William McCombie frequently travelled north-west from Tillyfour,
especially into Morayshire, where Forres cattle market was a frequent
haunt. He described Morayshire polled
cattle as “resembling” Aberdeen and Angus polled animals. Other markets he used were Keith, Culsalmond,
Kennethmont and Aberlour. If he did not
find the animals he wanted at the price he was prepared to pay, he came away
empty-handed but when he found suitable stock he bought multiple animals, for
example in June 1865 he bought 15 polled animals at £22 5s at Forres but in the
previous January he attended that market but bought nothing. At the dinner held after the Forres Fat
Cattle Market in December 1866, William McCombie (1805) in his reply to a toast
in his honour estimated that he had spent £100,000 (more than £12 million in
2018 money) with Morayshire farmers during his cattle-buying career. Although he only recruited polled animals to
his breeding herd, William McCombie (1805) was quite relaxed about fattening
cattle of a variety of breeds and crosses, where the rationale was only to buy
animals on which he calculated he could make a profit. His farms usually carried about 300 beasts
for fattening which, in addition to polled black cattle, could include Shorthorn
– black cattle crosses (often 1/3 to ½ of the stock) and occasionally
Galloways.
William
McCombie’s strategy for buying breeding stock was quite different to his
strategy for purchasing stock for fattening.
With breeding cattle, the status of the herd was the main consideration
and if he liked an animal, based on his years of experience, he was prepared to
pay a high price to secure it. Interestingly, William McCombie (1805) quoted
from Charles Darwin, with approval, on this point, “Not one man in a thousand
has accuracy of eye and judgement sufficient to become an eminent breeder. …
Darwin’s view will be found pretty correct.” (In 1868 Charles Darwin had published the
book “Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication”.) In 1862 at the sale of Mr Walker’s polled
cattle at Mountbletton Farm, Banff, William McCombie (1805) paid 60gns for the cow
“Mayflower” which was more than twice the selling price of any other cow on
offer. Such animals, especially bulls,
were often named, such as “Hanton”, bought from Mr Bowie and “Queen of
Portlethen, bought from Mr Walker, Portlethen.
An incomplete list of herds from which he obtained breeding stock reads
like a roll of honour of famous Aberdeen Angus breeders. Mr Walker, Portlethen, Mr Watson, Keillor, Mr
Bowie, Mains of Kelly, Mr Fullarton, Ardeatie, Mr Lesley, Thorn, Blairgowrie,
Mr Scott Balwyllo (by the end of 1865 Mr
Scott’s herd had been virtually eliminated by the rinderpest outbreak) and
Mr Taylor, Rothiemay. Clearly, William
McCombie (1805) only bought from herds he held in high regard. In 1858 his breeding herd consisted of two
bulls, ten cows (five being Highland and Agricultural Society first prize
winners) and four heifers. One of these
breeding bulls was “Hanton”. Later
William McCombie (1805) said that the most important bulls for the development
of his herd were “Hanton”, “Angus” (bred by Hugh Watson of Keillor) and
“Panmure” (bred by Lord Panmure). It
will be noted that all came from breeders located in Angus.
Excess breeding stock from
the Tillyfour herd were offered for sale every 1 – 3 years, sometimes by
private bargain but often at a showpiece auction, preceded by a substantial
lunch which was designed to loosen purse strings as well as tongues. At such a roup (public auction) at Bridgend (one of William McCombie’s leased
farms) in 1850, 700 – 800 people were present, including many distinguished
herd owners. Even by this early date
William McCombie (1805) had already established a reputation as a leading
breeder. At another auction, also at
Bridgend, in 1857, the following was printed on the handbill advertising the
sale. “The auctioneer trusts the
exposer’s name is a sufficient guarantee for the excellence of the stock.” Another sale in 1867, this time at Tillyfour,
at which 50 Aberdeen Angus cows, heifers and bulls were on offer, 500 people
sat down to lunch before the sale, which realised £1513 (£100,000 in 2018
money).
In spite of his reputation
as a cattle man, William McCombie (1805) also kept and bred sheep, possibly on
his poorer, heather-covered hill top land.
In 1861 he bought four tups at the Ardgay tup sale and in 1878 he sold
400 superior cross-bred hogs (young sheep
before first shearing).
“Cattle
and Cattle-breeders” by William McCombie
This book was first published in 1867. Its origins lay in the period when William was the president of the Chamber of Agriculture and he was asked to read a paper to the Chamber on “my experiences as a feeder of cattle”. The book covered a variety of topics in addition to feeding. They included his own entry into the cattle business, experiences that he and his father had in droving and other cattle-breeders and cattle-breeding. It was not in any sense a scientific work, being short on quantitation and long on assertions, based upon personal experience. These including William’s belief in the use of quack remedies, such as bleeding to cure milk-fever. Also, it was frustratingly short on dates for many of the events described. However, it was successful, mainly because of the status of the author and the economic significance of the topics. The book appeared in a second, revised edition in 1869 and a third, revised and extended edition in 1875. After the death of William McCombie (1805) in 1880 a fourth, revised and extended edition, edited by James Macdonald, was published in 1894. The price of the second edition was 5s (£113 in 2018 money).
This book was first published in 1867. Its origins lay in the period when William was the president of the Chamber of Agriculture and he was asked to read a paper to the Chamber on “my experiences as a feeder of cattle”. The book covered a variety of topics in addition to feeding. They included his own entry into the cattle business, experiences that he and his father had in droving and other cattle-breeders and cattle-breeding. It was not in any sense a scientific work, being short on quantitation and long on assertions, based upon personal experience. These including William’s belief in the use of quack remedies, such as bleeding to cure milk-fever. Also, it was frustratingly short on dates for many of the events described. However, it was successful, mainly because of the status of the author and the economic significance of the topics. The book appeared in a second, revised edition in 1869 and a third, revised and extended edition in 1875. After the death of William McCombie (1805) in 1880 a fourth, revised and extended edition, edited by James Macdonald, was published in 1894. The price of the second edition was 5s (£113 in 2018 money).
William
McCombie (1805)’s farms
Prior to 1836 William McCombie became the tenant of the home farm at Tillyfour, including Tillyreach and Netherhill, a tenancy continued during the life of his brother Charles, who died in 1874. As William’s business grew he took on further farm leases, starting with Bridgend (about 230 acres) which was part of the Lynturk estate belonging to William McCombie (1802) of Easter Skene, which was acquired before 1845. At the 1851 census William (1805) was described as a farmer of 200 acres employing four agricultural labourers, but this appeared to apply only to Tillyfour. A further farm, Dorsell (640 acres), which belonged to Sir Charles Forbes of Newe was leased before 1858. At the 1861 census the land holding of William McCombie (1805) was given as 1100 acres, which would have been substantially accounted for by the three farms of Tillyfour, Bridgend and Dorsell. There is evidence from the Valuation Rolls that he also rented other, smaller properties from time to time. In 1861 William (1805) was described as employing 30 servants. The late 1840s and the 1850s were clearly a period of substantial growth for his cattle business. The Dorsell farm lease was relinquished in 1874 after the purchase of Tillyfour. William McCombie lived at Tillyfour House and had experienced farm servants in charge at all three farms, Tillyfour, Dorsell and Bridgend.
Prior to 1836 William McCombie became the tenant of the home farm at Tillyfour, including Tillyreach and Netherhill, a tenancy continued during the life of his brother Charles, who died in 1874. As William’s business grew he took on further farm leases, starting with Bridgend (about 230 acres) which was part of the Lynturk estate belonging to William McCombie (1802) of Easter Skene, which was acquired before 1845. At the 1851 census William (1805) was described as a farmer of 200 acres employing four agricultural labourers, but this appeared to apply only to Tillyfour. A further farm, Dorsell (640 acres), which belonged to Sir Charles Forbes of Newe was leased before 1858. At the 1861 census the land holding of William McCombie (1805) was given as 1100 acres, which would have been substantially accounted for by the three farms of Tillyfour, Bridgend and Dorsell. There is evidence from the Valuation Rolls that he also rented other, smaller properties from time to time. In 1861 William (1805) was described as employing 30 servants. The late 1840s and the 1850s were clearly a period of substantial growth for his cattle business. The Dorsell farm lease was relinquished in 1874 after the purchase of Tillyfour. William McCombie lived at Tillyfour House and had experienced farm servants in charge at all three farms, Tillyfour, Dorsell and Bridgend.
Tillyfour House
William McCombie (1805)’s personal
characteristics
As a young man
William McCombie (1805) enjoyed shooting game and coursing with dogs. He owned a greyhound called Amy, whose
portrait was hung with his cattle trophies on the wall of the dining room at
Tillyfour. William was also an
accomplished horseman and would ride considerable distances to events, returning
to Tillyfour the same day, if possible.
Even later in life he would drive himself to markets, often over the
hills into Morayshire. Comment has
already been made about the physical size and determination of the McCombies
and remarks were often made about William’s physique, such as “big-framed”,
“above average height”, with a “massive head and a commanding forehead”, but
the rest of his features were “plain”.
His behaviour was described as “self-reliant, energetic and persevering”
and he had “strength of intellect and force of will and a natural
dignity”. However, he was not refined in
conversation and manner and, though his style of speaking was forceful, he
could be brusque and was often terse. In
1858 when responding to a toast proposed by Lord Haddo, acknowledging William’s
success at the Highland and Agricultural Show in Aberdeen, his contribution was
of extreme brevity. “Thank you” was all he said before resuming his seat.
William McCombie (1805) was not a good orator, being incapable of spontaneity
and always resorting to a prepared text, though such contributions, prepared in
advance, were invariably insightful, knowledgeable and written in excellent
English. His spontaneous use of Doric
words would amuse and confuse his southern contacts in equal measure. However, in informal settings he would enjoy
a hearty laugh.
William
McCombie’s personal appearance often betrayed his rural Aberdeenshire
origins. At the 1868 Great Christmas
Market at Smithfield, William McCombie was dressed in a “suit of hodden grey”
supplemented with gaiters, as though he were attending a town cattle market in
the North East of Scotland. (Hodden was a coarse, undyed wool cloth,
formerly favoured by the peasantry of Scotland.) It could be said that he was true to his
place of origin and its cultural identity, though it would possibly be more
accurate to say that he was insensitive to what others thought about his speech
and dress and saw no need to ape the cultured classes of either Aberdeen or
London.
William McCombie
(1805) remained unmarried throughout life and, in truth, the opposite sex did
not seem to interest him. Baron de
Fontanay, who had stayed at Tillyfour with William McCombie (1805), related the
following story about William and marriage.
“He used to say to me laughing that he had only the month of February to
think about it, the sales of cattle were finished in January and purchases came
in March. Each March he put off the
marriage project for another year.” His closest female companion was his sister,
Mary who became his private secretary and lived at Tillyfour after her husband,
the artist Patrick Auld, died in 1866.
For William, his farm servants became his family and he behaved in a
patriarchal way towards them. William
was religious and became more so as he grew older. He held “family” worship each night with his
immediate household, when he would pray and read with the assembled group, and
on Sundays all the Tillyfour servants were brought together for religious
observance, when he would question each one on religion. William also worshipped at Lumphanan while
his brother Charles was the incumbent but changed to Tough, which was much
closer, after Charles’ death, though he declined to become an elder.
William McCombie (1805) and his farm servants
William always
spoke in a kindly way to his servants and was concerned for their welfare,
though he was pained if any of them transgressed against societal norms. Equally,
he was always ready to help his neighbours.
According to William McCombie Smith, William McCombie (1805) had a
penchant for strong men and was very proud of any of his servants who had won
prizes at athletic sports never failing to point them out to visitors with a
short history of their exploits. Despite his often rough, curt, exterior
shell, William McCombie (1805)’s behaviour regularly demonstrated his
generosity of spirit and his concern for the welfare of his farm servants
extended beyond their time with him. He
would do all he could to see that hard-working employees advanced to more
responsible and demanding roles in society and several of his employees
received generous legacies in his will.
In 1862 in a speech he referred to “many of my old servants who by their
perseverance and industry have raised themselves to respectable positions in
society”, and he took pride in their achievements. William’s servants and former servants, in
return, held William in the highest regard.
It was perhaps fitting that at the funeral of William McCombie (1805) in
1880, his servants should have played a central role, carrying the coffin from
Tillyfour House to the hearse and, on reaching Tough Kirk, moving the coffin on
into the building.
The aristocrats,
proprietors, professionals (doctors, teachers and clergymen), along with the
larger tenant farmers formed a group within society in the Vale of Alford,
which frequently met to celebrate events, such as the coming of age of a scion
of a landed family, the completion of an agricultural show, or a national
event, such as a royal marriage. Typically, such occasions were marked by a
dinner followed by much speech-giving and toast-making. But the farm servant class was largely
excluded from such events. They had
their own social events, such as ploughing and hoeing matches, followed by a ceilidh
(social event with singing and
enthusiastic dancing, often continuing into the early hours of the morning).
But in 1865 a
celebratory dinner in honour of William McCombie (1805) was organised by his
servants and former servants, an event quite unprecedented in the world of
Aberdeenshire agriculture. The chairman
for the evening was Mr Simpson the Overseer at the Easter Skene estate and an
employee, at the time, of William McCombie (1802). Simpson’s words to the gathering amply
summarise the warm regard in which William McCombie (1805) was held by those
who currently worked, or who had previously worked, for him. “He has not overlooked the promotion of the
interests and welfare of our own class, farm servants. He has spared neither trouble nor exertion at
any time to secure the advancement of a trustworthy servant. He has obtained more good situations for
those who have been his servants than any other gentleman I know, and your
attendance here today proves how Mr McCombie is esteemed by the working classes
in the district. Permit me to say I
trust that all who have been favoured by Mr McCombie’s influence will endeavour
to act so as to do him no discredit, to act so that he may still have
confidence in exercising his influence for the promotion of others. I am sure gentlemen I express not only my own
feelings but the feelings of all present when I say that we wish Mr McCombie
may long continue to be a pattern for the agriculturalist of Aberdeenshire and
a friend to the working classes.”
William McCombie
(1805)’s standing with his farm servants won warm praise from the Elgin Courier
which served an area of Scotland where William was particularly
well-known. “All honour to the farm
servants, tradesmen and crofters of the Vale of Alford for the entertainment of
Mr McCombie to dinner. Such a graceful
act by those so situated to one of Tillyfour’s situation is, as far as we know,
unprecedented and speaks volumes in praise of the entertainers and
entertained. The sentiments expressed by
Mr McCombie towards his servants are worthy of all imitation and raise that
gentleman very high in our estimation.”
Further praise came from his French former pupil, Eugene Tisserand, who
wrote to the farm servants’ committee apologising for his inability to attend
but stating that at the exact hour as they would be meeting he would be hosting
a dinner in honour of Mr McCombie in France, where he would express his
sentiments towards McCombie.
A good example of
an individual who had advanced in society after a spell working for William
McCombie (1805) was William Milne, who was overseer at Tillyfour between 1850
and 1858, after which he became tenant of the farm at Broomhill, Tough. In a touching act of neighbourliness, Tough
farmers then held a ploughing match on Broomhill Farm to help with the work of
preparing the ground. Another servant,
John Benzies, worked for William McCombie (1805) for 17 years as a
cattleman. He frequently travelled to the
major fatstock shows in England and was in charge of the prize ox, “Black Prince”
when he was presented to Queen Victoria (see below). At Smithfield when questioned by the public
about what this amazing animal had been fed on, John Benzies dissembled,
saying, “Oh just heath and heather bloom”! When Benzies returned to
Aberdeenshire after this signal event he exclaimed on arrival at Alford
station, “Now I don’t care if I never go back to London, I’ve gained all I can
gain.” Sadly, he died young at the age
of 51 in 1868. William McCombie (1805)
left John Benzies’ widow a legacy in his will.
Another notable servant, William Joss, was in charge of the Tillyfour
herd from 1857 to 1868. In 1857 a rather
small heifer calf had been born to the noted cow “Charlotte”. William McCombie was unimpressed by the new
arrival, but Joss differed from his boss.
This heifer grew up to become “Pride of Aberdeen” one of McCombie’s most
famous polled cows, justifying Joss’ view and validating McCombie’s approach of
admitting the opinions of his trusted workers. On his retirement from the
service of William McCombie (1805), William Joss became the tenant of the
smallholding of Blairshinnoch near Banff and held a leading position in public
life of the district, acting as its representative on the County Council.
It is fortunate
that William McCombie (1805) committed his thoughts on his farm servant
strategy to writing, in a paper he gave to the Alford Turnip Growers’
Association in 1873. An abstract of this
talk, “Farm servants and labourers”, follows.
It shows how observant this man was and how unlike many of his
contemporaries, who were aloof from their servants, showed them little loyalty
and treated them as incapable of independent thought and judgement. “I cannot agree with a great deal that has
been said against our Farm Servants, the Feeing Market (Held twice a year in Alford at which servants were hired) and the
Bothy System (the bothy or chaumer was
cramped, separate accommodation for farm servants, independent of the farm
house). The farm servants are a very
hard-working class and are highly deserving of comfortable dwellings and kind
treatment. They are accused of being a
restless, troublesome and wandering class.
I cannot deny that some are restless and that some do wander. It
is our duty to consider what are the causes of their desire of change and what
may be done by us to ameliorate their condition. (author’s
emphasis). I cannot generally retain
in my employment unmarried men of the best class for more than a year. I think myself singularly fortunate if I can
keep them two years. My married servants
seldom or ever shift. I have three
married men in charge of three different farms who have been with me for many
years and the understanding between us is that they are to hold their present
situations. I ask them no
questions. I trust them, and the
confidence is mutual. I find that if we
treat farm servants as men like ourselves that they will generally do us
justice if we are careful in our selection.
