A Sink of Atrocity: Crime in 19th-Century Dundee (20 page)

Many people put the blame on the people of Broughty Ferry for the crime in their area. Not that they had particularly criminal tendencies. Broughty was as law-abiding as anywhere else in Scotland, but also had its share of those who lived on the shaded side of the law. Nevertheless, there was not a single constable to patrol the village and not even a watchman to cast his rheumy eyes over the fishermen’s cottages and the increasing numbers of detached villas and extensive mansions of the incomers who had made their wealth from Dundee’s textile trade.

As Dundee became busier with trade and the number of mills and factories increased, many of the wealthier citizens opted to leave the smoke-filled streets and head east. Here, beside the long-sweeping beaches of Broughty and backed by green countryside, solid villas sprang up. What had once been only a small fishing village was rapidly becoming one of the most desirable suburbs of Scotland. However, the good and the great were canny with their pennies and had no desire to add to their rates by paying for a police force. The Dundee policemen did not work outwith the perimeters of the burgh, so Broughty was wealthy and Broughty was unprotected.

For a man such as Thomas MacMillan, the houses of Broughty were an open invitation. He was a professional thief, a man who had already served time for burglary and who had returned to Dundee. At the beginning of June 1858 he selected a victim.

Archibald Crichton was not as stupendously rich as the jute barons, but he was certainly not poor and the manner in which he displayed his wealth could have been termed ostentatious. He was also gregarious, and on the last Wednesday in May 1858 he held a magnificent dinner party in his semi-detached villa in Douglas Terrace. To impress his guests, he used his silver plate dinner service, each piece of which was engraved with the letter ‘C’ to prove he owned it. When the dinner was over and the guests departed, the servants washed the silver dinner service but did not put it away; that would wait until Thursday morning.

Thomas McMillan, however, had other ideas. He had only to wait a short time before the last weary servant extinguished the last light in the house, and another few moments to ensure everybody was safely in bed. In Dundee he would be a suspicious character, lurking around an obviously prosperous street in the wee small hours of the morning, but without police or watchmen to challenge him, he loitered undisturbed. When he judged it safe, MacMillan walked warily to the rear of Crichton’s house and quietly opened the window of the water closet. Presumably he had already reconnoitred the house and knew exactly which window was best, but the water-closet window was small so he had to squeeze through. Once inside he lit a candle and by its flickering yellow light moved immediately to the silver, ready-washed and neatly stacked as if waiting just for him.

It was the work of only a few moments to remove the pieces, stuff some in his pockets and others in a bag, and then climb back out of the window and escape into the silent street. Experienced in his profession, MacMillan must have guessed the value of about £150, about two years’ wages for a skilled artisan, and he would know that no normal Dundee fence could handle so much stolen property, particularly as it was all clearly marked with the letter ‘C’. Accordingly, he selected a piece of beach above the high tide mark, stored it in his memory and buried most of the bulkier items. It would be safe there until he came to dig it up once more. Keeping some of the smaller items to prove the value of his haul, he returned home.

There was pandemonium in the Crichton household when the theft was discovered. Despite the Broughty disinclination to pay extra rates for their own police force, Archibald Crichton had no scruples about calling the Dundee police. Constable MacGregor left his normal beat to travel to the Ferry. He noticed the open window, reasoned there might be two people involved, and set about catching the thief. First he notified the police offices in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and then printed notices describing the missing silverware and forwarded them to police superintendents around the country. After that the police began asking questions and seeking out their informants.

The Victorian police depended on informants. Many of their successes were due to their maintaining a network of people who lived on the fringe of the underworld, who knew what was happening and who were quite prepared to welsh on their comrades. This case was no exception. It was a colleague of MacMillan who gave the police his name, and told them exactly where he would be found.

