Perth Burghs

County

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1820-1832, ed. D.R. Fisher, 2009
Available from Cambridge University Press

Background Information

St. Andrews (1820), Cupar (1826), Fifeshire; Forfar (1830); Perth (1831); Dundee, Forfarshire (not the returning burgh in this period)

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
1 Apr. 1820Hon. Hugh PRIMROSE LINDSAY 
3 July 1826Hon. Hugh PRIMROSE LINDSAY 
23 Aug. 1830HON. John STUART WORTLEY3
 Hon. Donald Ogilvy2
  Election declared void, 11 Dec. 1830 
13 Jan. 1831FRANCIS JEFFREY3
 Hon. William Ogilvy2
 Ogilvy vice Jeffrey, on petition, 28 Mar. 1831 
23 May 1831Francis JEFFREY 

Main Article

The county town and Tayside port of Perth, whose population (burgh only) rose from 19,068 in 1821 to 20,016 in 1831, served an important agricultural and textile manufacturing district and was known for its salmon fishing, distilleries, ginghams, shawls and muslins. The council of 26 was dominated by its 14 guildry men, whose collective votes under the so-called ‘beautiful order’ required them to comply with the wishes of their majority, so giving them an automatic majority over the 12 trades councillors. All were resident in the town or suburbs in 1822 and 21 had ‘places of business within the royalty’. There were seven incorporated trades and a guildry grouped according to four ‘sciences’ (dyers, maltmen, merchants and surgeons), which in 1832 had 560 members and property worth an estimated £28,000. The municipal corporations commissioners attributed the burgh’s £41,462 debt to ‘expenditure in the formation of public works’ and found no evidence of corporate mismanagement.1 The university town of St. Andrews, situated between the entrance to the Firth of Tay and Fife Ness, was described by the 1831 boundary commissioners as ‘stationary’; its harbour was ‘made dangerous by rocks’. The population (burgh and parish) rose from 4,889 in 1821 to 5,621 in 1831 and it had a ‘self-electing’ council of 29, all ‘residenters’, and seven incorporated trades. In 1832 there were 108 guild burgesses and 21 trade burgesses.2 Cupar, ‘the most wealthy community in the county of Fife’ (1793) and its county town, was situated nine miles inland on the River Eden. Primarily an administrative and agricultural centre, it had spinning mills, substantial brewing, corn, and coarse linen trades and a history of burgh debt attributable to a ‘diminution of income by the sale of property’ to finance civic improvements, especially the county gaol and courthouse authorized under the 1823 Act. It had a population (burgh and parish) of 5,892 in 1821 and 6,487 in 1831 and a ‘self-elected’ council of 27.3 The former dean of guild James Inglis testified before the 1820 select committee on royal burghs that seats traded at £50-100: ‘it all goes in pairs - 13 twos. 13 councillors go out one year and come in the following year ... 12 of these are lawyers, either resident or non-resident, besides the two town clerks’.4 In 1832 it had a guildry of 168 and eight incorporations, dismissed by the corporations commissioners as ‘useful benefit societies’.5 The county town of Forfar, 14 miles north-north-east of Dundee, manufactured coarse linens and wooden-soled shoes known as brogues. As in Perth, the municipal commissioners made light of its town debt of ‘very recent creation [and] ... wholly ascribable to public improvements’. The population (burgh and parish) increased from 5,807 in 1821 to 7,949 in 1831. Its council of 19, elected annually by the retiring council and their nominees, were described in 1822 as ‘usually resident’. The guilds had ‘fallen into insignificance’, but their deacons remained entitled to a council seat. The four incorporated trades (glovers, shoemakers, tailors and weavers) had a combined membership in 1831 of 221.6 Dundee, on the north bank of the Tay, 22 miles from Perth, was ‘favourably situated for commerce in consequence of the depth of water in the river’, which ‘affords ready access to the ocean’. With Perth, it dominated the pre-1832 parliamentary constituency.7 The capital of the textile trade and the fastest growing town in Scotland, by 1831 it had 31 spinning mills, large foundries and engineering trades, a harbour with 259 registered vessels (31,330 tons), a guildry of 750 and a population (burgh and parish) of 45,355, an increase since 1821 of 14,780.8 Largely on account of litigation and legislation costs in this period, the burgh debt reached £86,554 in 1833.9 An amendment to the burgh sett, authorized by the convention of royal burghs in 1818, had increased the council to 21 by creating an additional seat for the convener of the nine incorporated trades, but this failed to redress grievances emanating from Dundee’s complex system of ‘self-election’ whereby

out of leets made by themselves, the council chose five merchant and three trades’ councillors. The old and new council made leets for magistrates, copies of which were given to the trades, and the election of magistrates was made by the old and new council, and nine deacons of the trades.10

Campaigns for burgh and electoral reform were also under way in Cupar and Perth, orchestrated in the liberal Dundee, Perth & Cupar Advertiser.

At the dissolution in 1820, the radical George Kinloch† of Kinloch, who with the Advertiser’s editor Robert Rintoul had striven since 1815 to reform the corporation and harbour management in Dundee, was abroad, ‘outlawed’ (until pardoned in 1822) for sedition after absconding to evade trial for presiding at a radical meeting in the wake of Peterloo. Dundee’s incorporated trades were locked in an ‘internecine’ battle, which lasted until 1826, over whether voting under the 1818 sett was by delegate or individual members.11 The sitting Member since 1818, the Tory Archibald Campbell* of Blythswood, had resented the £1,500 cost of his return, ‘wearied of his new constituents’ insatiable appetite for patronage’ and chose to contest Glasgow Burghs.12 The Liverpool ministry’s Scottish manager Lord Melville’s first choice as his replacement, Sir George Murray*, replied on 1 Feb. 1820 that the seat was financially beyond his reach. After sounding the former Member Sir David Wedderburn, Melville endorsed the 6th earl of Balcarres’s brother Hugh Lindsay, a director of the East India Company and associate of the local banker and linen factory proprietor John Maberly*, who recommended him to the council of Dundee.13 The vice-lieutenant of Fifeshire, the 9th earl of Kellie, whose support had been solicited by the London banker and former Maidstone Member George Simson, was notified accordingly, 8 Feb.; but Simson, the proprietor of the Fifeshire estate of Woodmill, persisted with his canvass until he and his putative ally James Wemyss, the successful candidate for Fifeshire, were personally informed by Melville on the 19th that Lindsay, who had formally applied to the five provosts on the 12th, was the government’s nominee.14 Sir David Moncrieff of Moncrieff, the Tory nephew of the Foxite Whig Member for Forfarshire, William Maule, and Wemyss’s choice, became a serious contender but started too late. According to Lindsay, who on 20 Feb. claimed Cupar, St. Andrews and Dundee and ‘good prospects’ in Perth, his youth and inexperience also hampered Moncrieff, for, although a ‘fine good natured young man and rather a favourite in Perth and Dundee ... they by no means think he would do for their Member’.15 ‘Upon examination’ by the council of Dundee, who declared 15-4 in his favour, 20 Feb., and made him an honorary burgess, Lindsay expressed support for retrenchment and ‘necessary’ burgh reform but declined to comment on ‘self-election’.16 At Forfar, 27 Feb., the candidates met and declared the contest ‘over’. Lindsay was endorsed as the ‘popular and council candidate’ at Perth, 11 Mar., and returned unopposed at St. Andrews, 1 Apr. 1820, when, according to the Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, the meagre feasting (capped at 15s. a head) disappointed the delegates.17