…. In the Vale of Alford, we
engage few farm servants without being acquainted with their character and
history. Faithful servants deserve the
respect and esteem of their masters and they ought to be looked upon not as
inferior beings, but as our friends and as members of our own family. … I
have part of my servants in the bothy and part in the farm kitchen. I have consulted them as to which they
preferred. There is a difference of
opinion, but most prefer the bothy.”
Those servants selected and retained by William McCombie (1805) were
rewarded with good wages.
Cattle shows
National
awareness and recognition of William McCombie (1805) as a breeder and feeder of
cattle came largely from the performance of his animals at cattle shows, where
he progressively developed a position of dominance for polled cattle in the
show ring. Although the prizes often
involved the award of money and/or valuable cups or plate, they were not in
themselves the reason for entering animals in competitions. William McCombie (1805) made clear that the
additional costs of preparing and transporting show animals were not covered by
the prizes, even for a successful exhibitor like himself. The real value of winning or being placed in
such competitions was in establishing his reputation, not just as a breeder of quality
cattle but as the producer of the best cattle, especially of the Aberdeen Angus
breed. In turn, this raised the bids
offered for his fat stock and breeding stock at auction. The Aberdeen Angus
breed was particularly important because of the high quality and thus high
price of the carcass.
William McCombie
is reputed to have won over 500 prizes with his cattle over his career and in
the period 1845 to 1880 he was the foremost prize winner in polled cattle
classes in the shows where he entered animals.
At the back of the 4th edition of his book “Cattle and
Cattle-Breeders, there is a list of all his show prizes to the year 1878. The total prizes listed (depending on the
exact method of counting) numbers 499, so it seems likely that he did exceed
500 in total. Other interesting facts emerge
from these statistics. Between 1832,
when he won his first show prize and 1843, William McCombie (1805) was
sporadically successful in the show ring, winning in total nine prizes in those
12 years. But 1844, the year in which he
started to develop polled black cattle seriously, he became a much more
frequent prize-winner, right through to 1874.
In this period, he won prizes every year, the highest annual total being
29 in 1859. In 1866, at the peak of the
rinderpest outbreak he only gained a single prize, but many cattle movements
and cattle shows were banned at that time.
In the last four years covered by these statistics there was a
significant decline in numbers of prizes won.
This was a time when he was suffering the ravages of old age and ill-health.
The prize list is
also instructive about the breeds of cattle being exhibited by McCombie. In the early years it is usually not possible
to say what breed a prize-winning animal represented. From 1844, some animals were described as
“Aberdeen”, or occasionally “Angus”, and from 1849 some carried the description
of “polled”. Throughout McCombie’s show
period most animals fell into the above categories. But he also showed (and won prizes with)
three other breeds, Aberdeenshire horned, Galloway and West Highland. The horned beasts were only exhibited in the
period 1840 to 1847, essentially in the period before and during his decision
to concentrate on polled cattle. Another
feature of McCombie’s show statistics is that throughout his time in the show
ring he occasionally exhibited and won prizes with animals which were
cross-breeds. These data on breeds show
that while McCombie concentrated on the polled breed he also dallied with the
Aberdeenshire horned cattle at the start of his period of herd development and
he regularly bred cross animals, presumably for their rapid growth
characteristics.
Cattle shows
could be divided into two types, those held in summer (or occasionally in
spring) which were associated with general agricultural shows, and those held
mostly before Christmas which were associated with major cattle sales in the
big towns and cities of Britain. The
first half of the 19th century saw the initiation of many
agricultural shows in Aberdeenshire, which became annual events. The Banchory show started in 1820, the first
Alford show was staged in 1832, the Mar Agricultural Association show at
Monymusk was running by 1840 and other local shows were introduced at Tarland
and Strathdon, and at Kincardine O’Neil in 1844, Echt in 1853 and at Turriff in
1865. Aberdeen held its first summer
show in 1840, the same year as the Highland and Agricultural Show, which was
staged at different venues around Scotland.
William McCombie
(1805) was an exhibitor and winner at the first Alford show in 1832, with the
best bull aged 3 – 5 years. At the time
William was a young man of 27 and had been the tenant at Tillyfour for only a
few years. By 1840 he was being
recognised locally as a cattle expert and acted as judge at Mar show in that
year, at Banchory in 1844 and at Kincardine O’Neil in the same year. But acting as a judge was incompatible with
showing his own animals, so this activity dropped away as William’s own
prize-winning took on increased importance.
Agricultural
shows became significant events in the rural social calendar. They took on a growing role in showcasing the
products of the rural economy and the demonstration of new equipment to
agriculturalists. Farmers, farm servants
and their families also had an enjoyable day away from farm toil and the
occasion often ended with a celebratory dinner.
Following the Kincardine O’Neil show of 1844, William McCombie (1805)
made a speech after dinner in which he “strongly recommended to the farmers in
this part of the country the propriety of using every means to raise or improve
the native or Aberdeenshire breed of cattle, a suggestion which was well
received by the meeting”. The same
newspaper also reported that, “During the evening several excellent songs were
sung and altogether a more happy and agreeable evening cannot fall to our lot
to spend”.
The mid-1840s was
the period when William McCombie (1805) began his programme dedicated to the advancement
of Aberdeenshire polled cattle by a combination of selective breeding and improved
feeding, a development clearly signalled by his speech at Kincardine
O’Neil. At the 1845 Alford show he only
presented polled cattle and he dominated the competitions, though it is
interesting to note that his cousin, William McCombie (1802) was also a prize
winner. This was also the time when
William McCombie (1805) started to show animals and win prizes over a wider
geographical area. William had been
sending cattle to the Smithfield and Birmingham Christmas markets since 1840
but got nowhere in the English showrings at that time. That is when he realised that his animals
were not big enough, did not carry enough muscle and were the wrong shape to
win major competitions. The story of the
Christmas markets is told below.
Both William
McCombie (1805) and his cousin William McCombie (1802) were elected to the
Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland in 1847 and participated in the
Society’s show that summer. William
(1805) was a major winner of prizes for his polled cattle though Hugh Watson
won the prize for the best bull. This
competition between the two best-known breeders of polled Aberdeen and Angus
cattle continued for a few years until Hugh Watson retired from competition
about 1859. In the period 1840 – 1859 he
won about 200 prizes in the show ring.
In 1849 William McCombie (1805) made his own contribution to the
promotion of competition in the polled cattle classes at his local
Leochel-Cushnie annual cattle show, by presenting a trophy to be awarded to
“the best polled beast of the Aberdeenshire breed”. The trophy consisted of “a splendid
silver-mounted snuff horn”. William
McCombie (1805) was a heavy snuffer from at least 1819, aged 14, when he
is known to have lost his snuff box! It
was returned to him and the finder rewarded with 6d.
William McCombie
(1805) continued to show cattle at town and county summer shows in Scotland
right up to his death in 1880 and he was at least generally successful and
often dominant throughout this period.
However, several factors were at play which latterly reduced his
attendance and success, and sometimes that of other cattle men too. William became increasingly selective in the
shows he attended, tending to downgrade local shows either by not attending, or
by attending without showing, or by showing only in a limited number of
categories. Cattle disease also played
havoc from time to time with the movement of animals, especially during the
rinderpest outbreak of 1865 – 1866 (see below), though foot and mouth disease
was also present sporadically during the 19th century in all British
herds. During the period when William
McCombie (1805) was an MP (1868 – 1876, see below) he was less able to devote
himself to his cattle business and the preparation of animals for the showring. He was also the victim of his own success, in
that he made keeping herds of Doddies fashionable amongst the nobility and
aristocracy. They bought the best
animals from the best breeders, including William McCombie (1805), they fed the
animals, often without regard to economic considerations and they paraded the
resulting, polished beasts in the showring.
By 1877 both the Marquis of Huntly and Viscount McDuff had fine herds of
polled cattle and were both regular prize winners. The final factor which impacted upon the showring
was the increasing severity of the agricultural depression which started about
1873, caused by the importation of cheap grain and meat, and which reduced show
attendance as herd owners tightened their belts. Particularly in the 1870s, the reduced participation
of William McCombie (1805) gave William McCombie (1802) his chance. He increased his representation in the
showring and won more prizes for his own polled cattle.
An unpleasant spat in
the showring
A major dispute
arose over William McCombie (1805)’s roles at the 1858 Highland and
Agricultural show, which was held in Aberdeen that year. William was at the height of his dominance of
the polled cattle classes. He carried
off most of the leading prizes and even the winners that he did not enter had
mostly been bred by him. This level of
success clearly raised some questions about the reasons for his success in the
minds of some attendees. The Earl of
Southesk, himself a cattle breeder, complained that William McCombie (1805) had
been present in the showring, “among the polled cattle”, while the judging of
the polled classes was taking place, contrary to a rule of the Society. Others lodged a much more serious complaint,
alleging that William had been in sign contact with Mr Lumsden, one of the
judges, while the evaluation of the polled animals was taking place. The Society held an inquiry and rejected the
charges levelled against McCombie and Lumsden.
McCombie was acting as a judge of the Highland classes and so had a
right to be in the ring, though the Society conceded that McCombie’s presence
“may have been indiscreet and out of place”.
Mr Lumsden was incensed that his integrity had been called into question
and threatened to sue Lord Southesk, after the inquiry had been completed. However, Southesk then withdrew his complaint
and the matter lapsed. (Lord Southesk’s
herd suffered badly in the rinderpest outbreak of 1865). The incident illustrated how serious a matter
was breed competition to the participants in cattle shows.
Tillyfour farm in
1862
In 1862 a
journalist visited Tillyfour and wrote an account of the appearance of the
farm, and the farm house. The piece
listed the then current prizes on display, which included prize money of more
than £1300 (about £147,000 in 2018 money).
Royal Northern Agricultural Society – 21 silver medals, Highlands and
Agricultural Society – 8 gold, 15 silver, and 2 bronze medals, Birmingham and
Midland Counties Society – 1 silver medal, Smithfield Club - 1 silver medal,
Edinburgh Cattle Market Christmas Competition for oxen – 2 silver medals,
French Government – 2 great gold medals, 7 gold medals, 2 silver medals and 2
bronze medals. M Dutrone – 1 gold medal
and 1 gold snuff box, Prince Aldalbert of Bavaria - 1 facsimile medal, Highland
and Agricultural Society - 1 silver cup, Simpson’s Subscription Cup, Birmingham
Society - 1 silver cup, Birmingham Hotel and Innkeepers Cup, Piece of plate for
best bull in Aberdeen, Banff, Kincardine and Forfar, and a Silver Cup from
Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort.
This was a remarkable haul and one in which William McCombie (1805) took
great pride.
Tillyfour cattle court built about 1840
Tillyfour cattle court built about 1840
Smithfield and other Christmas shows
The Smithfield
Club Show was instituted in 1799 with the objective of encouraging early
maturation and improved carcass quality in meat production and was held at Wotton’s Livery Stables,
Smithfield. A substantial sale of
fatstock was associated with the competition.
The show was then held
annually in December and staged at various venues in London until 1839, when it
obtained a semi-permanent site at Baker Street Horse Bazaar. In that year the show lasted for four days
and attracted 25,000 visitors. Eighteen
sixty-two saw the show move again to the Agricultural Hall, Islington, when it
attracted 136,000 visitors, such was the public interest in the amazing animals
on display. The Smithfield market was
the most important such pre-Christmas sale of cattle and other meat species in
Great Britain and winning prizes at the Club Show guaranteed a good sale for
the producers.
Progressively, other major cities instituted their own
Christmas shows with associated sales, including Birmingham, Edinburgh,
Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds, York, Manchester, Newcastle, Darlington and
Hull. William McCombie (1805) showed
animals and won prizes at all these venues, though not in every year. His most frequent venues, after Smithfield
where he was present on almost all occasions, were Birmingham and
Edinburgh. Most of the animals showed by
William McCombie (1805) were polled Aberdeen or Angus cattle, though he
occasionally showed Galloways, Shorthorns and Shorthorn/ Polled crosses,
animals in the last category often being of enormous size. William also
occasionally showed sheep.
William McCombie (1805) was also a major prize-winner with
his polled beasts at major international cattle shows held in France in 1856,
1857, 1862, 1867 and 1878. The story of
the French shows is told in “The French
Connection” below.
After he gave up his Parliamentary seat in 1876 William
McCombie (1805) was able to devote more of his time to the cattle
business. In that year he won a silver
cup at the Smithfield Show for a polled ox, which William himself described as,
“roast beef down to the shins”! One newspaper remarked, “We are glad to see
Mr McCombie competing again at the show”.
But William was running out of time.
He was now 71 and his health was failing. It was perhaps fitting that, even after his death
in early 1880, he nephew Robert Auld, showed animals at both Birmingham and
Smithfield which had been bred by William McCombie (1805), one of which
received a commendation at the London show.
Crop prizes
The point has
been made above that William McCombie (1805) was an arable farmer, especially
of turnips, as well as a breeder and feeder of cattle. William took the same single-minded approach
to plant production that he had pursued with his animals. However, he did not enter his produce in
agricultural shows until 1856 when he won first prize for his swedes at the
Leochel-Cushnie turnip competition, with a yield of 32 tons/Scotch acre. From then until his death he was an annual,
usually multi-annual, winner of prizes, mostly for turnips but for other crops
too, such as oats and barley, at a variety of shows, but mainly in Aberdeenshire. He even won a turnip competition
posthumously. Interestingly, after his election as an MP he made several forays
into horticultural and garden produce, winning prizes for fruits of various
kinds, cucumbers, onions and even flowers, perhaps to ingratiate himself with a
wider spectrum of his predominantly tenant-farmer electorate.
Recognition of William McCombie’s
achievements
In addition to
the accolades he received in the showring, William McCombie (1805)’s
achievements were recognised in other ways too.
In the aftermath of his first foray into France in 1856, members of his
local farmers’ club met at the Muggarthaugh Inn, which is located between
Alford and Lumphanan, in February 1857 to present William with a testimonial in
the form of a silver kettle and stand created by Mr Jamieson, the Aberdeen
jeweller (the company is still trading in
the Granite City). It was inscribed
as follows. “Presented to William
McCombie Esq by members of the Leochel-Cushnie Agricultural Association and a
few other friends connected with the parish in testimony of his great kindness
and liberality in promoting the objects of the Association and of the honour
and advantage conferred on this district by his distinguished success as a
breeder of Polled Black Cattle as shown at our National Exhibitions and
especially at the late Universal Exhibition at Paris”. It was probably quite a shock, as well as a
pleasant surprise, for the farmers of the Vale of Alford to realise that one of
their own was now recognised beyond national borders, not just as the best
producer of polled black cattle but as one of the best producer of beef cattle
in Europe.
Following William
McCombie (1805)’s third foray into France in April 1862, he was entertained by
about 400 leading noblemen and gentlemen in the North of Scotland connected
with agriculture at a public dinner held in July, under the presidency of the
10th Marquis of Huntly. The
venue was the impressive, recently-completed Music Hall in Aberdeen’s Union
Street and the cost was half a guinea per head.
Like all such occasions in Victorian times, it was male-dominated, the
ladies being accommodated separately in the gallery. The most memorable part of the evening was
the deeply insightful speech given by William McCombie (1805), which opened as
follows. “I feel quite overpowered by the expression of kind feeling which has
just been accorded to me by you my Lord Marquis, by the croupiers, by the
landed proprietors of this the greatest cattle-breeding county in Great
Britain, by a great proportion of the citizens of Aberdeen and by the tenant
farmers of this county, by many gentlemen from the most distant parts of
Scotland, by many gentlemen with whom I have fought hard battles in our
showyards, by many of my old servants who by their perseverance and industry
have raised themselves to respectable positions in society. I feel in my innermost heart the generous and
surpassing kindness you have shown to me and I cannot be otherwise than very
highly gratified at the terms in which you have been pleased to propose my
health.” He went on to give an account
(quoted above) of how he arrived at his strategy for improving polled cattle
and its implementation. When he sat down
he was loudly cheered and applauded. The
most unmemorable part of the celebration was a song composed for the occasion
and sung by Mr William Cadenhead. Its
words were pure doggerel.
Following this
celebratory dinner, the Banffshire Journal launched a scathing attack on the 10th
Marquis of Huntly for his speech in the role of chairman at the dinner. “It was not their fault (the organisers) that on Thursday the speaking was in most cases not
up to the mark. They could not be blamed
for the noble chairman making a speech about Mr McCombie without saying more of
him than that he had known him before his whiskers were grey, had acted along
with him as a judge of cattle, and that he was “a good friend”. This it will be noticed is positively the
whole speech and if it had been spoken by any other person than a Marquis it would
have been regarded as unsatisfactory.”
This newspaper appeared to feel that Lord Huntly was just carrying out a
duty function for a senior nobleman, without bothering to put much effort into
detailing the undoubted achievements of William McCombie (1805). Perhaps he was viewed as merely a
tenant-farmer by the noble Lord?
In 1864 a
provisional committee was formed, including William McCombie (1805), charged
with creating a Chamber of Agriculture and Scottish Farmers’ Club to represent
the interests of agriculture in Scotland and to represent the views of Scottish
farmers in London. Mr George Hope became
the first president of the Chamber and he was succeeded in 1866 by William
McCombie (1805). As in all roles that he
undertook, William pursued this role of chairman vigorously, for example
leading a delegation of the Chamber on a tour around Scotland to drum up
membership.
During his time
as a Member of Parliament, William McCombie took up many courtesy roles which
devolved from his elevated position as a public representative. For example, he was co-opted to Dr Milne’s
Trustees, a major Scottish educational charity and he became a member of the
Royal Infirmary Court. Increasingly he
was called to the chair at meetings he attended. Clearly there was then a significant degree
of deference towards him. William was
also elected to the new Parish Board for Tough, after the reform of Scottish
local government in 1879.