In the meantime the good folk of the Ferry were rocked by another burglary. This time the station house of the Edinburgh and Perth Railway had been hit. The thief, or thieves, had struck early on Sunday morning, smashing a pane of glass, opening a window and removing the cash box, with about £1 3/- inside. As the Ferry folk pondered the price of a police force, MacMillan and the constables played out their own personal drama.

MacMillan had decided to take a small sample of the silver to Glasgow to find a fence, but when he entered the railway station the police were waiting for him. Snapping on the handcuffs, the officers hustled him down to the police office to be searched. When they found several small pieces of Mr Crichton’s silverware, some of it hammered flat for easy storage, MacMillan could not deny the theft. He admitted who he was and did not struggle when the police took him to the Procurator Fiscal’s office and stripped him naked in case they had missed anything the first time. Indeed they had; between his underwear and his skin they found an impressive collection of silk handkerchiefs, stolen from a shop in Montrose the previous month. It was Wednesday 7th June, less than a week since MacMillan had gloated over his silver future.

When the police asked MacMillan where the rest of the silver was, he told them nothing. He remained cool, even when he was called to the bar of the Circuit Court, and when the judge sent him back to jail he still gave nothing away. He listened when people spoke of the police searching for the silverware, but said only that it was hidden in a place it would never be found. The thought of a small fortune in silver waiting for him must have sweetened the long, lonely, drab days in confinement, and he might well have been released to dig up his hoard like a latter-day Treasure Island, had it not been for a wandering seaman and his inquisitive sister.

Others were more typical thieves, petty criminals after petty gain and caught out by their own mistakes. In one case a thief was caught out simply because he changed his drawers.

It would have seemed like any other Friday morning to Peter Reid. He had left his work the previous evening as normal, and was now returning to open up, as he always did. Unlocking the door, he stepped inside the shop and stopped in shock. Where he had left everything neat and tidy, ready to start business, now the place was a mess, with all the drawers hanging out and their contents strewn across the floor. He looked for a second, and then ran further inside, seeing the shambles and the wide-open back window and realised he had been robbed. It took only moments to send for his boss, John Earl Robertson, and before long the police were present, working out exactly what had happened.

There had been at least two burglars: John Norrie, a millworker of Blackness Road and James Gormally of Hawkhill, and perhaps they were helped by James’s brother Owen. All were between thirteen and sixteen years old and they had already had a busy time. On Tuesday 16th January 1866 they had broken into a shop in Yeaman Shore and stolen £1 from David Clark, pork curer. The following Tuesday they broke into the Overgate premises of Grandy and Scott, ironmongers, and found 12/-. Next was the night of Thursday 1st February when they broke into Durham and Sons, the High Street stationers, where they stole a handy pair of scissors, printer’s types and the quite sizeable sum of £3 in cash – more than many working men earned in three weeks.

Now they were busy again. James Gormally and John Norrie were in the High Street, and they knew exactly what they were doing. The houses were quite low there, so they entered Mint Close that led northward behind Reform Street, climbed up a lamppost, and stretched onto the roof of a house. Their target was the shop opposite; it was the work of a few moments to remove a pane of glass from the cupola, but either the rope they had brought was too short or they thought it too dangerous to attempt entry that way so looked for something easier. They found a back window, forced it open, clambered down the rope and entered Spence and Company in Reform Street, one of Dundee’s leading drapers, hoping for rich pickings.

Despite their youth they were experienced burglars and had come prepared with matches. By their light they saw a desk opposite. Forcing the drawer open, they looked at the pile of money for only a second before scooping it into a bag. It was mainly copper but with a sprinkling of silver. In total there was about £3 15/- in value, the change ready for the following day’s trade, which made quite a bulky package. With the cash bundled up, they ransacked the remainder of the shop, hauling open all the drawers, peering in presses, and generally ensuring they had missed nothing. With money being their only object, they did not really concern themselves with the stock, but stole a few small items that they could use themselves.