Perth established a committee to assist destitute weavers, 17 Apr., and the Commons received petitions, 30 May, 16 June 1820, from the councils and several trades of Dundee, Forfar and Perth for continuance of the linen bounties, which the Dundee-based Forfarshire chamber of commerce had been founded in April 1819 to oppose.18 Cupar, Perth and Dundee celebrated Queen Caroline’s birthday, 17 May, and the Dundee radicals addressed her through Joseph Hume* on her return to England.19 At the 1820 municipal elections her cause became embroiled with the campaign for burgh reform. Separate loyal addresses to the king and queen were dispatched from Dundee and Forfar and Charles Gall, by whose casting vote Forfar’s address to the queen had been adopted, was ‘voted off the council’ for taking an independent line.20 The guildry of Perth, where the future provost John Wright chaired the meeting, 30 Sept., rejected compromise resolutions approved by the council at the behest of Thomas Winlack the previous week and resolved (by 155-82) to adopt a radical address to the queen, proposed by John Fisken. Cupar followed suit, after the proprietor of the Burnside printing works and founder of the Cupar Herald (from 1823 the Fife Herald) Robert Tullis defeated the corporation candidate to become dean of guild.21 Uproar and mob disorder ensued when magistrates in Dundee and Perth tried to prevent ‘spontaneous’ illuminations and processions to mark the abandonment of the bill of pains and penalties against the queen in November. Cupar was also brilliantly lit, but ‘those intent on bell-ringing were dislodged from the belfry’.22 Perth’s address congratulating the queen (adopted at a meeting chaired by Fisken, 18 Nov., and forwarded to Hume) was countered by the council’s to the king, 4 Dec., entrusted to Lindsay.23 Meetings in Cupar, Dundee and Perth in December 1820 and January 1821 failed to agree on the grievances to attach to the queen’s cause, especially the inclusion of resolutions promoted and circulated by the incorporated trades of Dundee and Perth calling for the ministry’s dismissal.24 The resulting petitions presented to Parliament, 26 Jan.-22 Feb. 1821, included one received by the Commons, 25 Jan., from the bakers’ incorporation of Perth inveighing against monopolies as harbingers of distress.25 Pleading hardship, the bonded warehouse proprietors of Dundee petitioned the Commons for the admission of ‘corn for home consumption’ at a lower pivot price and changes in the calculation of corn averages, 9 Apr. 1821.26

The deliberations and reports of the 1818-22 select committees on Scottish burgh reform aroused great interest. Petitions for ‘a more liberal and constitutional system’, abolition of self-election and a role in ‘controlling the management of common property’ were referred to them from Perth’s wrights’ incorporation, 13 June, tailors, fleshers and shoemakers, 23 June and merchant burgesses and guildry, 18 May 1821.27 The magistrates of Dundee had conducted their own investigation into evidence supplied by the reformers on which the 1819 committee’s criticism of their regime was based, and the resulting report, received by the council, 12 Mar., underpinned a petition cross-referenced to it from the provost David Brown, complaining that the committee’s findings were ‘erroneous and defective and ... highly injurious to the magistrates and trades councils’. Condemned by the Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser as a ‘smuggled bale ... of goodly length’, it was presented, 17 Apr., and referred to the select committee, 21 May, at Lindsay’s request.28 Perth, where on 3 Oct. 1821 the guildry carried a resolution welcoming the improvement in the burgh’s finances, was ‘quiet’ that Michaelmas, but trade and council elections in Dundee and St. Andrews were hotly contested and, for the first time, head courts followed their burgh meetings.29 The magistrates of Cupar ‘re-elected themselves and abandoned their contentious police bill’.30 The lord advocate’s 1822 burghs regulation bill was universally disliked in Perth and opposed in petitions to the Commons from the council and incorporated trades, 17, 22, 26 Apr., 3, 20, 30 May. The guildry carried resolutions on 8 Apr. thanking Hume and Lord Archibald Hamilton for opposing it in the House, and Hume was made an honorary freeman and received a gift of plate at a civic dinner in September.31 The merchants’ incorporation of Dundee had petitioned similarly in the name of their dean, the shore master John Sturrock, 20 May 1822.32 Michaelmas elections that year were ‘dull’ and enlivened only by the failure of Perth’s reformers to prevent the election of the outgoing bailie James Norwell (a supporter of the unpopular 1823 police bill) as dean of guild, which prompted further petitioning for abrogation of the Scottish Parliament’s 1469 Act permitting self-election.33