In 1876 a
proposal was made to create a memorial to William McCombie's work in cattle breeding. Under the auspices of the Royal Northern Agricultural
Society, a fund was solicited by public donation to create a McCombie Challenge
Cup and Prize for black polled cattle.
£300 (about £33,000 in 2018 money) was collected for this purpose. The Aberdeen Free Press (the creation of his
relative William McCombie (1809)) applauded this move and took a dig at William
McCombie (1805)’s detractors at the rival newspapers. “The knowledge of this will no doubt be
gratifying to all who are taking an interest in the movement, while it will
effectually dispose of the sneers of certain people who, measuring others by
their own tastes and predilections, have not hesitated to hint at something
like sordid motives in the matter.”
The rinderpest outbreak of 1865 - 1866
Rinderpest
(cattle-plague in German), was an infectious disease of even-toed ungulates,
such as cattle and deer, caused by a paramyxovirus. (In recent years it is thought to have been
eliminated from the world.) Symptoms included
oral erosions, diarrhoea and lymphoid necrosis. One of the first signs of the
disease was that cattle stopped eating.
Mortality from the condition was very high and the condition was easily
transmitted from animal to animal.
Although in the 18th century some work was undertaken to try
to achieve immunisation of cattle against the condition, it had no impact on
disease control at that time. The first
person to propose slaughter as a means of controlling the disease was Giovanni
Maria Lancesi, who was physician to two Popes, Innocent XI and Clement XI. The latter was distressed at losing many
animals from his herds to the condition and he asked Lancesi for his help. He brought the outbreak under control by
slaughtering infected animals. Lancesi
wrote, “It is better to kill all sick and suspect animals, instead of allowing the
disease to spread, in order to have enough time and the honour to discover a
specific treatment that is often searched for without success.” The Italian also wrote, with great
perspicacity, that the disease was caused by, “exceedingly fine and pernicious
particles that pass from one body to another”, and this 150 years before the
work of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch on the germ theory of disease!
In 1714
rinderpest arrived in Great Britain from the Netherlands and a major outbreak
of the disease in cattle resulted.
George I commanded his surgeon, Thomas Bates, to control the
outbreak. Bates had worked as a naval
surgeon in the Mediterranean and was familiar with the writings of Lancesi and
so proposed slaughter. About 6,000
cattle were killed but the outbreak was eliminated. However, in 1849 when the next outbreak of
Rinderpest occurred, the experience of the previous campaign had been forgotten
and about half a million cattle died of the disease before the infection
extinguished itself spontaneously.
On 29 May 1865,
the steamship Tonning arrived at Hull with a cargo of cattle from the
Baltic. Some of the animals were sent to
London and proved to be infected with rinderpest. The disease was then passed to many other
animals and newly-infected cattle were subsequently transported around the
country. By 30 September 1865, 1702
farms had reported infections with 13,263 animals diseased. Rinderpest had arrived on British shores
again and spread quickly throughout the land. There was no national plan in
place to deal with this major outbreak and little idea in Government of what to
do. In September it was commanded that a
national prayer should be read in every church, beseeching the Almighty to
deliver the country from this pestilence afflicting the country’s cattle. Queen Victoria did her bit along the same
lines, asking all ministers to pray for relief.
Supernatural forces did not intervene, and it was initially left to
local action to combat the problem. At
least the Government instituted a Royal Commission of Inquiry, which was
potentially a good move to establish the facts surrounding the outbreak.
William McCombie (1805) initiates action
on the rinderpest epidemic
In Aberdeenshire, rinderpest was introduced by a batch of
calves brought from England. The disease
broke out simultaneously at four different centres, each linked to the newly
arrived animals. The first death
occurred on 20 June 1865. William
McCombie (1805) was already alert to the dangers of spreading cattle disease by
contact. In 1860 he, with others, had
memorialised the directors of the Highland and Agricultural Society concerning
the dangers of spreading pleuropneumonia (a bacterial infection) in the cattle
to be exhibited at the Society’s then pending show. The Society declined to take William
McCombie’s advice and letter ping-pong was the result, neither side being
prepared to back down. It was not the
last time that this society would be infected with inertia.
In early August 1865, William McCombie (1805) picked up a
rumour that rinderpest had broken out in Aberdeenshire. He immediately wrote to the secretary of the
Royal Northern Agricultural Society, the most senior representative body for
farmers in the north-east of Scotland, reporting the rumour and asking for a
meeting of the Society’s committee to be called “to consider the matter and to
see if they could devise some means to meet or mitigate the calamity that
threatened the county”. The committee
met on 11 August 1865. At that meeting
it was confirmed that the rinderpest had indeed reached Aberdeenshire and that
there had been several deaths in the northern half of the county. In the discussion that followed historical
information on the disease was given which emphasised the magnitude of the
danger they were facing. Mr Campbell
worried that there little the Society could do, other than bring the matter to
the attention of the Government. William
McCombie took the opposite view. He had
no confidence in the Government finding a solution and he urged the Society to
look to its own resources to tackle the disease. One immediate suggestion was the formation of
a mutual assurance society to compensate farmers with diseased animals, if they
were slaughtered. There would then be no
incentive to conceal an infection.
William McCombie (1805) agreed with this idea and suggested that
slaughtered animals should be burned.
Other ideas were to urge farmers to avoid importing cattle for the present
and to press upon the railway companies the need to clean out the wagons used
for transporting cattle. William
McCombie (1805) urged the county to copy Aylesbury and form an association for
mutual protection. At this point Thomas
McCombie (1819), William McCombie (1805)’s brother, spoke about Australian
experience with mutual protection societies, which was favourable. The outcome of the discussion was an
agreement to call a general meeting of the society for one week hence.
The special general meeting was duly held, and three
resolutions passed. Firstly, to call on
Government to prevent importation of cattle from countries where the disease
was known to exist. Secondly, to seek
the disinfection of all cattle trucks.
Thirdly, to create a mutual association, funded by subscription from
proprietors and farmers, to compensate cattle owners for the loss of cattle due
to disease. The meeting also agreed an
executive structure to implement its resolutions throughout the county. This would consist of a Central Committee on
the Cattle Plague and district sub-committees to implement local actions. William McCombie (1805) was nominated to the
Central Committee and he was also active in the creation of a sub-committee at
Alford.
Ineffective
Government action on rinderpest
By September
1865, the Privy Council had started issuing orders and regulations in an
attempt to halt the spread of the disease.
These orders were communicated to the counties via the Justices of the
Peace and a meeting of Aberdeenshire JPs, which was attended by William McCombie
(1805), was held. This meeting agreed to
appoint qualified inspectors to give effect to the orders of the Privy
Council. These directions from the Privy
Council, when they came, were ineffectual at a national level in controlling
the disease. In January 1866 William
Garden of Alford wrote, “The Orders tardily issued from time to time by Her
Majesty’s Privy Council have proved totally inadequate to meet the emergency
and generally have been put in force by the local authorities when it was too
late. …. Had Government adopted some
such measures (slaughter and restriction
of cattle movements) a few months ago and made them compulsory over the
United Kingdom in all human probability this fearful malady long before now
would have been banished from our shores.”
The Royal
Commission Reports, when they eventually reached publication, were, if
anything, even less useful that the edicts from the Privy Council. The First Report appeared in November 1865
but was dogged by differences of opinion amongst its members. The one item on which there was general
agreement was that slaughter of animals, which had occurred to that time only
sporadically, should be stopped, except for exceptional circumstances! William McCombie (1805)’s view that
Aberdeenshire farmers should not look to Government for a solution but should
be self-reliant in their search for salvation, was certainly vindicated.
William McCombie (1805) leads the Central
Committee on rinderpest
For a
considerable time after its formation the Central Committee (on the Cattle
Plague) met weekly, the first meeting being held on 25 August 1865, about 200
members of district committees being present.
Mr Irvine of Drum was called to the chair and the first item of business
was the resignation of the interim secretary, Mr Ligertwood, because he felt
the post was too onerous considering his other commitments. It was clear that the chairman and secretary
of the Central Committee might have to put in a substantial amount of time and
effort to the work of the committee.
There followed a good deal of discussion, not all focussed, and a
constitution was presented. The brightest spot in the proceedings was a report
by Mr JW Barclay of Auchlossan, Honorary Secetary of the sub-committee, who had
been in contact with the railway companies, which had agreed to clean their
cattle waggons, and to reclean them from time to time. Disinfection would also be carried out on
request at a cost of 6d.
At the following
meeting of the Central Committee, William McCombie (1805) was called to the
chair, a position he then fulfilled throughout the period of the outbreak and
beyond (except at two meetings). He
finally gave up the role of chairman on entering Parliament in 1868, when the
residual functions of the Central Committee were no longer a matter of great
import. In typical McCombie fashion, he
applied himself with zeal to the job of guiding the committee in this task of
vital local and national importance, the defeat of the rinderpest in
Aberdeenshire. In this work he was supported
by Mr JW Barclay, who subsequently became the secretary to the Central
Committee. McCombie and Barclay had
several things in common. Both were
intelligent, hard-working and focussed.
Both were tenant farmers, and both subsequently became Liberal Members
of Parliament, yet neither shone as a public speaker, Barclay having an
unfortunate nasal twang. It was a
classic case of people who were already very busy having the capability to
manage their time, so that a new and demanding task could be accommodated. The leadership and dedication of these two
proved to be decisive in the following months.
No attempt will be made to deal with the detail of the many following
meetings of the Central Committee.
Rather, a summary of its actions both in carrying out Orders in Council
and in creating and applying local policy decisions will be given, which shows
the route by which this destructive and highly contagious disease was overcome.
The national extent of the rinderpest
outbreak
Nationally, the
disease reached its peak in the 3rd week of February 1866, with
17,875 new cases. Scotland fared rather
better, partly because of the vigorous action taken in Aberdeenshire,
Scotland’s most important cattle-producing county, and partly because the
disease never reached the counties north of Aberdeenshire. The highest weekly total of new infections in
Scotland occurred in the week ending 13 Jan 1866 at 3020 cases. In Aberdeenshire itself there were individual
weeks as early as November 1865 in which no new cases were reported, though
further small outbreaks continued until March 1866, when the last infected
animal was killed. How well
Aberdeenshire had done in combatting the disease and how much it potentially
had to lose are illustrated by the following data. In 1866 the county was estimated to have 183,451
cattle, worth over £2 million (about £240 million in 2018 money) in total. There had been 327 cattle deaths of which
most (246) were due to planned slaughter, only 78 dying of the rinderpest. Most Aberdeenshire outbreaks were in the far
north-east around Peterhead. In
contrast, Kincardineshire, the next county to the south of Aberdeenshire, and
one much smaller in size, had had about 2,000 cattle infected.
Why was the
rinderpest quickly contained in Aberdeenshire?
The Aberdeenshire
strategy proved to be effective for many reasons. There was a level of trust and understanding
between the proprietors of land and the tenant farmers, which allowed them to
work together for a common goal and to share the costs of the initiatives
introduced to combat the disease.
Intelligent and hard-working individuals were available and willing to
dedicate their time to the common good, particularly William McCombie (1805)
and James Barclay, who for much of the outbreak worked without
remuneration. The Aberdeenshire
Constabulary were also very effective in backing up the enforcement of
regulations. There was a good
relationship too with the Justices of the Peace. The organisational structure of a central
committee with district sub-committees functioned effectively in applying
central edicts to the remotest corners of the county. There was a vision in the Central Committee
of what actions would likely be effective and an absence of the pious hope that
somehow a cure would be found, which would obviate the need for difficult
decisions, for example on slaughter and bans on cattle movements. A policy of slaughter of infected animals was
energetically and early applied, and eventually extended to non-infected stock
which had been in contact with diseased animals. The Central Committee was rigorous in
applying the edicts of the Privy Council and in memorialising that body with
suggestions for further legislative action.
There were many other useful initiatives. The introduction of a compensation scheme for
farmers, with independent valuation, based on a subscription, with 50% of funds
being derived from landowners and the remainder from tenants of the land, which
removed the temptation for farmers to conceal an outbreak of rinderpest. The subscription was voluntary, but it was
collected by the district committees, which did not hesitate to apply social
pressure to laggards. By October 1865
more than £3,200 had been raised. Work
with the railway companies resulted in waggons being cleaned, cattle movements
discouraged, and the return of dirty carcass cloths stopped. The circulation of information sheets for
farmers in disease-affected areas on what to do if they suspected an outbreak
of cattle plague was instructional, particularly regarding isolation of animals
and the discouragement of contact between farms, as well as the collection of
statistics. Employment of watchers to
interdict illegal cattle movements, particularly on or near the southern
boundary of the county, probably had an effect in deterring evasion of the
regulations.
William McCombie
was consistently hawkish concerning the introduction and implementation of
disease control measures, which occasionally led to him clashing with friends,
such as Mr Leslie, MP for Aberdeenshire and James Barclay. William also crossed swords with Aberdeen
fleshers (butchers) who wanted the
King Street market to be reopened as they struggled to continue trading. McCombie’s view prevailed with the JPs, and
the market remained closed. In December
1865 at a meeting with the JPs, William McCombie asked for the ban on cattle
sales at fairs and markets and for the ban to be extended to sheep and
pigs. Mr Gordon remarked to him that he
must have changed his mind. Mr McCombie
replied, “We must all alter our opinions, Mr Gordon, when we see them to be
wrong.” The proposal was agreed.
A potential embarrassment for William
McCombie (1805)
In June 1866,
William McCombie (1805) was charged with moving cattle from Moray to Banffshire
without a licence. His defence was that
he had not bought or sent the cattle in question personally and thus could not
be convicted of committing a wilful breach of the orders. Those orders had not in any case been
sufficiently published. His servant,
Robert Smith, had gone for the cattle but not under orders from McCombie and
had inadvertently taken them just into Banffshire before reaching
Aberdeenshire. This was potentially very
embarrassing for William, the hawk of the Aberdeenshire Rinderpest Association,
but his blushes were spared when the charge was found “not proven”.
Local action against the rinderpest in the
Vale of Alford
By late December
1865, rinderpest had broken out near the village of Kincardine O’Neil, barely
10 miles from Alford. A meeting of the
Vale of Alford Cattle Plague sub-committee was held at which William McCombie
(1805) encouraged his neighbours to take the initiative in defending the Vale
which, being surrounded by hills, had only a few access roads. He urged them that it was better to lose a
few hundred pounds now than many thousands later. William said he would personally be prepared
to slaughter all his animals and sell them as dead meat and stand the risk of
loss rather than suffer what had happened elsewhere. Dr Charles McCombie (1804) urged the
committee to employ watchers to guard the Vale day and night. This was approved, and 21 watchers were
subsequently recruited for this purpose.
William McCombie (1805) had himself already acted on his own farms. In mid-December 1865 he had posted notices to
the public withdrawing all permissions to inspect his stock and warning that
there were watchers on duty day and night.
He also threatened to prosecute trespassers. William McCombie (1805) was prepared to
practise what he preached.
The Government notices Aberdeenshire’s
success in countering the rinderpest
By early January
1866, the cattle plague had become a national disaster for the Government. In the first week of the new year total fresh
cases stood at 9,120, up almost 1,500 on the previous week. The policies that they had tried had been
ineffective in stemming the advance of the rinderpest and they were receiving
heavy criticism for their performance.
The Government then seemed to notice that Aberdeenshire had responded particularly
well in thwarting the cattle plague.
There was an interesting article in the North British Agriculturalist in
mid-January which made known to a wide audience the methods used in
Aberdeenshire and which included the following.
“We are aware of most energetic action on the part of agriculturalists. For instance, in the County of Aberdeen in
the Vale of Alford, there have been 20 men watching night and day to prevent
any animals from entering the district from Kincardineshire. From the very first outbreak of the disease
in Aberdeenshire, agriculturalists have energetically and wisely adopted
measures to deal with the disorder, and it is due to Mr McCombie, Tillyfour to
state that it is largely to his indefatigable energy that such measures were
early adopted and have been perseveringly carried out. Aberdeenshire is an illustration of what can
be effected by judicious arrangements.
But unfortunately, this is the only county where precautionary measures
have from the first been adopted, and to this apparently is mainly due the
little loss of cattle from a disease introduced into the county by four calves
bought from London in August.” In
addition, Aberdeenshire had been active in trying to influence Government
policy and in seeking additional powers to apply to their own situation. Most recently, a set of resolutions passed at
a public meeting in Aberdeen, which had been drafted by William McCombie (1809)
who, in addition to his literary activities, farmed at Cairnballoch, Alford,
were circulated widely to Government.
There was a meeting
of the Central Committee in Aberdeen on 19 January, 1866, with William McCombie
(1805) in the chair as usual. He read a
note from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to himself, asking for a copy of the
“valuable” paper recently sent to the Home Office under his signature. The Chancellor wanted to make Aberdeenshire’s
actions widely available and heaped praise on the work in the county. It is not presently clear exactly how much
influence Aberdeenshire then had on subsequent Government action, but it seems
likely to have been considerable and was certainly not negligible.
The Cattle Diseases Prevention Act and its
implementation in Aberdeenshire
In one frantic
week in mid-February 1866 the Government processed the Cattle Diseases
Prevention Bill through the Houses of Parliament. It received the Royal assent on 17 February
and was on the statute books before the end of the month. The Act empowered a Local Authority, composed
of Commissioners of Supply (generally large landowners) and tenant farmers, to
appoint inspectors who had the power to order the culling of infected animals
and for the affected farmers to be compensated at up to £20 per animal, up to
50% of its value. In the Aberdeenshire
setting, the role of this new body clearly overlapped with the already existing
Central Committee of the Aberdeen Rinderpest Association and its district
sub-committees. The Central Committee
continued to meet, in parallel, for many months, mainly to dole out
compensation money from the funds it had collected.