As well as a coat and a vest they found in a small room, they took a pair of men’s drawers each and Gormally, no doubt to the accompaniment of ribald comments, dragged off his own threadbare, tattered and much-used drawers, dropped them on the floor and pulled on the new pair in exchange. Norrie slid on the other pair of drawers but did not leave his own: perhaps he had none to leave. Placing the money into three handkerchiefs they dragged a drawer to the back window, put a pair of ladders on top, slipped outside and escaped down the outside wall. Perhaps because they would look conspicuous wandering through Dundee with clinking copper coins, they hid the bags on top of a chimney high on the roof and returned home, with Gormally keeping the coat and vest.

Next day Peter Reid discovered the robbery and the police were called. Immediately discarding the missing pane of glass in the cupola, they found the forced back window and the scuff marks of feet on the wall down which the intruders had climbed. They knew by the size of the footprints that at least one of the intruders had been a boy, and they conjectured that he had entered the shop first and had then opened the door for an older accomplice. They also commented on the way the place had been searched for money, with little else taken.

Armed with the clue of the discarded drawers, the police began a systematic search for the burglars. Moving through the streets, wynds and closes of Dundee, they questioned all the most obvious suspects and searched those who could not give an account of their actions on the nights of the break-ins. Usually when shops or houses were robbed, the police would check the pawn shops for the stolen articles and often found the thief by reading the name on the pawn ticket, but that was not possible when only money was taken. Their best chance of success was to trace the few items of clothing that had been stolen.

While the police were searching, James Gormally was busily recovering the money. Teaming up with Norrie again and roping in a shoemaker named Robert Williamson, he returned with them to the Mint Close. Gormally climbed up a water spout – drain pipe – and recovered the bags of money. They divided it between them, with Williamson clutching about five shillings in copper and Gormally seemingly keeping all the silver, about 12/6. Norrie returned to his lodgings, where there was a man named William More. With no privacy in such places, More remarked on Norrie’s new drawers and said he might have been better to buy himself a shirt.

‘I’ve plenty of money,’ Norrie said, then he told More about the theft and passed over some loose change. With More for company he bought a shirt from a pawnbroker.

On 5th February the police made a breakthrough. Detective officers Stirling and Ferguson were walking down the Vault when they saw Williamson, who they already suspected of being a fence. As they arrested him, John Norrie appeared. He stared at the detectives for a second and then turned and ran. While Stirling held Williamson, Ferguson chased, caught and arrested Norrie. Taking both men back to Bell Street, the police questioned and searched them. When they saw Norrie’s brand new drawers, they knew they had their man. They also knew Norrie’s associates so waited outside the Gormallys’ house until they returned and snatched them up.

On 6th February Norrie and the Gormally brothers were questioned and remitted to the Procurator Fiscal, but before the case came to trial Owen was released for not being involved. Norrie confessed everything and was sentenced to five years in a Reformatory; James Gormally appeared before Sheriff Ogilvy and a jury on 14th April. Although he pleaded not guilty, both Norrie and Williamson identified him as being the principal in the robbery.

Gormally’s father tried to defend him, saying he wanted his son to learn a trade. He claimed James was working at a mill and attending night school. He also said his son was a quiet lad and had never been out all night before. Sheriff Ogilvy, however, did not agree. He already knew the Gormally clan, having had others of that name standing before him, so ignoring the father’s appeals, he sent James Gormally to gaol for fourteen days, and then ordered him to Rossie Reformatory for the next five years.

That should have been the end of the Reform Street robbery case. However, James Gormally was not a youth to submit to authority so easily. A Reformatory was intended to be exactly what the name suggested; a place where wild young men were reformed, a place they entered as thieves and blackguards and emerged with better characters, ready to take their places in the ranks of the respectable. Five years of such training did not appeal to Gormally, and on 27th May, he escaped and once again appeared before the sheriff. Three months in jail and he was free to prowl the streets again, while John Norrie remained behind the walls of Rossie Reformatory.