The process of securing essential legislation for the Tay salmon fisheries was complicated by the conflicting preferences of the ‘sea and estuary’ men of St. Andrews and Dundee and the freshwater fishermen of Perth. A bill, carried in the Lords in 1823 by the duke of Atholl and entrusted in the Commons to Lindsay, was abandoned after the Forfarshire chamber of commerce and the provost, magistrates and incorporation of merchants of Dundee petitioned against it. Petitions against the 1824 bill were received from St. Andrews and Dundee, 8, 17 Mar., 8 Apr., but the Perthshire Courier reassured its readers that its defeat in committee (11-7) ‘in no degree affects the question at issue between the upper and lower heritors’. The guild merchants of Dundee’s petition opposing ‘unnecessary restraints on the most improved methods of fishing’ was referred for consideration to the 1824 select committee on salmon fisheries, 3 May 1824. On 19 May 1825 the Commons received petitions against the abortive 1825 Tay salmon bill from the council and inhabitants of Cupar and the merchants, manufacturers, calico printers, cotton spinners, bleachers and millers of Perth.34 The tanners of Perth petitioned for repeal of the leather duties, 15 Feb. 1822, and their incorporation opposed the 1824 hides and skins bill, which the fleshers of St. Andrews supported.35 Dundee ship owners opposed the proposed relaxation of the navigation laws in a petition to the Commons, 14 May 1822, and were also instrumental in organizing local opposition (including petitions) to the Tay ferries bill carried that session and to the 1825 Leith docks bill. They welcomed the amendments incorporated in the 1823 Tay Ferries Act.36 Dundee’s whalers petitioned in favour of the London and Westminster oil-gas bill, 12 Apr. 1824, and in alarm at the proposed withdrawal of the tariff on imported rapeseed oil, 18 Apr. 1825.37

Local resistance to paying the increased stamp duty on linen in 1821, when petitions and a non-payment programme were adopted, had been organized by the Dundee entrepreneur Edward Baxter. Assisted by the Member for Dysart Burghs, Sir Ronald Craufurd Ferguson, Baxter also encouraged the merchants, manufacturers, spinners and bleachers of Dundee, Cupar, Perth, St. Andrews and Forfar to lobby the board of trade and petition against the abolition of bounties under the 1823 Scottish Linen Manufacture Act, which the corporation of Forfar, where the stamp masters held sway, petitioned the Lords in favour of, 18 July 1823.38 From 8-25 Mar. 1824 the councils, magistrates, manufacturers, merchants and traders of Cupar, Dundee, Forfar and St. Andrews and the spinners of Cupar petitioned the Commons for the restoration of protective tariffs on coarse linen, especially on exports costing less than 7d. a yard, and requested the reappointment of yarn inspectors to ensure quality control.39 The protectionist petitions they forwarded during the 1825 slump in the textile trade had been solicited in letters to the five provosts from Lindsay.40 The same economic downturn prompted a petitioning campaign for corn law revision supported by the lord provost, magistrates, council, merchant burgesses and incorporated guildry of Perth (two petitions) 28 Apr., the magistrates of Forfar, 5 May, and the shoemakers’ incorporation of Perth, 11 May 1825.41 Perth also petitioned for repeal of the assessed taxes, including the duty on apprentices’ indentures 7, 22 Mar. 1825, and, like Dundee, provided Lindsay, a director of the Equitable, with petitions to present for repeal of the stamp duty charged on fire insurance policies, 4, 22 Mar. 1825, and again in 1827.42 The United Secession churches of Cupar and Dundee sent anti-slavery petitions to Parliament in 1823 and 1824, when petitions were also received from the United Congregations of Perth and a mass meeting at Perth Middle Church on 17 Mar. chaired by the Rev. W.A. Thomson.43 In 1826, the moderators of the Presbyterian kirks of session in Dundee and Forfar and the councils and inhabitants of Cupar, Dundee, Perth and St. Andrews joined in the petitioning.44 Practitioners at Dundee’s burgh court and the lawyers of Forfar petitioned the Commons for repeal of the tax on their licences, 29 Mar., 1 Apr. 1824.45 Petitions against the 1824 excise duties bill were received from the provost, magistrates and councils of Dundee, 4 May, and Cupar, 12 May, and against the Scottish poor bill from Cupar, 14 May, and Forfar, 19 May.46

The 1823 municipal elections in Dundee ended in uproar following the election by 57-51 of the corporation nominee J.B. Baxter of Ives (the future prothonotary) as town clerk, ‘an office trifling in emolument’, but ‘of great political consequence to the corporation’ on account of the local legislation planned, after his opponent Saunders insisted that he had outpolled him by 54-53.47 The Dundee police bill, petitioned for by the magistrates and council, 20 Feb., received royal assent, 17 June 1824. Their improvement bill, extending the provision of previous Acts to the suburbs, was petitioned for, 18 Feb., entrusted to Lindsay, Henry Monteith and Robert Downie and received royal assent, 22 June 1825, notwithstanding the hostility of the suburban proprietors, the incorporated guildry and the deacons of the nine trades, who all petitioned against it.48 The 1825 Michaelmas elections were remarkable only on account of the speculation about a dissolution and the success of the council of Perth, ‘through cheap whisky’, in foiling an attempt by the hammermen, with whom the election lay, to return one of their chief adversaries, by securing instead the election of John Gibb, an iron foundry worker described in The Times as ‘both dissolute and dissipated in his habits’.49

The Fife Banking Company of Cupar, in which the provost George Aitken was a partner, was a rare Scottish casualty of the 1825-6 crisis, and alterations to the Scottish banking system proposed by government in its wake were strongly resisted.50 Cupar and St. Andrews deliberately adopted their hostile petitions in common council to maximize their impact and, with the same objective, the guildry, incorporated trades, magistrates, councils, parishes and inhabitants of Dundee and Perth were requisitioned and petitioned separately.51 The Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser commended ‘beyond all praise’ the achievement of the provost of Perth Patrick Gilbert Stewart in securing unanimously agreed petitions from his divided corporation. According to the Perthshire Courier, the only debate at their guildry meting, 3 Mar., was over their petition’s presenter: ‘One party urged ... Lindsay ... the other ... Hume ... a guild brother ... [who] had always attended carefully to their interests’ and whose ‘friends’ now prevailed.52 Petitions for ‘gradual but complete repeal’ of the corn laws ‘without substituting any duty whatever’ were encouraged by the new weavers’ combinations and sent up by the weavers of Perth, 24 Feb., Cupar, 28 Feb., and Dundee, 10 Mar.; the Dundee petition, adopted in the name of their praeses James Saunders, demanded corn law repeal and new legislation to reduce food prices, while affording ‘reasonable protection’ for agriculture.53 Little opposition was raised to the Dundee-Newtyle railway bill, entrusted to Lord Wharncliffe’s son and heir John Stuart Wortley, and it received royal assent, 28 May 1826.54 However, the enactment of the locally unpopular Forth ferries bill, which the magistrates and council of Dundee had petitioned against and employed the London solicitor John Richardson to oppose, was a major issue at the general election of 1826, when Cupar was the returning burgh.55