The Commissioners
of Supply for Aberdeenshire met in early March 1866 to appoint 15 of their
number to serve under the provisions of the Cattle Diseases Prevention Act,
including William McCombie (1802) of Easter Skene and William Leslie MP. Fifteen tenant-farmers were nominated to
serve by the Lord Lieutenant and amongst their number were William McCombie
(1805) and James Barclay. Sheriff
Thomson was elected to the chair of the Local Authority for Aberdeenshire. James Barclay was subsequently appointed
chief officer at a salary of £500. He
approached his new job with zeal, while continuing as secretary to the Central
Committee. Barclay submitted a series of
resolutions by which he proposed to implement the Act locally. 1. District
Committees of the Rinderpest Association to be appointed district committees of
the new body. 2. Value arbitration to be decided by two or
more members of a district committee.
3. Inspectors already appointed
by JPs to be retained. 4. Chief Officer to be authorised to recruit
sufficient staff to implement the Act with efficiency and economy. 5.
Chairman and Chief Officer to constitute a sub-committee to prohibit
movement of cattle, etc. These motions
were approved.
Of course, in
Aberdeenshire the task of defeating the rinderpest had, in effect, already been
accomplished but nationally the implementation of the 1866 Act had a dramatic
impact. In the week ending 23 February
1866 total new cases had been 17,875 but a month later the figure had dropped
to 9, 388 such cases. The statistics
continued to decline, to under 5,000 at 20 April, to under 700 at 22 June and
to eight at 23 November, all in 1866.
The effectiveness of the policy of slaughter, implemented so early in
the campaign of eradication in Aberdeenshire, had at last been put into effect
nationally and the problem was quickly solved.
William McCombie (1805) suggested in newspaper correspondence that the
architect of the slaughter policy in Aberdeenshire had been James Barclay. A newspaper summarised Barclay’s views as
follows. “Trust to yourselves in the
first instance, and don’t delay.
Organise, assess, offer compensation.
Take the poleaxe in hand and kill without asking many questions. That is what Aberdeenshire has done, and
hence while of all the counties in the Kingdom, it had most to dread from the
rinderpest, it is perhaps the one that will feel the effects least.”
This had been
another outstanding performance by William McCombie (1805), in combination with
his friend, James Barclay.
Public recognition of the role played by
William McCombie (1805) and James Barclay
The roles played
by William McCombie (1805) and James Barclay and the Central Committee of the
Aberdeenshire Rinderpest Association were acknowledged by parliamentarians.
William Leslie, MP for Aberdeenshire in December
1865. “I shall ever consider it a happy
circumstance for myself that the Royal Northern Agricultural Society was found
in such an efficient state as it was when we were overtaken with the fearful
visitation now devastating many parts of the country. We were from the state of efficiency of the
Royal Northern Agricultural Society enabled to put our hands upon men fully
competent to deal with the emergency.
Under the auspices of Mr McCombie of Tillyfour I do say that the community
of Aberdeenshire are indebted to the Central Committee to an extent they can
never repay for the able and energetic manner they have discharged the onerous
duties devolving upon them.” (This message implies that the Royal Northern
Agricultural Society was the initiating body for action which was clearly
over-generous to that august body.)
William Dingwall Forsyth, MP for East Aberdeenshire, in August
1866. “I am happy to be able to say that Scotland is now entirely free of the
rinderpest; and I think I may safely congratulate you upon the way in which the
disease has been treated in this county.
It has been treated in a way in this county which has elicited the
approbation of the highest statesmen of the country and deservedly so. I believe the main cause of the success in
Aberdeenshire was the good feeling that existed between proprietors and
tenants. We were able to act together,
we were able to meet the foe together, we were able together to supply the
sinews of war, namely money. If the
proprietors had refused to pay the assessment, we would have been as bad as any
other locality. But the tenants and
proprietors came together very handsomely to supply the sinews of war and in
this way, they were able at once to arrest the progress of the disease. That
was one main cause of our success and then another main cause was that we had
very able men at the helm. I need only
refer to such men as Mr Barclay and Mr McCombie of Tillyfour, an
agriculturalist of European celebrity.
These men had the confidence, both of the proprietors and of the
farmers. We knew that they were anxious
for measures for the public good. We
trusted them and were willing to obey them and to the confidence that existed
in them and to the good feeling which existed between the proprietor and
tenant.”
William Gladstone, who was Prime Minister during most of
the rinderpest epidemic, on receiving the Freedom of the City of Aberdeen in
August 1871. “But there was another
service and a marked service that Aberdeenshire did to the country at that very
period, in the winter which separated the years 1865 and 1866. I allude to the cattle plague and I wish to
say here that which I have said elsewhere in public and in private that it was
an admirable spectacle when all over the country we were wandering and groping
about , some proposed the most absurd measures by way of remedy and precaution
and others feeling themselves to be totally in the dark, it was an admirable
spectacle when the gentry and farmers of the county of Aberdeen associating
themselves together with nothing to rely upon except their own energy, except
their own prudence and intelligence devised for the ready rapid and complete
extinction of that plague the very remedy which at a later period after much
ineffectual discussion the Legislature found itself counselled by prudence to
adopt. I cannot recollect my Lord
Provost so remarkable an example of local activity, self-reliance, practical
ability and wisdom holding up for the whole nation a standard which that nation
was ultimately glad to follow. And now
if ever that disease should unfortunately appear amongst us again we have only
got to put in operation your remedy, the remedy by which you, of the county of
Aberdeen taught us with full assurance and the blessing of Providence the
mischief would be brought to a speedy and complete termination.”
But in those
days, there were no formal honours to bestow upon civilians who had performed
great deeds on behalf of the nation.
William McCombie (1805) and James Barclay have, sadly, largely been
forgotten as the men who, more than any others, defeated the rinderpest in
Aberdeenshire and provided the demonstration for the national government of the
strategy to follow throughout the land.
The Government did learn an important lesson about the control of animal
diseases and the need to be prepared. A
Veterinary Department was retained as a branch of the Privy Council Office
after 1866 and in 1889 this function was transferred to the newly-formed Board
of Agriculture. Slaughter of infected
and contact animals, with compensation, remains the method of choice today for
dealing with persistent animal diseases, such as foot and mouth.
William McCombie (1805) embarrasses Lord
Fife
In May 1866, when
the emergency was over for Aberdeenshire, William McCombie (1805), in his usual
blunt manner, criticised Lord Fife for failing to pay his assessment to the
Aberdeenshire Rinderpest Committee. The
dressing down was not gentle, or oblique, or made in private and did not seek
to avoid discomfort for the noble Lord.
It was made at a public meeting in Alford in the following terms. “They (the
farmers) may not have any very decided opinions about Whig and Tory but let
praise be conceded where it is due; and they were much indebted to Mr Fordyce
for his able assistance in keeping the County clear of the cattle plague. Where would they have been but for the
Central Committee and the landed proprietors?
Mr Fordyce came forward on Liberal principles and supported by Liberal
parties, but he would ask who was the great defaulter in the matter he had just
alluded to? Not the Conservative Duke of
Richmond – neither he nor other noblemen and gentlemen of the same party, like
his respected friend Mr Farquharson of Haughton – not the great Conservative
landlords but the Liberal nobleman, Lord Fife who has had so many honours
heaped upon him. He stands out as the
one great landed proprietor who has not paid a penny to save this county.” Lord Fife must have been affronted and deeply
embarrassed in equal measure. From his
lofty position he did not deign to reply directly to this jumped-up tenant
farmer but got one of his lackeys to reply on his behalf, contradicting
McCombie’s statement. William McCombie
(1805) was not to be fobbed off. He
wrote to the Aberdeen Journal repeating the charge against Lord Fife and
backing it up with a note from James Barclay confirming that Lord Fife had made
no such financial contribution to the Central Committee. James L Douglas, Fife’s mouthpiece, then
wrote to the Aberdeen Journal on behalf of the noble Lord to say that he had
made a monetary contribution – to the Upper Donside Rinderpest Association,
little more than a fig leaf to cover his embarrassing parsimony.
William McCombie (1805) and principled
politics
In 1865, before
the outbreak of the rinderpest, the issue which most exercised the tenant
farmers of Aberdeenshire was the operation of the Game Laws, which protected
game, particularly deer, pheasants and partridge, but also rabbits and hares,
from being killed, other than under the authority of the landowner. Tenant farmers were unable effectively to
protect their crops from the predations of game on their rented
properties. If the landlord chose to
stock such rented land with much game, the farmer’s livelihood could be
threatened. Deer, rabbits and hares
eating the turnip crop, so vital in fattening cattle over the winter, was a
particular bone of contention. A
discussion on “The Game Laws” took place at the Chamber of Agriculture and
Scottish Farmers’ Club in Edinburgh in May 1865. Mr Shepherd spoke first and proposed a
resolution dealing with the reform of the Game Laws and William McCombie (1805)
seconded that resolution. Though he had
not himself suffered from excessive game-preserving under the four landlords
from whom he then currently rented land, he knew of examples in Aberdeenshire
where there had been severe consequences for tenant farmers. He then urged members of the Chamber to
question candidates at the pending general election to state distinctly if they
would support the plan which had been proposed by Mr Shepherd and, by
implication, to vote accordingly. “Mr
McCombie’s remarks had been frequently cheered, and he sat down amid loud
applause.” This was probably the issue
and the time when William McCombie began to think of standing for Parliament as
a means of achieving reform of the hated Game Laws. He must at some stage have realised that
there was a constituency of voters, the tenant farmers, whose interests in
parliament were largely represented by people who were themselves
landowners. The farmers potentially had
the power to break the mould and return one of their own. William McCombie (1805)’s experiences during
the rinderpest outbreak of 1865 – 1866 was probably also important in expanding
his understanding of the power structures of the country.
The Great Reform
Act of 1832 had extended voting rights to propertied adult males, but many MPs,
especially in the countryside, were still drawn from the class of
property-owning gentlemen and the lower ranks of the aristocracy. At that time, Aberdeenshire returned one MP
and at the General Election in 1865 the Liberals (having just changed the name
of the party from Whig) were returned with an increased majority, Lord
Palmerston remaining prime minister. In
Aberdeenshire Mr William Leslie, the Conservative candidate defeated Arthur
Gordon, Liberal, with 851 votes to 667.
William Leslie resigned in 1866.
William McCombie
(1805) seconded the nomination of William Leslie in 1865. McCombie spoke from a substantial written
text and the following quotation gives the opening of that speech. “I have great pleasure in seconding the
nomination of Mr Leslie of Warthill. I
express I believe the sentiments of the farmers of Aberdeenshire when I say
that we highly esteem those landlords who treat their tenants with justice and
kindness. Mr Leslie is a good landlord
he resides on his estate, he lets his farms to his old tenants at perfectly
fair rents. He avails himself of the
opportunities afforded by his position of performing acts of kindness towards
them. I think the farmers of
Aberdeenshire are called upon to mark the sense they entertain of the value of
their good landlords by re-electing one of their number, Mr Leslie of Warthill
as their representative to the Commons House of Parliament.” It is important to note that William McCombie
(1805) identified closely with the tenant farmers, their interests and
concerns. For most of his adult life he
was one himself. William McCombie (1805)
supported William Leslie, not because McCombie himself was a visceral
Conservative, but because he saw Leslie as best representing the interests of
the tenant farmers, including reform of the Game Laws. The last part of McCombie’s address made
clear that Mr Leslie had been closely questioned on this point. “The letter which Mr Leslie addressed to me
as chairman and to Mr Barclay as secretary of the committee appointed by the
public meeting on the Game Laws held at the Corn Exchange on 23d June and the
frank exposition of his views upon the general question before the committee
have been made public and I hesitate not to say have given general
satisfaction, general satisfaction to everybody. It is, gentlemen, on the grounds I have
specified, it is on the ground that Mr Leslie is one of our good
landlords, it is on the ground that
while he is anxious to maintain those great principles which are embodied in
our constitution he is quite prepared to support those modifications of our
political institutions which have been rendered necessary by the lapse of time
and the progress of society, it is on the ground that Mr Leslie if we send him
a second time to Parliament will watch earnestly over the interests not of one
class but of all classes in this great country, it is on the ground that again
returned as our member he will use his best exertions to give effect to the
wishes of the farmers of Aberdeenshire respecting all questions affecting their
interest, it is on these grounds that I second the motion made by Colonel
Farquharson.” Note the use of a common
style of rhetoric employed by politicians, with the phrase “on the ground that”
being deployed sequentially five times.
In true McCombie
fashion, this principled approach to politics – looking after the interests of
his constituents, whatever political badge was applied to him - remained constant during his own subsequent
Parliamentary career, when he was then associated not with the Conservatives
but with the Liberals.
Aberdeenshire gains an additional Parliamentary
constituency
Following the
resignation of William Leslie as MP for Aberdeenshire in 1866, there was a
by-election, the candidates being William Dingwall Forsyth, Liberal and Sir
James Elphinstone, Conservative. At an
election meeting held at Alford in May, Mr William Dingwall Fordyce was
proposed by Mr Anderson, Wellhouse and seconded by William McCombie (1809) of
Cairnballoch (and of the Aberdeen Free Press).
Sir James Elphinstone was proposed by William McCombie (1805) of
Tillyfour and seconded by Mr Grant of Druminnor. So, at this stage William McCombie (1805) was
still clearly aligned with the Conservatives.
William Dingwall Forsyth won the subsequent by-election.
The Parliament of
1865 – 1868 was a turbulent affair, characterised by having four different
prime ministers from two different political parties. But one bill which was passed into law, the
Representation of the People Act of 1867 (commonly known as the Second Reform
Act), was of great significance for the country’s system of Parliamentary
democracy. It was introduced by Lord
Russell the second Liberal prime minister, but then rescued by Benjamin
Disraeli, the second Conservative prime minister of the Parliament and was
intended to help the prospects of the Conservative party by widening the
franchise to an additional one million male heads of urban households. It was a miscalculation as the Conservatives
lost the subsequent general election in 1868 and William Gladstone became the
new, Liberal Prime Minister. One of the
minor changes in the Reform Act 1867 was the creation of an additional
constituency in Aberdeenshire. The
county would in future return MPs for Aberdeenshire East and Aberdeenshire
West.
William McCombie’s strategy for entering
Parliament
When the
Representation of the People Bill was introduced to Parliament in 1866, William
McCombie saw his chance with the prospect of a second constituency for
Aberdeenshire. Rather than wait for the
Bill to be approved and pass into law he decided on a strategy of pre-emption. He did not try to use the apparatus of either
of the two main political parties but worked independently. He canvassed the constituency he knew and was
known by, the tenant farmers of Aberdeenshire, on a personal basis during his
attendance at cattle markets throughout the county. When he secured a promise of support from a
farmer, he wrote his name down in a little brown book that he carried for the
purpose. He later told Charles Gordon,
the 11th Marquis of Huntly that he had 1500 names in his “bookie” (Aberdonians add "ie" to any noun with great facility).
In June 1866, the
Banffshire Journal speculated on a possible campaign by William McCombie
(1805). They noted that the prospects
for the Conservatives in the new constituency of West Aberdeenshire did not
look bright, due to the voting power of the tenant farmers and the antagonism
caused by issues such as the Game Laws.
“But what the lairds of Aberdeenshire have no hope of doing a
tenant-farmer proposes to do. The
gentleman who comes to the rescue is one of the “pushing prosperous and
powerful race” of the McCombies. He is
the best known of the McCombie clan, the tenant of Tillyfour.” The newspaper then went on to summarise
McCombie’s pitch to the electorate as follows.
“You have thrown off the leadership of the lairds. I am one of yourselves; and I offer myself as
your leader. On those questions closely
affecting your interests I am with you wholly.
On general politics which concern you and me very little I personally
hold no very decided opinions though I have hitherto voted with and support the
Conservatives. Will you have me?” It then asked a pertinent question. Which political flag would William McCombie
(1805) sail under?
The Banffshire
Journal reported further on William McCombie’s campaign in April 1867, noting
that he had been present at Inverurie and Turriff markets soliciting signatures
on a document pledging support to him, should the Reform Bill pass into law
thus creating a second Aberdeenshire constituency. McCombie’s campaign was assuming an
unstoppable momentum even before the seat, for which he proposed to stand, had
been realised. This powerful position
had been attained without McCombie pledging his support to any party, without
holding any public meetings and without the direct support of the party
apparatus of either Liberals or Conservatives.
The Reform Bill
passed a crucial vote in the House of Commons on 31 May 1867 and was published
three days later. William McCombie had
already prepared his manifesto, which was dated 30 May, and which was published
in the Banffshire Journal on 4 June 1867.
It is quoted here in full.
“To the
Parliamentary Electors of Aberdeen.
Gentlemen, - The Scottish Reform Bill, introduced into Parliament,
having justified my anticipations that a second seat would be assigned to
Aberdeenshire, I think it is proper now to respond publicly to the widely
expressed desire that I should become a Candidate for that Seat and at the same
time express my views on the questions of chief public interest likely to come
before a new House of Commons. Until of
late years the exigencies of my business prevented me from taking much part in
public questions but recently I have had occasion to devote considerable
attention to those more particularly affecting the interests of Agriculture;
and you are aware that I have not been backward in expressing the conclusions
at which, after due consideration, I have arrived. On the subjects which I consider of most
vital importance to the great body of the Electors of Aberdeenshire, viz, Game,
Hypothec and Entail, my views are well known.
As regards Game, I stand by the resolutions arrived at after discussions
at the two public meetings in Aberdeen at which I presided. The abolition of the right of Hypothec will,
I believe, by giving free scope for a much larger investment of capital in the
cultivation of the soil, prove highly beneficial, not only to merchants and all
classes of tenants and labourers but in the end also to landowners. Judging from what has fallen under my own
observation, I am of opinion that the Law of Entail, by forming an impediment
to proprietors in the improvement of their estates and inducing them to
transfer the burden of permanent improvements to the shoulders of their
tenants, exercises a pernicious influence on the development of agricultural and
other interests and ought therefore to be entirely abrogated. Referring to questions of more general
interest, I am of opinion that the state should see to it that all children be
provided with at least the elements of education; and any measures to accomplish
this object, without interfering unnecessarily with the liberty of the subject,
will have my cordial support. I agree
generally with the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Education just
issued but it appears to me only fair and proper that in the election of
Schoolmasters, tenant farmers and other ratepayers should have a voice along
with the heritors. The condition of
Ireland cannot fail to engage the early attention of Parliament; and I believe
that amendments of the laws affecting the tenure of land with the view to
providing, on reasonable conditions, security of possession by the tenant
direct from the landlord would contribute much to the tranquillity of that
country. With respect to the Church Establishment
in Ireland, though as a member of the Established Church myself a supporter of
endowments I am yet deeply sensible of the anomaly of the maintenance by the
State of the Church of so small a fraction of the nation, forming as it does a
constant source of bitterness and irritation: and I think the time is
approaching when its endowment, as well as the grant to Maynooth should
cease. I am opposed to all invidious
distinctions on religious grounds and shall be prepared to vote for the
abolition of tests in the English Universities.
The intimate relations which, as a large employer of labour, I have long
sustained to the labouring class make me feel a special interest in their
comfort and well-being and I shall be ready to support any legislative measure
adapted to promote their interests. A
transference of the duty from malt to beer brewed for sale would form a great
boon to the labourer and I am glad to observe that a Royal Commission is about
to enquire into the incidence of the Malt Tax.
The views thus expressed on the leading public questions of the day
indicate that I come forward on independent principles as the exponent of the
wishes and feelings of the tenant farmer at present scarcely represented in the
House of Commons. While convinced that
the interests of landlord and tenant are in the long run in all things
identical I am also of opinion that as their interests in several questions
presently under discussion come apparently in conflict a fair adjustment of
these differences is most likely to be obtained by having along with the views
of the landlords the opinion also of the farmers represented by one possessing
a farmer’s knowledge and experience.
Further I have been assured by many friends in both this and other
counties of Scotland that my coming forward as a candidate to represent you in
Parliament would be of advantage not only politically but also in its social
aspects to the class to which I belong.
I beg to return my warmest thanks for the kind and favourable reception
I have met with and for the very numerous assurances of support I have received
in all quarters; and I now beg to announce myself a candidate to represent this
County in the second seat in the House of Commons or if the country is divided
as proposed to represent West Aberdeenshire.
I have the honour to be, Gentlemen, Your most obedient servant. William McCombie, Tillyfour, 30th
May 1867.
Several items are
important to note in William McCombie (1805)’s manifesto. He indicated that he had been urged to stand
by others, so his candidature was not simply explained by personal
ambition. Four items were mentioned
which played directly to tenant farmer concerns, modification or abolition of
the Game Laws, the Law on Hypothec and the Law on Entail. William also favoured security of tenure for
farmers. Interestingly, he additionally
expressed his support for the working classes by favouring basic state
education for all children and a role for all rate payers in the appointment of
schoolmasters. Another item playing to
the working-class interest was the proposal to move the tax on brewing from
malt to beer produced for sale. In the
mid-19th century weak beer was consumed by the farmers and labourers
in large quantities and much of this beverage was produced at home. Moving the taxation base would free home-brewed
beer from the predations of the Treasury.
Finally, he was prepared to stand as the candidate for a single
Aberdeenshire seat, should the provision to create a second seat not survived
the adoption of the legislation. Had
that happened he would have been in direct competition with the Liberal,
William Dingwall Forsyth.
The independent William McCombie (1805) is
claimed by the Liberals
William McCombie
(1805) had in effect staged a coup against the Liberals and the Conservatives,
catching them flat-footed. The
Conservatives never managed to field a candidate to represent the party in West
Aberdeenshire. The Liberals struggled to
field a credible candidate. At one stage
Mr James Clark of Louisville, a bookseller in Aberdeen, threw his hat in the
ring as a Liberal, but then withdrew his candidature before polling day. But then there was some smart footwork by a
few leading Liberals. Probably realising
that no Liberal candidate had a hope of prevailing over William McCombie, a
mysterious body, the “Liberal Association of Tenant Farmers”, whose leading
lights included William McCombie (1809) and James Barclay, met and proclaimed
that William McCombie (1805) was actually an Independent Liberal, his views
were described as “enlightened” and he was a tenant farmer. On that basis he should be supported. The Aberdeen Journal tried to present this
association with the Liberals as a pragmatic but unprincipled conversion to the
Liberal cause by McCombie to ensure his election. But he had not converted and despite what the
Conservative-supporting newspapers wrote, William McCombie (1805) stood as an
independent at the 1868 General Election.
The 1868 General Election in West
Aberdeenshire
William McCombie
(1868) recounted an interesting incident which took place in the Douglas Hotel,
Aberdeen in the summer of 1868 on the night before the Highland and
Agricultural show in Aberdeen. At the
time he was in the middle of his campaign to become MP for West Aberdeenshire. The hotel was crowded with farmers enjoying a
meal and a drink, when one of them, his tongue possibly loosened by alcohol
offered to bet £1,000 that McCombie would not win at the forthcoming
election. One of McCombie’s supporters,
Mr Martin took £500 in notes out of his pocket and put it on the table,
challenging the opinionated one to cover it and saying he believed McCombie
would prevail. No action followed, so
Martin returned the money to his pocket and ordered “a dozen of champagne”!
With William
McCombie (1805) being the only candidate, the election of an MP for West
Aberdeenshire took place at Aberdeen on 19 November 1868. William was accompanied at the hustings by a
very large band of his supporters, dominated by tenant farmers, including Mr
James Barclay, Mr James Boyn McCombie, Mr Lessel Stephen, Mr McCombie,
Tillychetly, Mr William McCombie, Free Press, Mr McCombie, Netherton and Mr P
McCombie, Upper Farmton. As the
appointed hour of 12 noon approached the crowd fell silent, though the occasion
was not without an hilarious demonstration of biblical knowledge which, 100
years later, would have graced a Monty Python sketch. Two opponents of the farmers’ hero (perhaps sent by the Aberdeen Journal? See below) walked around the fringes of
the crowd with a placard on which was written some verses from Ecclesiasticus –
“How can he get wisdom that holdeth the
plough: and that glorieth in the goad: that draweth oxen, and is occupied in
their labours, and whose talk is of bullocks.
He giveth his mind to make furrows, and is diligent to give the kine
fodder. He shall not be sought for in
public council, nor set high in the congregation.”
McCombie’s
supporters were quick to find biblical authority to counter this amusing
denigration of the Laird of Tillyfour.
They put up two quotations of their own, firstly from Proverbs xxii 29 –
“Seest thou a man diligent in his
business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.”
And from
Deuteronomy xxviii 7 –
“Blessed shall be the fruit of the
cattle. The Lord shall cause thine
enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face; they shall
come out against thee one way and shall flee before thee seven ways.”
James Barclay, a
Liberal, made the nomination speech for William McCombie (1805). He gave a précis of McCombie’s standing in
the agricultural world, including road reform, Game Law agitation, the
abolition of Hypothec, the defeat of rinderpest and the presidency of the
Scottish Chamber of Agriculture. Barclay
closed his speech with the following, “I think it will be fitter for me on the
present occasion, with your kind indulgence, to state to you briefly my views of the present political
position, and of the objects that now lie before us, and it will be for you to judge whether Mr McCombie is qualified to represent
that position, and whether his return is likely to promote these objects.”
(author’s emphasis). This was clever stuff, because it did not say
that McCombie was a Liberal or the Liberal candidate, only that that was how
the Liberals saw the then current position and it was for the electors to judge
if McCombie was likely to follow the Liberal line. William McCombie (1805) replied, quickly
fishing a prepared text out of his pocket.
His speech was a reiteration of his election address. And that was it. He mentioned no party affiliation, he had
attended no public meetings, yet he was returned unopposed “despite the sneers
of witlings and the smiles of the incredulous”.
It was a brilliantly researched, conceived and executed plan, which had
cost him £170 (about £18,000 in 2018 money).
He was only the second tenant-farmer to be elected to Parliament and the
first in that social category to represent a Scottish constituency.
It is nowadays
often stated that West Aberdeenshire has always been in the hands of the
Liberals (or the Liberal Democrats), right to the present time. But that claim glosses over the clear fact
that William McCombie (1805), the first MP for West Aberdeenshire, whose views
on many issues merely happened to coincide with those of the Liberal party, stood
as an Independent in 1868.
The Aberdeen Journal’s campaign against
William McCombie (1805)
The main regional
newspaper in the north-east of Scotland at this time was the Aberdeen Journal,
which was then published on a weekly basis.
(It became the Aberdeen Press and Journal in 1922 on its merger with the
Aberdeen Free Press.) It supported the
Conservative party and its editor was William Forsyth, who had been in post
since 1849 and would remain there until he died in 1878. As well as editing the Aberdeen Journal,
Forsyth was also a writer and produced a variety of works including songs,
poetry, satirical work and writings on social conditions. He suffered from mouth cancer for the last
ten years of his life, which almost exactly matched the period during which
William McCombie (1805) was MP for West Aberdeenshire (1868 – 1876).
The Aberdeen
Journal, being a supporter of the Conservatives, did its bit to belittle the
candidature of William McCombie (1805), particularly after the Liberals claimed
him as their own. The newspaper doubted
that McCombie had the culture or the intellect to undertake the demands of
Parliamentary life and this stance was maintained, even after McCombie was
elected and indeed throughout the eight years which he served at
Westminster. Although political
journalism can be bruising, this campaign by the Aberdeen Journal (and it must
be concluded by its editor) had an unpleasant air of superiority and it assumed
a consistently sneering tone in its content.
There seemed to be a personal element in what was being written, as the
same treatment was not meted out to William Dingwall Fordyce, Liberal MP for
East Aberdeenshire. The campaign against
William McCombie (1805) employed letters from correspondents, many purporting
to be tenant farmers and written under pseudonyms, throughout its course. Indeed, this tactic was employed so
extensively that it is to be wondered if William Forsyth solicited
contributions from his pseudonymous correspondents, or if the letters were
sometimes composed in the editor’s office.
The following extract illustrates the point. On 9 September 1868, “Live and Let Live”
wrote, “In a letter which appeared in last week’s Journal purporting to be
written by, or for, that ambitious grazier, William McCombie, Tillyfour, occurs
the following sentence, of which the meaning is, to say the least, not very
clear. He says:- “I do not think many of
the landlords (i.e. of Aberdeenshire) will be inclined to act against the
express wish of their tenants.” If
William McCombie’s well-known vanity lead him to believe that his return to
Parliament is the “express wish” of the majority of the Aberdeenshire tenants,
or that they expect to benefit by it in any way, he is much mistaken. Many of them distrust him, but more ridicule
his fitness and capacity.”
Another letter in
1871, written in the Doric and purporting to come from “Jno Muck” a
tenant-farmer, reporting a conversation with “the laird twa days syne”, tried
to ridicule William McCombie’s claim that it was possible to obtain a crop of
turnips in Aberdeenshire yielding above 30 tons per acre, as well as his use of
the native form of English. “Well”, says
he, “I suppose you had about 30 ton the acre on your neep break?” “God preserve me, Laird”, says I, “I never
heard of sic a thing till M’Combie pat it in the papers.” Unfortunately for the writer of this sneering
missive, this was not a fantasy figure, as William McCombie (1805) and others
several times won turnip competitions with yields above 30 tons per acre.
By 1877, William
McCombie (1805) had endured enough of the Aberdeen Journal’s behaviour and the
claims of its correspondents. The
specific issue which had irritated William was the suggestion that he operated
double standards in relation to his stance on game. He wrote to the editor and an extract from
his rather long letter follows. “…. “Another Conservative” accuses me of
purchasing the game on an adjoining property at a reduced price and letting it
along with my own at a very high price; for it is said I make £100 by the
transaction and if I “gain a penny off hares and rabbits it would be as welcome
to me as a penny off a bullock.” “West
Aberdeenshire, No 2” accuses me of being a game dealer and a game
preserver. And “Radical” accuses me of
being a trafficker in game. I have
simply to say that these assertions are false and I think it would have been
well for the Aberdeen Journal to have ascertained the facts before it allowed
them a place in its columns. I am most
reluctant to have to bring my private affairs before the public; but as silence
might be viewed as consent I have come to the conclusion that I have no other
alternative. Your anonymous
correspondents have written such a tissue of unscrupulous falsehoods that I
think it is a duty I owe to myself to bring the truth before the public.”
The Aberdeen Free
Press, under the leadership of his relative, William McCombie (1809), supported
the Laird of Tillyfour and it pointed out in 1869 that it was only in his home
town that William McCombie (1805) was being subjected to a consistent process
of denigration. “We can understand this
ill-natured spurt of the (Aberdeen)
Journal. Mr McCombie has been gaining a
position of respect and influence for himself in the House of Commons. “Envy will merit as its shade pursue”; and
the Tory organ must move itself accordingly.
Mr McCombie has, almost alone amongst Scottish members exerted any
influence in moulding the Cattle Diseases Bill and for his services in this
matter all important to Aberdeenshire the landlords’ organ rewards him by this
splenetic ebullition.”
While other
newspapers, from time to time, made sport of William McCombie’s dress, manners
or use of the Doric, it was only the Aberdeen Journal that was consistently
sneering in tone. An example of amusing,
but balanced, journalism concerning William McCombie (1805) is taken from the
Illustrated London News of 1872.
“Everyone knows that this
worthy gentleman (William McCombie MP)
is in a manner a creator of a peculiarly excellent sort of bullocks and there
is no question but that he looks and dresses the part of the breeder and
grazier to perfection. He seems redolent
of the fields; and he speaks in a manner which suggests that he has invented a
kind of language intelligible to oxen.
But though most people find it not easy to comprehend his ideas owing to
the mode in which he endeavours orally to communicate them, yet it is well
known that he has plenty of ideas founded on considerable common sense and no
little shrewdness and he has a way of liberating his mind freely.”
William
McCombie’s Parliamentary peccadillos
Many stories appeared in the newspapers concerning William McCombie’s peculiarities of dress and speech and his insensitivity to Parliamentary custom. The 11th Marquis of Huntly, in one volume of his autobiography, recounted hearing a McCombie speech from the Peer’s gallery in the House of Commons. McCombie’s closely written speech was on a piece of paper from which he was reading. One member called the Speaker’s attention to the fact that the McCombie was reading his contribution, which was against the conventions of the House. McCombie’s instant reply, in the Doric, was “I’ve seen a hantle (number) o’ ye deeing it”.
Many stories appeared in the newspapers concerning William McCombie’s peculiarities of dress and speech and his insensitivity to Parliamentary custom. The 11th Marquis of Huntly, in one volume of his autobiography, recounted hearing a McCombie speech from the Peer’s gallery in the House of Commons. McCombie’s closely written speech was on a piece of paper from which he was reading. One member called the Speaker’s attention to the fact that the McCombie was reading his contribution, which was against the conventions of the House. McCombie’s instant reply, in the Doric, was “I’ve seen a hantle (number) o’ ye deeing it”.
Another “McCombie
in Parliament” story appeared in the Daily Review in 1870. “Mr McCombie the grizzled and weather-beaten
farmer from Aberdeenshire can contrive to make himself conspicuous on
occasions. On Thursday afternoon he got
up into the gallery over the heads of the Opposition and there reclined in the
interesting and elegant fashion which travellers in America have described to
us, he put his feet on the front rail of the gallery while the soles of his
boots projected high in the air and were pointed full at the Ministerial
benches opposite. Had the Speaker been
in the chair and got his eye upon this novel spectacle he would probably have
called the Hon. Member to order or at least sent the deputy-sergeant – who has
a natural facility for saying unpleasant things - to remonstrate with him. It was fortunate for Mr McCombie that before
he had been long in the attitude something occurred in the House that led him
to project his head over instead of his heels and he did not again resume his
free and easy position.”
Interestingly,
most newspaper stories about William McCombie (1805), which did not originate
with the Aberdeen Journal, commented both on his quirky dress and speech but
also on his presence and insight on agricultural matters. In 1872, the Leeds Mercury had the following
item. “Mr McCombie is one of the most
original and characteristic members of the House of Commons. Plain, bluff unadorned, there is nevertheless
a certain rugged massiveness about him and sturdy independence that attract attention.” It went on to give a brief lexicon of Doric
words used by McCombie, “paitricks” (partridges),
“doos” (pigeons) and “bits o’
beasties” (rabbits).
The 1874 General Election in West
Aberdeenshire
By the time of
the next general election in 1874, William McCombie (1805) had formally become
the Liberal party candidate for West Aberdeenshire. The Conservatives, too, had got their act
together and William was opposed by Mr Edward Ross, a barrister with little
experience of public life. The two
candidates met by chance one day in the Douglas Hotel, Aberdeen and the outcome
of the meeting was that they laid a bet with each other about the result of the
coming competition, the prize being a hat!
McCombie suffered some illness during the campaign and did not address
any public meetings, in contrast to Mr Ross who spoke widely across the
constituency. The outcome was emphatic:
votes for McCombie – 2401, votes for Ross – 326, though the Conservatives were
returned to Government under Benjamin Disraeli.
William McCombie (1805)’s performance during the past Parliament had
been well received by the electors of West Aberdeenshire and there was no
chance that the tenant farmers of that constituency were going to change their
allegiance.
The end of William McCombie (1805)’s
Parliamentary career
Sadly, for
William McCombie (1805) his health began to fail and in 1878 he resigned his
seat, causing a by-election. Instead of
picking another tenant-farmer, the Liberals plumped for Lord Douglas Gordon,
the younger brother of the 11th Marquis of Huntly and an army
officer, who could hardly claim to be au
fait with the agricultural issues of moment in West Aberdeenshire. William McCombie (1805) must have had
misgivings about Lord Douglas, having said in public that the House of Commons
contained too many “noblemen’s boys”.