The council of Perth pre-empted the other four by meeting on 19 May to adopt Lindsay as their candidate and publicizing their ‘unanimous decision’.56 St. Andrews followed suit, 26 May, and an editorial in the Perthshire Courier of 8 June, commenting on the narrow (31-12) margin of Provost Stewart and Bailie Mathews’s election that day as Perth’s delegates to the convention of royal burghs, observed that the parliamentary constituency

seem to be afraid that the late Member would have slipped out of their fingers, by the haste with which they intimated their intention of re-electing him ... Lindsay has, indeed, proved himself a valuable representative to this district of burghs by his uncommon attention to everything affecting their local interests; and being deputy chairman to the India Company for next year, we may rely does not detract from the slightest degree from his merits in the eyes of a Scotch burgh.57

At the delegates’ elections the glovers’ incorporation of Perth, the sole opponents of Stewart’s appointment as commissioner, 11 June, lodged a formal objection and wrote directly to Lindsay urging him to back the trades.58 The provost of Dundee David Brown’s adoption was unanimous. However, it was qualified by resolutions carried by the flax spinner James Brown as dean of guild, which were duly sent to and ignored by Lindsay, requiring him to pledge support for corn law reform, especially concessions on the importation and release from bond of grain for milling, and to promise to promote manufacturing. Calls for a pledge on the Catholic question were dismissed. Over 100 guests were dined with great pomp when their provosts were confirmed as delegates for the councils of Cupar, 15 June, St. Andrews, 16 June, and Forfar, 18 June, and the restoration of the Ogilvy family of Cortachy Castle to the earldom of Airlie was also celebrated.59 Lindsay’s return in absentia at Cupar, where his kinsman C.M. Durie deputized, was unanimous. The Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser commented:

A Fife laird sat in the chair to entertain the strangers and the delegate from Dundee did not, we are told, hurt his feelings by producing the resolutions of the council on the corn laws. This was a mawkish business altogether.

The Advertiser also criticized Provost Brown for attending the election alone, when the provost of Perth had taken ‘two of the ‘trades’ side of his council with him’.60

The 1826 Michaelmas trades and council elections were contested throughout the district, and the re-election of the financially embarrassed Aitken as provost of Cupar, where the reformers were planning disfranchisement proceedings, aroused particular comment.61 A further downturn in manufacturing and a revival in the campaign for agricultural protection had encouraged petitioning for relaxation of the corn laws. Between 12 Dec. 1826 and 19 Mar. 1827 petitions requesting ‘revision’ and ‘alteration’ were sent to both Houses by the provost, magistrates, council, guildry, incorporated trades, parishioners and inhabitants of Dundee, and the guildry, weavers, magistrates and council of Perth.62 Petitions for outright repeal were received by the Commons from the merchants, manufacturers and guildry incorporation of Dundee, 13 Feb., the seven incorporated trades of St. Andrews, the magistrates, council, incorporated trades, burgesses and inhabitants of Forfar (three petitions), 15 Feb., and the incorporated guildry of Perth, 26 Mar., the last in the name of their dean James Norwell.63 The provost and magistrates of Perth agreed with him that the ministry’s proposals (pressed by Canning) left the duties too high, but refused to support repeal and petitioned for importation of foreign corn on payment of a moderate protective tariff, 19 Mar. Stewart failed to carry a similar petition from the county.64 Dundee ship owners supported the national campaign for inquiry by select committee into their distressed trade, with a view to restoring protective tariffs, and petitioned the Commons accordingly, 15 Mar. 1827.65 The 1827 Dundee ‘twopennies Scots’ bill was approved by the inhabitants and incorporated trades and received royal assent, 14 June 1827, despite the hostility of local maltmen and brewers.66 The 1827 Perth harbour bill, sponsored by the town council and entrusted by them to Lindsay and Robert Adam Dundas, was opposed by the city’s merchants and incorporated hammermen and the 10th earl of Kinnoull of nearby Duplin Castle and foundered.67 Petitions favourable to the 1827 Tay salmon bill were sent up by the provosts and councils of St. Andrews, Cupar and Forfar and merchants and incorporated trades throughout the district, and hostile ones by the provosts and magistrates of Dundee and Perth. A similar measure, approved by the duke of Wellington’s new ministry and steered through the Commons by the Stirlingshire Member Henry Home Drummond, received royal assent, 15 July 1828.68 The pro-Catholic Lindsay encountered local opposition by voting with ministers against considering Test Act repeal in 1828, when Perth and its synod and guildry and the nine incorporated trades of Dundee petitioned for it.69 The incorporated guildry of Perth and the trades and guildry of Dundee petitioned both Houses between 22 Feb. and 21 Apr. for repeal of the stamp duty on receipts.70 Local opposition to establishing an additional Glasgow circuit under the Scottish courts bill was voiced in a petition to the Commons from the provost, magistrates and town council of Dundee, 3 Apr. 1828.71

The concession of Catholic emancipation by Wellington’s ministry in 1829 elicited a mixed response even in Dundee, where pro-Catholic resolutions had been readily adopted by the guildry in October 1828, and the magistrates and council sent favourable addresses to the home secretary Peel and the king, 5 Mar., 7 Apr. 1829.72 The issue dominated the local press and ‘publicly paraded’ anti-Catholic petitions were sent up to both Houses from Dundee, Forfar and Perth and their presbyteries and the burgh of St. Andrews.73 Pro-emancipation petitions were received by the Lords from Perth and Dundee, 6, 9, 31 Mar., and by the Commons from the guildry of Dundee, 9 Mar., the magistrates and council of Forfar, 24 Mar., and the inhabitants of Perth, 30 Mar.74 A contentious one emanating from a rejected amendment proposed by William Kirkcaldy and John Thain at the Dundee guildry meeting, 15 Feb, and presented by Lindsay, 9 Mar., lauded religious toleration but inveighed against Catholic supremacy, ‘the inevitable consequence of emancipation’.75 Another, reluctantly received by the Commons on 30 Mar. from the moderator of the Forfar presbytery William Ogilvy, denounced the persecution of Catholics and specifically requested as securities that no more than one third of the privy council and no commander-in-chief should be Catholic and that Ireland should have a £20 freeholder franchise.76 Dundee brewers petitioned the Commons for a reduction in the Scottish beer and malt duties, 6 Apr. 1829.77 The Scottish goals bill which foundered that session was bitterly opposed in Perth, where the magistrates and council, the court convener John M’Ween, the hammermen and the incorporated guildry petitioned against it, 8, 11, 12 May.78 The Perth waterworks bill, promoted by the provost, magistrates and council, received royal assent, 1 June 1829, but disputes over its impact on rate assessments and the appointment of commissioners under the Act persisted.79