However, probably out of a sense of courtesy and duty, William was very
helpful to Lord Douglas and travelled all over the county with him, attending
all his meetings, introducing him to the electorate and coaching him between
meetings. The Aberdeen Journal continued
its denigration of the Liberals and said ironically, “According to Mr Messlis
of Huntly “Mr McCombie gained great respect in Parliament for never speaking on
any subject but cattle and corn.” If so
how much greater respect must be due to a member who has never spoken at
all?” But the smart rhetoric was to no
avail, Lord Douglas Gordon gained 2343 votes.
Col Innes, his Conservative opponent, was rewarded with 813. This 1878 result had been emphatic but not so
impressive as that obtained by William McCombie (1805) two years previously. By
1880 and the next general election, Lord Douglas Gordon declined to stand again,
moving on to become the member for Huntingdonshire.
William McCombie
(1805) entered Parliament in 1868 as an Independent, but he sat on the Liberal
benches. At the next general election,
he was the official Liberal candidate and was again elected. However, throughout his Parliamentary career,
he was no Liberal stooge, who voted slavishly in support of the party
leadership. Rather he always tried to
reflect the views and interests of his constituency of tenant-farmers,
frequently criticised his adoptive party and, when it was in Government, its
ministers. He was not averse to voting
with the Conservatives if his principles so dictated. A typical example of William McCombie (1805)
publicly taking umbrage at Liberal policies occurred at the celebratory dinner
held following the Craigievar Games in 1870, when he gave a speech. “You are aware gentlemen that I am a
supporter of and wish to support the Government, but Scotland has just cause of
complaint against the Government for the treatment it has received during the
last two sessions of Parliament. Instead
of relieving us of one single grievance they have added to our burdens. They have put a duty on agricultural horses
when let out for hire. This is a very
grievious tax to many a farmer and many a poor man who is obliged to keep a
horse or two horses for working his land and depends for his living on hiring
them out at certain seasons of the year.”
The following year he made a full-frontal assault on his party, not in
some remote corner of Aberdeenshire but in the House of Commons. The Buchan Observer, in its Parliamentary
Report described a “furious assault” made by William McCombie (1805) on the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. McCombie
said he was “the most unpopular man in England” and that he had done three or
four things - including the House Tax,
the Shepherds’ Dog Tax and the Gun Tax - for which the farmers of Scotland
would never forgive him. Even the
Aberdeen Journal, certainly not McCombie’s friend, admitted that “He is the
most impartial of politicians and denounces both sides with almost equal
fervour.”
Game, Hypothec and Entail
There were many
times during his Parliamentary career where William McCombie (1805) sided with
the interests of the Aberdeenshire tenant farmers, as he saw them but there
were three issues where he sought major changes in the law as being essential
to the promotion of the rural economy in Scotland. These were the laws relating to Game, to
Hypothec and to Entail. Each will be
dealt with in turn.
The Game Laws
The term “Game
Laws” refers to all legislation covering the killing of wild animals classified
as “game”, essentially pheasants, partridge and grouse. Most of this legislation was enacted in the
early 19th century at a time when the legislature was dominated by
major landowners who promoted such legislation to protect their own
interests. They were also highly
resistant to change to the then current regime.
Wild animals do not belong to anyone, but a landowner has the exclusive
right to control use of his/her land.
Killing wild animals on someone else’s land without permission is the
offence of poaching and this does not just cover animals otherwise classified
as game, but also encompasses hares, rabbits and deer.
Landowners often
leased their land for agriculture separately from the lease of rights to kill
wild animals on the same land. This is
where a conflict then arose. Farmers
leasing the land for growing crops found that the protected wildlife was
predating their planted fields, but they were unable legally to do anything
about it, except wave their arms and shout “shoo”! Some landowners, as William McCombie,
frequently related, were enlightened and did not seek to preserve game
excessively on their agricultural land, so that loss of crops to pests was
minimised. However, other landowners
sought to maximise the populations of game species and they could cause havoc
with crops. In Aberdeenshire, once
turnip-growing became an essential part of the winter-feeding regime of cattle,
predation of the turnip crop by deer, rabbits and hares became a flash-point
for conflict between tenant-farmer and landlord.
William McCombie
(1805) took a balanced view on the issue of game and the rights of the landlord
and tenant. In 1865 there was a
discussion held at the Chamber of Agriculture and Scottish Farmers’ Club (he
was Vice-President at the time) on the Game Laws and William played an active
role in the proceedings. He thought that
a landlord was entitled to have a fair amount of game on his property to be
killed by himself and his friends.
However, he objected to a landlord having too much game on the property
to the detriment of the tenants’ crops.
Letting of agricultural land to sporting tenants generated conflict
between the agricultural tenant and the sporting tenant. Many gamekeepers were then employed, the
landlord and his family were watched night and day and his dogs and cats could
be poisoned. The farmer employed
watchers in the fields during the night, especially as harvest approached, to
scare away game and the landlord sent his gamekeepers to watch the watchers.
This was such a
burning issue that meetings on, and discussions of, the topic of Game Law
reform re-occurred regularly. A meeting
held in Aberdeen in June 1865 attracted over 400 farmers. Several sensible suggestions were made for
reform, such as giving farmers the right to kill hares and rabbits, but the
problem of reform of the law lay in the composition of the Houses of
Parliament. Rarely, a farmer, in
desperation, sought the help of the courts.
In one case in at Meldrum, William McCombie appeared as a witness for
the plaintiff and, in his evidence, he revealed that he had an informal
agreement with the owners of land that he leased to keep rabbits down. As a result, he killed 200 to 300 rabbits
over an 18-month period in one 12-acre field and he estimated his annual loss
from growing 200 acres of turnips as about £15.
Rabbits posed a serious economic problem for Aberdeenshire
tenant-farmers. William Leslie, then MP
for Aberdeenshire, warned in 1865 of asking for too much from the legislature
and getting nothing. A Bill, the Game
Laws (Scotland) Bill was promoted in 1867 but after much Parliamentary
procedure, it failed to reach the state book.
The frustration of farmers was summarised by Mr Campbell, Blairton,
tenant farmer himself, at yet another meeting on the Game Laws in 1867. “…the tenant farmers are not represented
there (House of Commons). I am afraid gentlemen that before agriculture
gets that attention from Parliament which its importance demands, and our
statute books be cleared of these old feudal class laws, Entail, Hypothec, and
Game, etc we will require to send our Hopes (first president of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture) and
McCombies and other tenant-farmers to the House of Commons.”
Unfortunately,
the aspiration that the return of William McCombie (1805) in 1868 and a few
other like-minded MPs after him, would lead to major a major reform of the Game
Laws was to be frustrated. William
McCombie (1805) tried hard, both inside the House of Commons and locally in
Aberdeenshire, to make progress on reform of the laws concerning game. In 1870 a bill was introduced in the House,
the Game Laws (Scotland) Bill, by Mr Loch, MP for Wick. William McCombie said of this proposal “It is the duty of the House of Commons to
inform the game-preserving proprietors that this world was not made for them
alone, but for the good of the whole community.” The Bill made no progress. Similarly, a bill promoted by William
McCombie and Mr Taylor, which proposed the total abolition of the Game Laws had
to be withdrawn for lack of support.
In 1871 William
McCombie led an attempt in Aberdeenshire to form a bridge to the landowners, in
the search for a position with which both sides could live. The initiative was under the auspices of the
Aberdeen Game Conference. This led to a
survey being carried out of the interactions of landowners and tenant farmers
and of their experiences with game (including rabbits, hares and deer) and crop
damage. The results from the landlord
side were as follows. On 69 estates the
right to hunt and kill game was reserved by the proprietor. On 12 estates the tenants were obliged to
protect game and to inform on poachers and trespassers. On two estates game was reserved to the
proprietor and tenant equally. On 16
estates there was no covenant or condition concerning game. The data on tenant farmer experiences are
summarised here. On 3816 farms, crops
were damaged by game or other wild animals to some extent. On 762 farms no damage was reported. Most damage was caused by hares and rabbits. The number of tenant farmers who had
complained to the landlord in last five years was 846. The number not complaining was 3239. It is clear from these data that there was a
general problem with damage to crops by game in Aberdeenshire but that a high
proportion of the farmers affected did not complain to the landlord, most
likely out of fear of the consequences of such a complaint. The farmers, led by James Barclay, wanted to
release the data immediately but he was blocked by a motion from the Marquis of
Huntly who asked for clarification on one point. This initiative failed to achieve its
objective of bringing the two sides together in a compromise.
The reform of the
Game Laws was so contentious that the Aberdeen Journal redoubled its efforts to
denigrate William McCombie (1805). The
effort went on for some years during the 1870s and eventually William McCombie
hit back hard. One of the accusations
made against him was that he employed double standards when it came to the
letting of shooting rights over his own land (he had become the owner of
Tillyfour in 1874 on the death of his brother, Charles). The following extract from McCombie’s letter
to the editor of the Aberdeen Journal in 1877 follows and shows the depth to
which that newspaper’s campaign had sunk and the extent of William McCombie
(1805)’s indignation.
“The shootings at
Tillyfour were let by my brother the late Dr MCCombie for almost 20 years
before his death. After his death the
property was handed over to me by his trustees and the rent of the shootings
was included in the calculation of the amount of its value as fixed by
arbitrators. I have let the grouse
shootings which comprehend about three-fourths of the acreage of my property
reserving an unrestricted joint right to my own tenants to kill the ground game
on the farms in their occupation. This
right was not formerly conceded. The
larger shooting attached to the Tillyfour shootings is arranged for in an
agreement in writing between proprietor of that shooting and the tenant of the
Tillyfour shootings and in it I have no interest and have nothing whatsoever to
do. The rent of the other small shooting
attached is fixed by myself and was taken by me for the benefit of the tenant
of the Tillyfour shootings who pays me no more than the rent I agreed to pay
the proprietor. From this transaction it
is then evident I derive no benefit. I
never prosecuted a man for poaching; I never sold a head of game; I never
employed the police to watch game. Is it
honourable, is it even courteous on your part to admit into your columns day
after day week after week such falsehoods and shield the names of the cowardly
writers under your wing? Your conduct
does not show that gentlemanly feeling that a respectable journalist ought,
more especially, to exercise towards one who may have opposed, weakly no doubt,
his political views. If my conduct is
such as your anonymous correspondents have represented why not come forward
openly confront and face me at once? I
hereby challenge your anonymous correspondents or correspondent (for although
under different signatures I should in charity hope they are one and the same
for few would dirty their fingers by writing the letters in question) (McCombie himself seems to suspect that the
letters are the work of one person and he must at the least have considered
that that person was the Aberdeen Journal’s editor) to come forward and
prove their assertions; and I challenge them to contradict one statement I have
written as to the letting of the Tillyfour shootings. If they fail, as they must fail, I will hold
them up and the public will hold them up as dastardly and cowardly detractors.”
The editor of the
Aberdeen Journal replied in an editorial entitled ““Tillyfour and Game
preserving”. He maintained his position
and that there was no fault on the part of the newspaper. The newspaper had a public duty to enquire
into such matters. As far as they could
judge the letters they published were accurate and they maintained that both
the paper and the paper’s correspondents had not misrepresented McCombie in any
way. Despite McCombie’s explanation of
the Tillyfour situation, the editor still asserted that when McCombie became a
proprietor he also became a game preserver.
The correspondents were silent on the challenge to give up the cloak of
anonymity. At this distance, the
Aberdeen Journal’s justifications seem paper-thin.
Ultimately, then,
William McCombie (1805) was unsuccessful in his attempts to reform the game
laws. The power of the big landowners
was too great to be overcome. The Game
Act 1831 is still on the statute book in Scotland to this day.
The Law of Hypothec
The law of
Hypothec secured a right for the landlord to recover unpaid rent by forcing the
sale of a tenant’s goods ahead of all other creditors. This made it impossible for a tenant to
borrow money for improvements to his property from external lenders, who thus
had limited security over loans they might make.
Dissatisfaction
with Hypothec was often the subject of debate in public meetings, along with
reform of the Game Laws. At one such
meeting in 1869, William McCombie (1809), the editor of the Free Press and then
farming at Milltown of Kemnay, described the Law of Hypothec as follows. “The Law of Hypothec was brought into
existence in the interests of a small but privileged class who had for a long
time held almost absolute power in this country and however well these laws
might have answered the purpose for which they were framed in the times when fallow land, mosses and
moorland wastes covered the greater part of the Scottish Lowlands and when the landowner was almost the
tenant’s only creditor, they were wholly inconsistent with the times in which we lived.”
William McCombie
(1805) sought the total abolition of the Law of Hypothec and this aim was included
in his election manifesto in 1868. “The
abolition of the right of Hypothec will, I believe, by giving free scope for a
much larger investment of capital in the cultivation of the soil, prove highly
beneficial, not only to merchants and all classes of tenants and labourers but
in the end also to landowners.” A House
of Lords Select Committee, sitting under the chairmanship of Lord Airlie took
evidence on the working of the Law of Hypothec.
Witnesses included William McCombie (1805) and William McCombie
(1809). Evidence was also sought from
James Barclay, but he was unable to attend.
The outcome was the Hypothec Abolition (Scotland) Bill of July 1869. William McCombie (1805) was not present for
the debate but others referred to the evidence that he had given to the Select
Committee, namely that the Law of Hypothec prevented other creditors (including
himself) from helping struggling farmers because the law reserved all assets
for the benefit of the landlord. Other
members referred to McCombie’s evidence, showing that he was gaining a
reputation as an expert on agricultural matters in the House. There was a majority for a second reading of
the Bill, but no further progress was possible during that session of Parliament.
The law in
Scotland was initially modified by the passage of the Hypothec Amendment
(Scotland) Act of 1867. In this Act
sequestration was limited to farming.
Corn purchased delivered and removed was now excluded from the scope of
the law. Now Hypothec did not apply
longer than three months after the rent was due and the livestock of a third
party on the rented property was only covered to the extent of the
consideration for the grazing.
Furniture, implements and imported manures were excluded from the scope
of the legislation. This was a limited
but welcome restriction of the landlord’s rights which was achieved before the
start of McCombie’s parliamentary career.
However, the Law of Hypothec was not finally abolished until the passage
of the Hypothec Abolition (Scotland) Act of 1880. William McCombie could reasonably claim that
he had had a significant impact on the legislation to abolish Hypothec, but he
did not live to see the extirpation of this archaic law from the statute book.
The Law of Entail
The Law of Entail
limited the succession of an estate to certain persons and thus made alienation
(transfer to another person) impossible.
The result was that it was not generally possible to borrow money for
improvements on the security of an entailed estate. The Law of Entail gave rise to the following
observation by William McCombie (1805) in his election manifesto of 1868. “Judging from what has fallen under my own
observation, I am of opinion that the Law of Entail, by forming an impediment
to proprietors in the improvement of their estates and inducing them to
transfer the burden of permanent improvements to the shoulders of their
tenants, exercises a pernicious influence on the development of agricultural
and other interests and ought therefore to be entirely abrogated.” This law was modified in Scotland in 1848 by
giving the heir to an entailed property the right to apply to the Court of
Session to remove the entailment restriction.
However, there was no abolition of Entail within William McCombie
(1805)’s Parliamentary career or within his lifetime.
Parliamentary impact of William McCombie
(1805)
While it was a
significant achievement for William to secure election to the House of Commons
from his position in society, it is also true to say that he must have found
his experiences in the House extremely frustrating. The passing of new legislation was slow and
the path of progress uncertain, while he was used in his business life to making
things happen that he wanted to achieve on a relatively short timescale. His achievements in the House, in terms of
legislative change, were modest and he is probably more remembered for his
Parliamentary eccentricities. The truth
is that the large landowners still held sway in both Houses of Parliament where
rural affairs were concerned, and William was in general unable to overcome the
political bias that resulted from the power structure of the institutions.
The directorate of the Highland and
Agricultural Society
William McCombie
(1805) had a long association with the Highland and Agricultural Society. He had first exhibited cattle at their annual
show in 1840 and in 1847 he was elected a member of the Society. However, in 1860 he had been in dispute with
the Society concerning the risk of infection of cattle with pleuropneumonia at
the annual show, the Society denying that there was such a risk. In January 1874, with William now an elder
statesman of the agricultural world and possessing immense knowledge and
experience as well as drive and initiative, James Barclay proposed him for
admission to the directorate of the Society.
The existing directors, all big landowners, had a cosy relationship with
each other and could not contemplate removing one of their existing members. James Barclay’s proposal was declined.
A little over a month
later William McCombie (1805) received a remarkable letter from George
Kinnaird, 9th Lord Kinnaird, who was a Liberal by political
persuasion. It opened as follows. “Dear Mr McCombie, I regret very much that
the Directors of the Highland Society did not admit you to a seat at the Board
and I am certain that a very large number of agriculturalists are disappointed
in the exclusion of one of your experience from the Council especially at this
juncture when so much dissatisfaction is all manifested over the country. With the wealth and position attained by the
Society it is sad to find it stuck with paralysis and affected with
decline. It is patent to all that the
sympathies of the Society are not now with enterprise and progress and most
assuredly it must come out of the old ruts before it can meet the exigencies of
the time or cope with the difficulties and problems of the day.” He went on to reveal that he had detected
major problems with the Society’s Chemical Department which carried out
chemical analyses for members. He
described the department as “so long and notoriously useless” and the
directorate as operating a “do-nothing and obstructive policy”. The cost of the chemist and his assistant had
been £450 in a year during which they had carried out only five analyses. The dreary performance of the Society’s
Chemical Department had caused local agricultural associations to set up their
own analytical services, such as the Carse of Gowrie Analytical Association. Lord Kinnaird was appealing to William
McCombie to help put a bomb under the directorate of the Highland and
Agricultural Society. William duly
obliged, copying the letter to the editor of the Aberdeen Journal, who published it.
The following
year, 1875, James Barclay again proposed William McCombie (1805) for the
directorate of the Highland and Agricultural Society, but this time in place of
a named incumbent, the Hon. Greville R Vernon.
Barclay spoke on his amendment to a Board motion, pointing out that
there was no tenant farmer representative and that there was a need for
practical experience. The amendment was
lost but, narrowly. Meanwhile the Vale
of Alford Analytical Association had been established with 121 members. The service analysed 23 samples in its first
year. A further year on, in 1876, it was
expected that William McCombie (1805) would at last be admitted to the
directorate of the Highland and Agricultural Society, but at the half-yearly
meeting held in Edinburgh, his name was not on the list of nominees. William had been offered an alternative
position of Extraordinary Director. He
declined and never did ascend to the directorate of the Highland and
Agricultural Society. Perhaps this was
as well, since his membership would surely only have generated frustration for
William.
The French connection
One of William
McCombie (1853)’s characteristics was his openness to visitors enquiring into
his methods of breeding and feeding cattle.
Over the years he took in many visitors and pupils and was extremely
hospitable to them. “The drawing room is
large and many-windowed. It is empty now
but in summer time curious visitors of all ranks and countries leave it seldom
silent.” These pupils included Mr
Thomson, manager of the Experimental farm near Melbourne, Mr Cunningham son of
the late MP for Brighton, Mr Alex Cowie, Netherbird, and Mr Henry D Adamson,
Balquharn. There was also a stream of
Frenchmen.
In 1853, the French
Government appointed an agricultural commission to investigate systems of
agriculture in Scotland, particularly cattle production. The Commission visited several herds in
Aberdeenshire, including that at Tillyfour.
One commissioner, M. Eugene Tisserand was so impressed that he remained
with McCombie for an extended period.
One unfortunate experience that M. Tisserand suffered was to be robbed
on Aberdeen station on his way to the fat cattle show in Edinburgh. Later M Tisserand wrote, “During a whole year
I was living of the same life as he, every day by him, I never saw a truer and
more patriarchal life as his”. This was
the start of an enduring relationship between William McCombie, Eugene
Tisserand and France. M. Tisserand went
on to become Napoleon III’s estate manager from 1855 to 1870. In this role he cleared 19,000 hectares of
land, built 39 farms, drained 1,000 hectares of marshy ground and planted 100
vineyards. He was appointed Inspector
General for Agriculture in 1871 and in 1876 he became the first Director of the
National Agronomic Institute of Paris.
The pinnacle of his career was to serve as Director of Agriculture at
the Ministry from 1878 to 1896. M Tisserand,
the pupil of William McCombie (1805), was very influential in the development
of French agriculture in the second half of the 19th century.
While M.
Tisserand was living in the Vale of Alford he joined in the whole range of
activities available in this agricultural community. This included the Vale of Alford Agricultural
Association’s 21st annual show held at Bridge of Alford in August,
1853. After the show he attended the
dinner with its speeches and toasts in the Doric. It was a convivial but baffling experience
for him. The Aberdeen Herald reported
his reaction, “Although a stranger to our customs and not proficient in our
language he appeared to be delighted with the company and to take a deep
interest in the proceedings.” The
following year, 1854, another group of visitors from France, the French
Imperial Commission came to Aberdeenshire and called on William McCombie (1802)
at Easter Skene, but did not have time to travel on to Tillyfour.
In 1855 the first
Concours Agricole Universal took place in Paris. There were no Scottish entries, but M.
Dutrone of Trousseauville in the Calvados Region had acquired a black polled
bull, called Monk, which he entered in the competition. The following year, 1856, a further
international cattle show was held in Paris and, on this occasion, there was
extensive Scottish representation. More
than 400 cattle were entered from Britain, plus some sheep. There was a substantial entry of polled
cattle from the north-east of Scotland.
In May the Stonehaven Journal reported – “On Monday morning upwards of
30 cattle and a few sheep left Aberdeen (and Portlethen) for the Paris
exhibition. They were fine cattle from
the herds of Mr McCombie Tillyfour, Mr Stewart flesher Aberdeen, Mr Stronach of
Ardmellie, Mr Geddes Orbliston, Mr Hutchison of Monymusk, Mr Walker Portlethen,
etc.”. The railway companies undertook
to transport these animals free of charge, to and from the port of
Lowestoft.
The Scots swept
the board in the two polled cattle classes - bulls and cows / heifers. William McCombie (1805) reigned supreme in
both categories. The detailed results
for the two divisions were - Bulls.
1. McCombie Tillyfour, with his
bull “Hanton”. 2. Walker Portlethen. 3.
Watson Keillor. 4. Beattie, Galloway. 5.
Earl of Southesk. 6. James Stewart, Aberdeen. William McCombie did not offer Hanton for
sale, but Mr Watson’s bull was sold for £80. The results for cows / heifers
were - 1. McCombie Tillyfour. 2.
Earl of Southesk. 3. Collier Panllathie. 4.
Walker Portlethen. 5. Bowie, Forfarshire. 6.
Lord Talbot de Malahide. 7. Scott, Balwyllo. William McCombie (1805) also gained three
honourable mentions for his other cows / heifers. Two of Mr McCombie’s cows were sold for £165
and £110 respectively. They were bought
by the French Emperor, Napoleon III. In
addition to the 13 individual prizes won by William McCombie, he was also
awarded a gold medal of honour. In a
spirit of égalité et fraternité, the
French also made awards to the servants of prize-winners, who had charge of the
champion animals before the show, ie, recognition for animal preparation. William Innes, who had worked for McCombie
for five years, was awarded 100FF and a silver medal. Collectively, this was a spectacular
success for the Scots but for William McCombie (1805) it brought recognition of
his pre-eminence as a breeder and feeder of polled cattle, not from a national
source but from a distinguished international panel.
No doubt enthused
by his successes in France in 1856, William McCombie (1805) took early action
to prepare for the following year’s fatstock show, which was to be held at
Poissy, a town about 12 miles west of Paris, from 6 to 8 April 1857. At the AGM of the Royal Northern Agricultural
Society held in December 1856, William suggested that farmers proposing to send
cattle to Poissy should engage Mr Harvey to take charge of all contingents and
that his expenses should be paid, on grounds of economy. This was agreed and a committee, including
William, was formed to help those wishing to convey animals to France. Nineteen cattle were dispatched from the
north-east of Scotland, including six from Tillyfour. In the competition for polled animals under
three years, McCombie was placed 1st and 3rd and in the
corresponding category for animals over three years his positions were 1st
and 2nd. He lost out for the
gold medal for the overall winner to the Duke of Beaufort, though William’s
best bullock was described in the press as “by far the finest animal”. John Benzies, William McCombie (1805)’s head
cattleman for many years received an award of 50FF and a silver medal from M.
Dutrone for long and faithful service.
However, the Poissy successes were tinged with sadness as another of
McCombie’s servants suffered a stroke and died during the event. “His body was
taken home to a humble grave in Aberdeenshire.”
Later, in 1862, James Thomson, who had worked for Hugh Watson for 42
years and had looked after the famous cow, “Old Grannie” all her life, was also
presented with a medal and 100FF by the Paris Animal Welfare Society.
In 1858 another
Frenchman, M. L de Fontenay arrived at Tillyfour, unannounced and unable to
speak English! His intention was to learn about cattle-rearing. The hospitable
William McCombie (1805) took him in and made him welcome. Fontenay subsequently published an account of
his experiences with William McCombie.
“After a few days Mr McCombie conducted me to one of his farms about a
mile distant, showed me my room and left me giving me the greatest
liberty. Mr McCombie devotes his whole
attention to the breeding of stock. I
have seen belonging to him at one time 400 head of fat cattle distributed over
three farms. He lives on one of the
farms and manages the others by servants, visiting them every day. He buys his cattle himself, but he finds them
in lots of 10 or 20 together, which simplifies his work a good deal. He disposes of them in London through a
commission agent.”
Some years later,
in 1861, William McCombie (1805) took in another Frenchman, M. Blanchy. As was typical of the man, William involved
M. Blanchy in many local activities. One
was an opening dinner to the new landlord of the Invercauld Arms at Ballater,
Charles Cook. An after-dinner toast was
given in honour of the French guest, but William McCombie had to step in to
reply on behalf of his linguistically-challenged Gallic visitor.
Poissy was the
stage for a further show of fatstock in 1862.
McCombie prepared thoroughly for this event. His chosen ox for the competition was put
under the care of John Benzies. He was
exhibited at Birmingham and Smithfield in 1861.
After the London show the ox and a Galloway heifer were taken to a
Surrey farm and John Benzies stayed with them until the following April. Fifty-seven English and Scotch cattle in
total were sent to Poissy. Mr McCombie
of Tillyfour sent seven, including his Galloway heifer and his polled
Aberdeenshire ox, which had overwintered in Surrey, both having won the highest
prizes at both Birmingham and Smithfield.
William McCombie (1802) of Easter Skene dispatched one beast.
At Poissy,
William McCombie (1805) won three first prizes and the great gold medal with
his aged ox, also a cup offered by the trustees of Queen Victoria’s late
consort, Prince Albert. McCombie’s
prize-winning ox was sold to Emperor Napoleon III’s butcher for £84. The Emperor was clearly taken with McCombie’s
polled animals. He had bought two cows
from the Laird of Tillyfour in 1855 and they were listed in the first edition
of the polled herd book. A further
award to McCombie came from Prince Adalbert of Bavaria. This was a gold medal which was a replica of
one struck by the prince for the International Exhibition at Frankfurt am Maine
in 1857. Further accolades
followed. William was made a member of
the National Academy of Paris and received their diploma. He also gained a gold medal and was received
into membership of the Paris Society for the Protection of Animals which had
been founded in 1854. M. Dutrone,
William McCombie’s former pupil, was instrumental in promoting his candidature
for these awards. William McCombie (1805)’s
international stature as a producer of the finest beef animals had thus
received another significant boost, this time from the outcome of the 1862
Poissy show.
William
McCombie’s swan song as a polled cattle exhibitor in France came in 1878 at the
3rd Paris World Fair. His
eight show cattle travelled by train along with the animals of many other
producers. William McCombie himself also
made the journey to Paris for this important event. The Scots exhibitors in the polled classes
again swept the board. William McCombie
was 1st for young bulls and Sir George Macpherson Grant 2nd. In the aged bull bulls class, the order was
reversed. In the polled heifer class,
McCombie was again 1st and Sir George 2nd. For cows, George Bruce of Keig was 1st.
McCombie 2nd and Sir George 3rd. However, there were two other prizes, for the
best group of polled animals and a further prize for the best group of beef
animals. William McCombie (1805) won
both and a total of £200 in prize money.
Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales visited the livestock exhibitions at
the Paris show and walked through the British sections, where the winning
animals were drawn up for his inspection.
The Prince chatted to Sir George Macpherson Grant and William McCombie.
This ultimate prize
for best group of beef animals, which was won by William McCombie, did more
than any other award to establish the Aberdeen Angus as the most favoured
beef-producing breed of cattle throughout the world. The prize was decided by a panel of experts
consisting of 29 of French or other foreign nationality and only two
Britons. They were judging 1314 cattle
from France and 370 from other countries, altogether representing 65 different
varieties. The judges voted 24 for
McCombie’s group of cattle and seven for a group of French-bred
Shorthorns. This was a decisive victory for
William McCombie and the Aberdeen Angus breed.
There was an
unfortunate outcome on the return of the cattle to Britain from the 1878 Paris
show. Under the Cattle Diseases
Prevention Act of 1866, passed in the latter stages of the rinderpest outbreak
of 1865 – 1866, it was a requirement that cattle entering the country should
either be slaughtered at the port of entry or undergo quarantine. Prior to sending his animals to the show, William
McCombie (1805) had obtained the assurance of the Duke of Richmond that this
quarantine requirement would not apply to the show cattle. However, on their return to Britain some of
them showed signs of foot and mouth disease.
Those affected were kept separately from the non-affected cattle and
then slaughtered. The others, eight
belonging to McCombie, six belonging to Sir George Macpherson Grant and one
belonging to Mr Bruce, had to enter quarantine at Brown’s Wharf, Wapping in
unsatisfactory conditions for between eight and ten weeks. They were then released to return home,
McCombie’s animals reaching Tillyfour in mid-August, 1878. William complained to the Privy Council about
the unsatisfactory housing for the cattle.
The Council sympathised but denied any responsibility for the conditions
in which the cattle were kept, or for any arising losses.
William McCombie
(1805) was, unsurprisingly, lionised on his return to the north-east of
Scotland. At the dinner following the
Highland and Agricultural show in 1878, he spoke in response to a toast in his
honour and generously emphasised the role played by the accompanying farm
servants at the French show. “Success
would not have been possible without the exertions of our honest and
trustworthy herdsmen who by land and by sea, by night and by day, conducted our
animals safely to the showyard, preserving on them that bloom which is so
absolutely necessary for their success.”
Similarly, following the 1878 Leochel-Cushnie Agricultural Association
show, William took the chair at the celebratory dinner and made a number of
remarks about the Paris exhibition, praising his adversary, Sir George
Macpherson Grant, whose aged bull had caused such a sensation that he had to be
given a guard of soldiers. Sir George
then refused 200gns for this remarkable beast.
But William also made remarks which indicated that he knew his own time
was almost up. “This however may be the
last scene of the drama for me. Aberdeen
Angus and the North must look to younger men.
I would hand them over to Sir George, to Mr Bruce and to other
celebrated breeders of the polled and to you my friends confident that in your
hands they will maintain the position they now occupy….”.
On hearing of William McCombie’s death two years later, one of his former French pupils, at one time “Monsieur” but now “Baron” de Fontenay, remarked, “It may be said of Mr McCombie that he was one of those good men whose life honours the country and who in ending a long career can be certain that it will not remain useless.” Eugene Tisserand, too, emphasised the influence that McCombie had had on his thinking. “I owe to his example what I have done for agriculture in France, what I have done for the improvement of the labouring population (erecting of numerous cottages given to agricultural labourers, awards of premiums and medals of honour every year to the best agricultural servants and crofters of the Crown Estates etc.) I will be proud to say I have been his pupil, that I have always in mind his conduct, his counsels and that every day I make exertions to follow my beloved master in the way of justice, kindness and devotedness to the good of mankind.” William McCombie (1805) was thus not just a showyard success in France, but also had a major influence on the development of agriculture in general, and particularly cattle breeding and feeding in that country.
On hearing of William McCombie’s death two years later, one of his former French pupils, at one time “Monsieur” but now “Baron” de Fontenay, remarked, “It may be said of Mr McCombie that he was one of those good men whose life honours the country and who in ending a long career can be certain that it will not remain useless.” Eugene Tisserand, too, emphasised the influence that McCombie had had on his thinking. “I owe to his example what I have done for agriculture in France, what I have done for the improvement of the labouring population (erecting of numerous cottages given to agricultural labourers, awards of premiums and medals of honour every year to the best agricultural servants and crofters of the Crown Estates etc.) I will be proud to say I have been his pupil, that I have always in mind his conduct, his counsels and that every day I make exertions to follow my beloved master in the way of justice, kindness and devotedness to the good of mankind.” William McCombie (1805) was thus not just a showyard success in France, but also had a major influence on the development of agriculture in general, and particularly cattle breeding and feeding in that country.
The Royal connection
In 1851, the Royal Agricultural Society held its annual
meeting in the Home Park at Windsor.
Queen Victoria, along with Prince Albert visited the showyard, probably
the first time she had visited the Royal Agricultural Society show. There she would have become aware of the
black polled cattle of William McCombie (1805) which won three out of the four
competitions open to them. At this stage
of his career, this was a major honour for William McCombie.
The following year, 1852, the Royal butcher purchased one of
William McCombie’s animals, weighing 436lbs, at the Smithfield show. It was used to provide the baron of beef
(both sirloins joined at the backbone) for the Royal Christmas celebrations at
Windsor Castle. The joint took about 11
hours to roast on 23 December and was presented cold on a side table for the
Royal banquet. It is known that William McCombie supplied the Royal Christmas
baron of beef in other years too, including 1856, 1860 and 1867. Queen Victoria, accompanied by Prince Albert
visited the Smithfield market for the pre-Christmas show in 1860, when McCombie
was again placed first with a “Scotch polled oxen”. In 1868, William McCombie (1805) also
supplied a baron of beef for the Lord Mayor of London’s dinner. The butcher, Messrs J and W Martin who were
commissioned to supply the joint, described McCombie’s product as, “of as fine quality as could be produced”.
In 1867, William McCombie displayed a giant polled ox called
“Black Prince” at both the Birmingham and Smithfield fat stock shows. The animal was judged to be first in the
Midlands’ show and he caught the attention of the Queen. She commanded that he should be taken via
Windsor when on his way to Smithfield and this was done, John Benzies,
McCombie’s cattleman, looking after the enormous beast. The Queen was attracted to the animal and, in
consequence, William McCombie (1805) offered, through her equerry, Major-General
Hood, to give him to Her Majesty. She
declined this gift but was happy to accept the baron of beef from the ox. He was then sent on to Smithfield, where he
was again judged to be the best ox of any age and the best animal in the
showyard. Members of the public swarmed
around the ox, wanting to touch this marvel of nature. “Black Prince” was then sold to Messrs
Lidstone and Scarlett for £120, the baron being excluded from the sale. The animal weighed 2588lbs and his carcase
1963lbs, providing a baron of beef which weighed almost 200lbs for the Royal
household.