Lindsay’s continued commitment to the East India Company did not deter petitioning against its trading monopoly in 1830. A general meeting of Perth’s merchants, manufacturers and inhabitants, 9 Mar., requisitioned by ‘Young, Ross, Richardson and Company, and Sandeman and Company’ and their associates and chaired by Provost Stewart, forwarded petitions against renewing the Company’s charter and for ‘throwing open the China trade’ for presentation by Campbell of Blythswood and Kinnoull.80 Between 15 Mar. and 25 May Parliament received similar petitions from the guildry, incorporated trades and council of Perth, the ship owners, merchants, manufacturers and tradesmen of Dundee and the Forfarshire chamber of commerce.81 Cupar, Dundee and St. Andrews and their neighbourhoods petitioned both Houses urging the imposition of a duty equivalent to that on Scottish spirits on West Indian rum, 3, 6, 17, 25 May.82 The bankers and inhabitants of Cupar and Forfar petitioned the Commons for abolition of the death penalty for forgery, 24 May, and the provost, magistrates and council of Perth, ‘as representatives of a community of 20,000’, did so for the repeal of inventory duty on Scottish wills, 5 July.83 The long-anticipated Scottish judicature bill was endorsed in a petition to the Commons from James Ogilvie as spokesman for the society of writers of Dundee, 28 May 1830, but criticized as a ‘tinkering, not the much-needed reform’ by the Perthshire Courier, which welcomed its abandonment prior to the dissolution.84 Legislation was carried in 1830 authorizing the construction of deep water harbours and dry dock facilities in Dundee and Perth.85 The Dundee harbour bill, which provided for 21 elected commissioners and facilitated the sale of the harbour to them in 1836, attracted little local opposition despite irregularities in its preparation and the select committee’s criticism of the council’s ‘fruitless’ 105-page report recommending the measure, which was steered through the Commons by Hume and Sir William Scott of Ancrum. Petitions generally favoured it, and a late hostile one from the provost of Perth, referred on 19 May for counsel’s opinion, failed to prevent the bill’s enactment, 17 June.86 By contrast, the Perth harbour bill, which received royal assent that day, was ‘universally disliked’ and petitioned heavily against, 22 Mar.-27 May.87 Originally entrusted by the town council to Campbell of Blythswood, it underwent major changes in select committee, where Hume and Lindsay fought over the inclusion of local ship owners as harbour commissioners, which Hume carried by 76-59, the franchise qualification at commissioners’ elections and the use of the ballot, which was conceded.88 Amendments to the Dundee-Newtyle Railway Act and the ‘first Dundee gas lighting bill’, petitioned for by the council, 17 Feb. 1830, were enacted, but a bill extending the latter to the suburbs was a casualty of the dissolution.89 A new Tay ferries bill, petitioned against by the ‘flax spinners and citizens’ of Perth and Leuchars, was timed out.90

The reformers had made little headway in recent municipal elections, notably in Dundee, where in 1827 and 1828 the council successfully opposed the election of the spirit dealer and former police commissioner Alexander Kay as dean of guild, claiming that as he was a life-burgess and not a burgess for posterity, he was ineligible.91 Kay and his associates at the Tally Club, however, referred the matter to the court of session, which on 9 Mar. 1830 ruled in his favour, disfranchised Dundee and appointed an interim administration of seven ‘managers’ pending the restoration of a ‘municipal constitution’ to the inhabitants by the ‘king in council’.92 An appeal to the Lords, lodged on behalf of the ‘old’ town council of Dundee, 23 Mar., was, with the acquiescence of Kay and the burgh managers, dropped by them, 18 May, to permit the presentation to the king that day of the guildry’s petition for a new sett. However, Wellington, who had recently been briefed on the legal complexities of the Aberdeen and Montrose cases, realized that it was a serious matter and directed that no action should be taken prior to George IV’s death. This left only four of the burghs clearly eligible to vote at the general election of 1830, when Forfar was the returning burgh and had the casting vote.93

Lindsay had all but abandoned the constituency, but his failure to suggest a successor encouraged speculation that he sought re-election, which was not allayed until his retirement through ill health was announced in the second week of July.94 By the 15th, Stuart Wortley, who, according to his chief at the India board Lord Ellenborough, stood with the future representation of Forfarshire in mind, Sir James Ramsay of Banff, who soon desisted, and the earl of Leven and Melville’s brother, the banker John Leslie Melville of the London house of William Deacon and Company, had commenced canvassing. The front runner was Melville, who secured early promises from councillors in St. Andrews and Cupar.95 The following week the candidature was announced of the Tory squire and militia colonel Donald Ogilvy of Clova, a brother of the 4th earl of Airlie, whom Wellington had appointed lord lieutenant of Forfarshire in February 1828, and who commanded a powerful party on Forfar council.96 The pro-Stuart Wortley Dundee, Cupar and Perth Advertiser of 22 July observed:

However much disposed the town council of Forfar may be to vote for him [Ogilvy] as their representative, they will no doubt be guided by the decision of the Perth town council, who in consequence of the disfranchisement of Dundee, and Cupar and St. Andrews declaring in favour of ... Melville, can turn the scale in his favour, although Forfar be the returning burgh ... Melville, we understand, has a considerable party in Perth; but we suspect that the ruling junta there will be disposed to dictate to the Forfarians the election of ... [Stuart] Wortley under a threat of nullifying their vote, by pledging themselves to ... Melville.97

The Fife Herald of the same day puffed the prospects of Melville, who

has the unanimous votes of ... [Cupar] and is secure of St. Andrews; while at Perth, of 26 votes, 13 had declared in his favour on Tuesday (12 of the trades and one guild councillor); among the remaining moiety, three had not declared, and of these some, if not all, were supposed to lean to the side of Melville ... [Stuart] Wortley had ten votes (of the 26) in Perth; and in Forfar his progress is contested by ... Ogilvy, who thinks he can calculate on that burgh.98

Hostile reports circulated that Stuart Wortley, who was said to have precedence over Ogilvy as the ministerial candidate, was ‘out of his latitude at Perth’.99 The Whig barrister John Campbell II*, brother of the Fifeshire militia colonel George Campbell of Edenwood, and the deputy chairman of the East India Company Robert Campbell were belatedly named as candidates, but declined to canvass.100

At the delegate’s election in St. Andrews, 31 July, Melville retained the backing of the guild councillors, but the trades’ councillors had defected to Stuart Wortley and Ogilvy. Identical protests were entered against nine of the latter and ‘after six hours of deliberations’ the provost William Haig of Seggie ‘gave himself the casting vote’ over the nominee of the smiths’ trade, Cathcart Dempster.101 Perth twice deferred their election meeting before the council instructed Provost Stewart as their commissioner to vote for Stuart Wortley first, Melville second and to refuse to vote for Ogilvy. Attendance at the Forfarshire election, 9 Aug., was described as unusually high as ‘many sought to spy on the activities of Forfar council and others engaged in the burghs contests’. Ogilvy secured signed declarations of support from Cupar and Forfar, but Cupar, where the provost William Bayne of Newmill prevailed, postponed their delegate’s election to 21 Aug., and their prior promise to Melville made Ogilvy their second choice. The Forfar delegate, the former bailie John Brown (elected on 11 Aug. by ten votes to nine in preference to Provost Yeaman, who backed Stuart Wortley) made his vote for Ogilvy conditional on his receiving the support of another burgh. ‘Should he not be so fortunate’, Brown would vote ‘with Perth’ for Stuart Wortley.102 The latter’s brother Charles Stuart Wortley* meanwhile canvassed Dundee, where, ‘after much to-ing and fro-ing to London and Edinburgh to obtain legal opinions from the Ivories [James and William Peach Ivory] and the solicitor-general for Scotland’, on 17 Aug. the provost Thomas Bell summoned the ‘old’ council, who resolved that there could be ‘no such a thing as the disfranchisement of a royal burgh’ and proclaimed a delegate’s election for 21 Aug., when Bell was directed to go to Forfar on the 23rd to vote for Stuart Wortley.103 Melville’s decision to ‘quit the field’ on the morning of the election after failing to persuade Stuart Wortley to retire safeguarded the Cupar and Forfar votes for Ogilvy, but the sheriff James l’Amy’s acceptance of the Dundee vote rendered Forfar’s casting vote unnecessary and secured Stuart Wortley’s return. Also recorded were Yeaman’s vote for Stuart Wortley, Dempster’s for Ogilvy and protests prepared by Melville’s lawyers and now lodged by Ogilvy’s against the votes of Perth, where they discovered that the ‘beautiful order’ had been invoked, of St. Andrews, where an irregularity was found in the praecept and of ‘disfranchised’ Dundee.104 Ogilvy was tipped to succeed on petition.105

All the burghs sent petitions for the abolition of slavery to the 1830 Parliament,106 and the Forfarshire chamber of commerce resolved to meet daily from September 1830.107 However, all issues were secondary to the local and national campaigns for Scottish burgh and parliamentary reform, especially the furore generated by appeals to the court of session and to the Lords concerning the setts of Dundee, Perth and St. Andrews, the Ogilvies’ election petitions and the 1831 by-election. Perth re-elected Stewart as provost, 4 Oct., after a ‘stormy’ guildry meeting, 2 Oct., when, probably with a view to securing the burgh’s disfranchisement, although they denied it, the attorney Malcolm, Fisken, Deacon William Greig and their partisans questioned the legality of the proceedings by which their block leet (three merchant bailies) was adopted preparatory to the council elections and entered a protest when an alternative list which they carried as an amendment was ignored by the magistrates.108 They protested again on 9 Oct., when Robert Matthews, the magistrates’ choice as dean, attempted to chair a guildry meeting, and at this they carried resolutions for a petition to both Houses for an extended franchise and reform of Scottish burgh representation, especially ‘the ungracious and irritating system of self-election of magistrates’. Their next monthly meeting, 1 Nov., resolved to publicize and admit the public to guild meetings, but deferred consideration of a radical reform petition.109 Petitions for Scottish parliamentary and burgh reform, including a property-based franchise, were adopted in October and November in Cupar, where the attorney James Thomson and wine merchant Robert Nicol led the reformers, and in Forfar, where although Donald Ogilvy was feted and received a gift of plate, William Smith, a physician and reformer, was elected provost, and the adoption of an anti-reform petition by the tailors’ incorporation created a local furore.110 Disputed council elections at St. Andrews coincided with Dempster’s discovery of long-standing irregularities in their timing. This encouraged the incorporated trades to press for disfranchisement and a new sett, and they hired attorneys and petitioned the lords of council and session accordingly.111 Despite a protest by Kay, trades and council elections proceeded as hitherto in Dundee, and the surviving 1827-30 magistrates and councillors renewed their appeal against the burgh’s disfranchisement in a petition received by the Lords, 10 Nov. 1830.112 Ogilvy, whose petition of 3 Nov. to the Commons against Stuart Wortley’s return hinged on the illegality of the Dundee vote, had endeavoured to block the receipt of the magistrates’ appeal petition by petitioning the Lords personally, 8 Nov., urging its rejection. He also pleaded the right ‘if necessary’ to be heard as an appellant in the case of the magistrates, etc., of Dundee v. Kay and Morton. The petition detailed the machinations of the Dundee litigants since 1827, cautioned the Lords against permitting their House to be used to ‘assist and protect a mere electioneering manoeuvre’ and offered proof that a ‘distinct pledge’ had been given that the appeal would not be heard but ‘dropped’ after the election petitions had been tried. Extracts of the minutes of the interim managers of Dundee’s meeting on 13 July, which resolved to back Stuart Wortley, were quoted, and it was alleged that Dundee’s vote had been deliberately trumped up after it became apparent on 9 Aug. 1830 that without it he faced defeat.113