It was stipulated
in the sale that the head was to be returned to William McCombie, but no
consideration was mentioned. The butcher
demanded £1000 which McCombie refused to pay.
Eventually a price was agreed but was not publicly announced, though it
was said to be more than the price typically paid for a whole bullock. The butcher, Lidstone and Scarlett claimed
they had made a loss of £20,000 on the deal for the head to be returned, as
they had intended to have Black Prince’s head stuffed and exhibited around the
country. As it was, he was stuffed and
returned to Tillyfour as a reminder for William McCombie (1805) of a
magnificent product of his cattle breeding and feeding regime.
Queen Victoria
let it be known that she intended to visit Tillyfour during her next stay at
Balmoral Castle, which is located about 30 miles from Tough, in summer
1867. She wanted to see the fine herd of
black polled cattle that William McCombie (1805) had developed. The chosen day for this low-key, private
visit by the Monarch was 11 June 1868.
She travelled in an open baruche drawn by four horses. The equine team was changed at Ballater and
at Dr Andrew Robertson’s residence, Indego. (Dr Andrew Robertson had
established a medical practice at Crathie, near Balmoral on Deeside. In 1848 he was approached by Lord Aberdeen
and asked to assist the Royal family when they made their first visit to
Balmoral. Robertson so impressed Queen
Victoria that she appointed him her Commissioner on Deeside, a post he held for
about 30 years. Indego is a farm near
the village of Tarland.) The Queen was
accompanied by the Dowager Duchess of Athole and Miss Macgregor, leaving
Balmoral about 2.30pm and arriving at Tillyfour about 5pm. The royal visitor was received by William
McCombie and his sister, Mrs Mary Auld and shown to the drawing room in
Tillyfour house, where McCombie’s collection of prizes was arranged on a
table. This collection included a 100gn
cup presented at Poissy in 1862 by the executors of the Queen’s late husband,
Prince Albert, who had died in December 1861.
This was his last public gift.
The trophy was placed on a separate table with a copy of Her Majesty’s
“Journal in the Highlands” adjacent and the Queen took particular note of it.
Queen Victoria’s
next request was to see the breeding stock and William McCombie led her to the
enclosure of the Kilnfolds field about 150 yards from the house, where he
pointed out his prize-winning cows and heifers, including “Daisy”, “Charlotte”
and “Pride of Aberdeen”, and recited their achievements. The stud bulls and two fine two-year-old
heifers were inside the steading and were next viewed by Her Majesty. One bull, “President 4th”, was
walked outside his box for the Royal party to see in his full splendour and the
Queen and lady attendants expressed their admiration for the beast. On the return to the house, William McCombie
pointed out a herd of about 90 three- and four-year-olds in the Netherhill
field.
Back at Tillyfour
House, the Queen went upstairs to the drawing room where she took tea. She then asked to see the stuffed head of
“Black Prince”, the ox which had so impressed her at Windsor. The party then passed down stairs again and
entered the dining room where the head of the giant bovine was mounted on the
wall. “She regarded the fine glossy
profile attentively, and on turning away exclaimed, “Poor fellow”.” (In 1843,
on a visit to Belfast, Prince Albert bought an ox which had been produced by
Hugh Watson. The animal was entered at
Smithfield in 1844 and was then sold to a butcher, but as the Prince went to
give him a farewell pat, the animal turned to lick his hand and the gesture
caused Queen Victoria to command that he should be bought back from the butcher
and kept as a sentimental pet at Windsor.)
The Queen clearly had a soft spot for these big animals.
The Queen’s
horses were put back in harness at six pm and she made her return journey to
Balmoral via Bridgend, where she inspected six of McCombie’s best bullocks, and
Craigievar, where she saw a fine herd of cross-bullocks. The Banffshire Journal summed up the
occasion. “The day was dry and warm,
with a bracing breeze, and her Majesty seemed to be in excellent health and
spirits and delighted with all she saw.
This visit is a great honour to Mr McCombie for, so far as we can
recollect, Her Majesty has on no former occasion paid a visit to any Scotch
tenant farmer; and in honouring him, the Queen may be said to pay a compliment
to the class to which Mr McCombie belongs.”
The entry from Queen Victoria's
Journal is instructive. "A very fine hot morning. — Louise drove me in
the pony carriage, & I walked a little. — After an early luncheon, started
with the Dss of Atholl & Miss Me Gregor for Donside,
changing horses at Ballater. Went on to Tarland & though it, but were
delayed quite on hour, owing to the post horses gibbing & being with
difficulty made to go on again. Passed Indego & changed horses again
shortly after, going on past Craigie Var, up a pretty steep hill, a mile from
Tilliefour, belonging to Mr Mc Crombie, who has a celebrated herd of cattle. Drove along up the
approach, a splendid large herd of black polled cattle, being drawn up close to
the read side. There was another herd of fine cross breeds, further an, high
coloured as Mr Mc Crombie called them, all, so sleek & fat & beautifully kept.
He is a simple old man, with snow white hair & beard. He received us at the
door of his house & introduced his sister, a very quiet unassuming
lady like person, who took us upstairs to a nicely furnished small Drawingroom,
where on a table were placed numbers of medals & beautiful cups, won by Mr Mc Crombie. He showed us the vase, the last prize, dearest Albert gave,
which was won at Poissy. I remember hearing about it at the time. Walked out to
look at 2 fine bulls & 2 bullocks, fattening for Smithfield, after which he
pointed out all the finest & most renowned beasts amongst the fine black
herd. Went back to the house where the sister gave us a cup of tea, after which
we left. It was a very interesting visit. Changed horses again at Tarland,
& got back safely, but very late at ½ p. 9. A very windy evening."
The following
year, 1868, William McCombie (1805) was favoured with a visit from another
royal party. Prince Christian, a
grandson of Queen Victoria and Lord Charles Fitzroy stayed for three hours
inspecting the Tillyfour herd. They also
took lunch before returning to Balmoral.
The royal
association with William McCombie has continued in recent years. In 2001 Prince Charles, accompanied by his
grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, unveiled a full-sized bronze
statue of an Aberdeen Angus bull on the eastern approach to Alford. The accompanying notice briefly acknowledges
the role of the Laird of Tillyfour, “William McCombie was instrumental in improving
the breed…”. In 2017, 150 years after
Queen Victoria visited Tillyfour, the World Angus Forum assembled at William
McCombie (1805)’s farm, where the Royal visit of 1867 was re-enacted in period
costume. Prince Charles also maintains a herd of
Aberdeen Angus on his Highgrove estate.
The
death of William McCombie (1805)
In April 1878,
William McCombie (1805) underwent some unspecified surgical operation in
London. It was sufficiently serious for
him to worry about a fatal outcome and he wrote to his sister Mrs Mary Auld
modifying his will. The procedure is
presumed to have been successful, but during the autumn of 1879 his friends
noticed that his health was failing. William suffered a stroke at the beginning
of December 1879 and there were concerns for his recovery. Mrs Mary Auld was living at Tillyfour, along
with her son Robert, who was helping to run the cattle enterprise with James
Whyte, the overseer at Tillyfour. The
Laird of Tillyfour lingered for two months, finally expiring on the evening of 1
February 1880. James Whyte, who was
present when he died, reported the death to the registrar for the Parish of
Tough.
The funeral took
place on Tuesday, 10 February. It was
attended by many landed proprietors, farmers and others from the surrounding
districts as well as many gentlemen from a distance. They assembled at Tillfour, where a short
service was conducted inside the house for relatives and a few friends by Rev
Cowan from Rubislaw church in Aberdeen.
The rest of the many mourners were accommodated in a commodious granary
at the steading, where Rev Grassick of Leochel-Cushnie administered a second
service. The polished oak coffin was
designed by Patrick Auld, the eldest son of his sister, Mary and her late
husband, Patrick Campbell Auld a prominent painter. Patrick Auld junior also designed the vaulted
grave in Tough churchyard where the remains of William McCombie (1805) would be
placed. Servants were entrusted with carrying
the coffin of the maister from the house to the hearse.
There was an
impressive procession following the glass-sided hearse as it started its two-mile
journey, passing down the brae from Tillyfour house and up the slope to the
Tough road. It consisted of about 50
carriages, men on horseback and others on foot.
Prominent mourners included the Earl of Aberdeen, Sir William Forbes of
Craigievar, Mr Robert Farquharson of Haughton, Dr Farquharson of Finzean, Mr
Sellar of Huntly and Francis Sandison, hotel keeper at the Huntly Arms,
Aboyne. Groups of women and children
lined the route to the church, which was reached by the hearse at three
o’clock. The servants, including William
McCombie’s last two working pupils, then carried the coffin into the church for
a brief service conducted by Rev Milne before the pall-bearer party, made up of
dignitaries carried the coffin from the church to the grave. The members were:- the Earl of Kintore, Lord
Lieutenant of Aberdeenshire, Mr Patrick Auld, architect, London, Mr Robert Auld
Tillfour, Rev Thomas Young, Ellon, William McCombie, Easter Skene, James Bain
MCCombie, Aberdeen, Henry Alexander, Free Press (son-in-law of William McCombie
(1809)), Peter Duguid, advocate, Aberdeen (heir to Easter Skene and Lynturk
estates).
Today, a visitor
to Tough kirk and its graveyard is quickly struck by the number of McCombies
buried in its precincts and the number of memorials to this remarkable family
found within the church itself. They
include many of the characters in this story, such as Donald McKomy, the first
McCombie to settle in the Vale of Alford, Dr Charles McCombie and his family,
the Honourable Thomas McCombie and the Laird of Tillyfour. The McCombies have had a great impact on the
development of the economy of the area.
The will of William McCombie (1805) and
the fate of his Aberdeen Angus herd
William McCombie
(1805) first wrote his will (which was constructed by his relative, James Boyn
McCombie) in 1874. It was subsequently
modified by codicils in 1875 (two) and 1877 (two) and then by letter to his
trustees in 1878 (two) and 1879. His
will, with modifications was complex and tried to deal with many possible
scenarios which might arise after his death.
After the payment of deathbed and funeral expenses, the trustees were
instructed to pay legacies to several people and organisations, the leading
recipient being his sister, Mary. He
then dealt with his silver and plate, principally resulting from his success in
the showring, by a formula for division but there was later added the
possibility of it all being valued and melted down to convert to money. No examples of the cups and plate seem to
have survived, so this may have been their fate. The other set of assets about which he cared
deeply was his herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle and he wanted to ensure that they
were maintained in their then present condition and numbers for a period of 30
years. Again, he devised complex rules
for division and valuation, but his heirs did not want to participate on the
terms offered and the herd was sold. William
wanted Tillyfour to be returned to the ownership of his brother Charles, but he
pre-deceased the Laird of Tillyfour and, in the event, Tillyfour was eventually
sold to Mr Begg of the Lochnagar distillery, Balmoral, though the upset price
had to be reduced in this time of agricultural depression. Robert Auld, the nephew of William McCombie
(1805) did take over the lease to Bridgend farm and bought some of the
Tillyfour herd. The residue of the estate
was then divided amongst relatives. As
often happened in cases where a will was written in complex terms (the deed of
settlement presented to the court extended to 48 pages) in an attempt to manage
the future, this one fell apart because the beneficiaries were simply not
willing to take on the conditions being required by the deceased. The Aberdeen Journal, commenting on the
apparently small size of William McCombie’s estate of £5839, suggested that he
had died comparatively poor. But the
newspaper failed to take account of the £33,000 that he had paid in 1876 for
the freehold of the Tillyfour farm. A
more realistic estimate of his worth at death would have been about £39,000
(about £4.6 million in 2018 money).
Sale of the Tillyfour herd
The Tillyfour
herd was sold in August 1880 and the scene at the sale was described by the
London Illustrated News. “The concourse
of farmers, cattle dealers and breeders seen at Tillfour was the largest seen
at any sale in the North. At least 1500
were in attendance.” The visitors
included nearly 20 from America and Canada, also aspiring buyers from France,
Germany, Austria and Russia. This attendance
emphasised the international appear that William McCombie (1805) had engendered
in Aberdeen Angus cattle in general and in his herd in particular. Total proceeds from the sale amounted to
£3978 (almost £475,000 in 2018 money).
The legacy of William McCombie, Laird of
Tillyfour
In reflecting on
the life of William McCombie (1805) it is easy to fall into the trap of being
overly influenced by the popular image of the man as predominantly a successful
cattle breeder. But that would be an unbalanced
view. While his achievements as a
developer of the Aberdeen Angus breed were substantial, his successes were
multiple and painted on a broader canvass. Fundamentally, William McCombie (1805), in
spite of his lack of formal education, rural attire and speech was highly intelligent
and had a penetrating insight into many agricultural problems. He had an ability to formulate a plan to resolve
a difficulty and the persistence and determination to pursue his goal
unremittingly. It was this basic set of
attributes that placed William McCombie apart from ordinary mortals. His approach was employed repeatedly, mostly
with brilliant success, but it is unfortunate that it is predominantly in
relation to the development of the Aberdeen Angus breed that his achievements
are nowadays remembered.
William McCombie
(1805) was the second son of Charles McCombie (1764) and consequently the
ownership of Tillyfour farm passed to his older brother on his father’s death,
due to the “winner takes all” practice then predominating on succession. William, who wished to follow his father in
the cattle trade then had to lease Tillyfour from his brother. Much of the land at Tillyfour was undeveloped
and the first problem that William faced was to make the farm more productive,
which he achieved through breaking new ground by ploughing and drainage. He was proud that he was the first person to
plough some of this new acreage.
The next set of
problems facing William was that the trade in cattle being droved from the
north of Scotland was declining in profitability. He was one of the early adopters of the new
practice of fattening cattle in Aberdeenshire overwinter, by feeding them on
turnips fertilised with added phosphate fertilisers and then transporting the
animals south by ship and railway to the major markets which lay 500 miles
distant in London.
It was in London
that the highest prices could be obtained for cattle and in London that a
reputation could be developed as a cattle producer by winning prizes at the
Smithfield show held before Christmas, a time of great demand for top quality
beef. But for several years after 1840
William was unsuccessful in the Smithfield showring. He was smart enough to understand why he was
not winning and to develop a strategy for remedying the deficiencies in his
cattle production methods. He had stuck
with the advice of his father, a very experienced observer of the various
breeds of cattle and concentrated on improving the characteristics of the
polled cattle of the north-east of Scotland.
His strategy had two elements, optimising weight gain and physical
appearance by improved feeding and breeding from animals with desired
characteristics of conformation and meat quality. By 1859 he was established as the producer of
not just the best polled Scotch cattle but also as one of the best producers of
beef cattle of any breed. His heightened
profile led to much financial success and brought him and his animals to the
notice of the Royal family and Emperor Napoleon III. William was not the first developer of the
Aberdeen Angus, but he was the most successful in terms of gaining recognition
for the qualities of the breed on a much wider geographical scale, encompassing
both North and South America and the Antipodes.
Rinderpest, or
cattle plague, unlike diseases such as foot and mouth, is almost unknown to
modern agriculturalists and there is no memory of the disastrous outbreak of
the rinderpest epidemic of 1865 - 1866, which rapidly spread throughout Britain. Aberdeenshire was the most important
cattle-producing county in the country and was afflicted by the disease from an
early date. William McCombie (1805),
ably supported by James Barclay, a fellow tenant farmer, quickly recognised the
potential dangers, alerted and then mobilised the agricultural community in
Aberdeenshire to take drastic and unremitting action against the condition, in
a vacuum created by Government incompetence and the lack of a decisive lead
from any other authority. Rinderpest was
extinguished earlier in Aberdeenshire than in other counties and Aberdeenshire’s
strategy was copied by Government both in the immediate elimination of the then
present epidemic and also in formulating the Cattle Diseases Prevention Bill in
1866, which set the strategy for dealing with future cattle disease
outbreaks.
William McCombie
(1805) recognised the problems faced by tenant farmers, being one himself. Many of the difficulties of this social class
stemmed from then current laws which favoured the interests of the
landowners. Realising that Parliamentary
action was the only way to achieve changes in the law, he devised his own
strategy for getting elected to the new Parliamentary constituency of West
Aberdeenshire at the General Election of 1868.
He did his own canvassing at cattle markets and fairs throughout
Aberdeenshire amongst the tenant farmers who had traditionally sent landowners
to Parliament to represent them. By
acting in advance of the passing of the legislation which created the new
constituency he caught the Conservatives and Liberals flat-footed. He was elected unopposed as an independent
MP, a member of a social class previously barely represented in Parliament,
with no support from any political party apparatus and in spite of never
appearing at any public meeting in the new constituency. It was a brilliant, pre-emptive move. However, his subsequent career in Parliament,
though he quickly became recognised as an expert on rural and agricultural
matters, was not particularly successful in terms of delivering changes in the
law, due to the power of the landowners ranged against him. He was more remembered for his eccentricities
of speech, dress and behaviour.
One final area of
achievement for which William McCombie (1805) deserves to be remembered is his
sympathetic treatment of his servants which generated loyalty and respect, even
after they had left his employment. His
employees were given security of employment, were trusted to act independently,
paid well and encouraged to move on to positions of greater responsibility in
society. These attitudes were in marked
contrasts to those of many other tenant farmers who considered servants’
restlessness to be a problem generated by the servants themselves, rather than
by their conditions of employment. The
same sympathetic approach over many years by William to many visitors and
pupils, seeking to learn from the master, earned him a loyal following amongst
agriculturalists who subsequently rose to high positions in other countries.
William McCombie’s
story illustrates what an exceptional man he was, and it has the power, even
today almost 140 years after his death, to excite admiration in those who are
introduced to his achievements. It is to
be hoped that the full range of his successes will be admitted alongside his
popular status as the “creator
of a peculiarly excellent sort of bullocks”.
Don Fox
20180527
donaldpfox@gmail.com
donaldpfox@gmail.com
Outstanding research
ReplyDelete