Wellington was burnt in effigy in Perth following his ministry’s defeat on the civil list, 15 Nov. 1830, and the appointment of Lord Grey’s ministry prompted a flurry of reform meetings and petitions proposing remedies for ‘defective Scottish burgh representation’. In Dundee, where Kinloch, a harbour commissioner under the 1830 Act, had immediately staked his claim to become ‘the first Member for a future independent constituency’ and encouraged the establishment of a political union, and in Forfar, where a reform committee was established, 26 Nov., divisions were primarily over the inclusion in petitions of the radicals’ demands for the ballot, annual parliaments and universal suffrage.114 The ballot was stressed in petitions to the Lords from the burgesses and inhabitants of Cupar, 22 Nov., and the inhabitants and incorporations of Perth, 10 Dec.115 Next day the Commons ruled the August election void, confirmed Dundee’s disfranchisement and set a precedent for Scottish elections by upholding Stuart Wortley’s counter-claim that Ogilvy was guilty of treating.116 According to the journal of Sir John Walsh, one of the committee, when the report was drawn up

I was permitted to take rather a lead, and I began with calling their attention to the strongest evidence of bribery, the case presented, that of a man named Fairweather, whose vote being struck off, would have given S. Wortley the majority. We read over all the evidence, and determined that though the presumption was strong, yet that it did not amount to proof. We divided 7-3. Next came a question whether tender, or offering, a bribe, the same not being accepted, constituted bribery and we determined not 6-4. Lastly we read the evidence of the treating at Cupar, and as champagne, turtle and claret appeared to have been given in profusion, we decided that it was treating. The effect of our decision was to nullify the whole election and send them down to try it all again. 117

Stuart Wortley tested the ground, but his anticipated opposition to the ministry and dubious eligibility had prompted invitations from Perth and Dundee to the new lord advocate Francis Jeffrey, who agreed to stand. Airlie decided against hazarding Donald Ogilvy, lest he be deemed disqualified, and offered their brother William, a shy ex-army captain, whose political inexperience was derided by Jeffrey’s friends but lent credence to his signed declaration to the corporation of Forfar that he was a committed supporter of reform, retrenchment and lower taxes.118 Jeffrey’s lawyers attempted to engineer a Dundee vote, but his success hinged on securing Cupar, which his agent Robert Mackenzie canvassed avidly.119 On 22 Dec. the editor of the Edinburgh Review John Murray informed Sir John Dalrymple†:

The whole I am afraid depends upon Cupar. The advocate will have Perth and St. Andrews. The town council of Cupar [are] for the O[gilvie]s, but the people for the advocate. Dundee was disfranchised but both the former town council and the people are so strongly for the advocate that they have agreed to give up all their lawsuits in order, if possible, to bring the advocate in.

Jeffrey’s canvass was boosted by a well-attended reform meeting at St. Andrews, 18 Dec., which incorporated a resolution of support for the ministry in its petition for Scottish burgh and parliamentary reform and formally requested the council to vote for Jeffrey. By the 25th similar petitions, most of which were forwarded to John Campbell II (who had come in for Stafford) and presented to the Commons, 3-8 Feb., 14 Mar. 1831, had been adopted at meetings of householders, inhabitants, trades and guildries in Cupar, Forfar, Perth and Dundee. The attendant declarations of support for Jeffrey and requests to their councils to back him were promptly published.120 The front page of the Perthshire Courier of 30 Dec. was devoted to correspondence exposing the alleged duplicity of the Cupar bailie William Shaw, who after acting for Stuart Wortley with the ‘liberal’ barrister James Ivory had ‘defected’ to Ogilvy at the delegate’s election. This had been deliberately postponed to 29 Dec. 1830 to secure a majority for Jeffrey, but amid abductions and arrests for debts by both sides, Ogilvy appointed himself the Cupar delegate, after Shaw had deliberately locked the council room door on ‘Ogilvy’s 15’, a theoretical majority of one over Jeffrey, whose absent supporters boasted of their success in denying Ogilvy a ‘quorum of 16’.121 The Perthshire Courier and the Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser of 6 and 13 Jan. 1831 were almost entirely devoted to promoting Jeffrey and denigrating Ogilvy. A report that Stuart Wortley had sold his interest to Jeffrey, which James Ivory attributed to Shaw, was refuted by Stuart Wortley in a letter of 14 Jan. to The Times, and extracts from partisan accounts of the Cupar proceedings were widely printed and circulated.122 John Murray, who cautioned that the outcome of a petition against Jeffrey’s return was ‘doubtful’, wrote to Dalrymple, 10 Jan.:

I go with the advocate to his election at Forfar. Ogilvy will have Forfar and a commission from Cupar to which there are some objections. The advocate will have Perth, St. Andrews and a commission from Dundee. If the clerk sustains the commission from Dundee the advocate will have the return. The question with regard to Dundee stands more favourably than it did before as the judgment of the court of session has been appealed.123

Provost Bell voted for Jeffrey at Forfar, 13 Jan. 1831, as directed by the council of Dundee, 27 Dec. 1830. Jeffrey countered Ogilvy’s protest against it by entering another against the Cupar vote and was returned amid ‘outrageous’ mob violence, which his friends complained that Provost Smith ‘made no attempt to check’.124 On 19 Jan. the Scottish solicitor-general Henry Cockburn advised Thomas Kennedy* that although Jeffrey could refute the allegations, the Ogilvies

enraged by disappointment, are propagating silly though disagreeable stories; of which believe nothing. Their charges are

1. Taking a vote from Dundee; - clearly (valeat quantum) his legal right.

2. His incarcerating an adverse debtor; - not done by, or through, or for him; but purely by a true creditor who (justly) thought the seizure of his debtor at that moment was more likely to produce payment.

3. His ‘intimidation’; - a word, or thing - I don’t know the meaning of, as applied to this election.

4. His threats, etc. - to Shaw, a Cupar recreant; - not used by him, but most justly by Ivory whom Shaw betrayed.

5. His sending for the military at the Forfar election; - not sent for till the election was over, nor by him, nor till the lord lieutenant and the provost declared that they could not be answerable otherwise for the peace which had been shamefully and by encouragement, broken.125

William Ogilvy’s petition against accepting the Dundee vote was delayed in transit by a blizzard and was unavailable for presentation on 3 Feb. (the first day of the session) as required by the regulations of the House. An interim petition from Airlie’s agent Thomas Carnaby, explaining the delay, was presented, 8 Feb. Even so, citing the refusal in similar circumstances of the 1781 Seaford election petition, Jeffrey’s colleagues, with the secretary at war and procedural expert Charles Williams Wynn as their spokesman, vainly persevered with an attempt to block the receipt of Ogilvy’s petition when it was brought up on the 10th.126 Afterwards Ogilvy wrote:

It was remarkable and might have been very unfortunate that none of the law people either in Edinburgh or here (London) knew that the forms of the House required petitions to be presented on the first day of the session after a recess. Indeed, had it not been for the great exertion made by Carnaby to get on and to the fact of his travelling by the mail coach there can be no doubt the petition would have been thrown out. Most fortunately this has been avoided and the great sensation in the House on the occasion proves that the attempt having failed will bring opinion more to the side of the petition than before.127

Pending its consideration, Ogilvy petitioned the Lords, 3 Mar., for admission as a respondent in appeal proceedings renewed by the magistrates of Dundee against the burgh’s disfranchisement, which he maintained had been a ploy to assist Stuart Wortley and Jeffrey. His plea was rejected, 8 Mar., but similar appeals by the merchant and former dean of guild John Mackenzie Lindsay and Provost John Balfour were granted, 14 Mar. 1831.128

The Scottish reform bill introduced by Jeffrey, 9 Mar. 1831, proposed a £10 burgh franchise and incorporated Kennedy’s suggestion that Dundee, ‘a town eminently entitled to consideration’, should receive the ‘Member released by the disfranchisement of the East Fife burghs’, so reducing the Perth Burghs to four, ‘all of them being places of some note’.129 Favourable petitions were adopted at short notice and forwarded from each burgh, and a heavy petitioning campaign was also mounted in support of the English measure, whose passage by a single vote at its second reading, 22 Mar., was marked with illuminations.130 The provost, magistrates and council of St. Andrews, however, defied the seven trades and sent a hostile petition, 21 Mar.; and the council of Cupar, where the eight trades petitioned jointly and individually for the ballot, 26 Feb., 14 Mar., qualified their favourable petition to the Commons, 23 Mar., with a resolution calling for ‘an extension of the franchise to St. Andrews, Forfar and Cupar, as Dundee would be independently represented and the constituency ... dominated by Perth, which also merited separate representation.131 Anti-reformers dominated the election committee belatedly appointed to consider Ogilvy’s petition, 22 Mar. They ruled in his favour, 28 Mar., ‘the Cupar question’ having been abandoned. The decision prompted rioting in Dundee, where the news coincided with reports of the rejection by the Lords of the magistrates’ appeal against the burgh’s disfranchisement and the establishment of a political union by Kinloch.132 Ogilvy, whose ‘victory’ was invariably perceived as temporary, voted for the amendment that wrecked the English bill, 19 Apr., precipitating a dissolution.133 Its casualties included the Dundee municipal government bill, petitioned for by the provost, magistrates and council with a view to extending the royalty and amending the sett to reflect recent growth, 23 Feb. 1831, and entrusted to Stuart Wortley, who had resumed the representation of Bossiney.134

Donald Ogilvy and Stuart Wortley started but desisted for want of support at the ensuing general election, and Jeffrey’s return was pronounced ‘safe’ directly St. Andrews declared for him, 28 Apr. 1831.135 Well-publicized reform dinners in each burgh, addressed by the Whig half-brother of the Tory 5th earl of Aboyne, Douglas Gordon Hallyburton* of Pitcur, a major local landowner and harbour commissioner for Dundee and Perth, Provost Stewart and their local partisans, ensured that Jeffrey’s prospects were not undermined during his absences in Edinburgh, which he now contested unsuccessfully, or by local campaigns to amend the Scottish reform bill. Pressed by the council of Perth, 7 May, Jeffrey explained that his multiple candidacies (he had also been returned in absentia for Lord Fitzwilliam’s borough of Malton, 3 May) derived from his personal ambition to undermine the Dundas supremacy in Edinburgh and his need to guarantee his re-election to see through his reform bill. He refused to be drawn on Perth’s future representation, and Laurence Oliphant† of Condie announced himself as a candidate for the ‘vacancy in embryo’, 16 May.136 Reform of the setts and further dismemberment of the constituency, which it was realized throughout would lead to its abolition, remained the main issues. There was speculation about a possible transfer of Cupar and St. Andrews to a new Fife Burghs district, which the Fife Herald complained would ‘prevent that intermingling of heterogeneous voters, landed proprietors and mere owners of houses, which will occur under the scheme in its present shape’. This naturally created uncertainty in Forfar, whose magistrates and town council had declared unanimously for Jeffrey, and which was now touted as a contributory of Montrose.137 Dundee addressed the king, thanking him for supporting his ministers and their reform bill by dissolving Parliament. Kinloch, Hallyburton, the Tory Sir William Chalmers, an aide-de-camp to Wellington and son of a former Dundee town clerk, and the Dundee-born London merchant and ‘liberal’ David Charles Guthrie had declared as candidates, and canvassing for the first post-reform election (at which Kinloch prevailed over Guthrie after Chalmers withdrew) proceeded uninterrupted.138 A royal warrant of 27 Apr. restored to Dundee the right of voting and the 1818 sett. Hume, who discussed the matter with Lord Lansdowne, agreed with the reformer Lord Duncan, whose estate adjoined Dundee, that this was ‘in itself shameful under a reforming ministry, when in fact Sir Robert Peel had agreed to give them a new sett’.139 Council elections commenced in Dundee on 10 May, before the sheriffs of Forfarshire and Aberdeenshire and the sheriff substitute of Perthshire. All burgesses and heritors resident in 1827, except honorary burgesses, servants and corporation pensioners, were eligible to vote and the ‘popular’ or reform party led by Robert Jobson, Edward Baxter and William Lindsay canvassed avidly and established an early lead.140 When polling ceased, 17 May, ‘464 had voted for the popular list and 30 for their opponents’. Jobson was installed as provost, Edward Baxter dean of guild and James Brows, William Bell, John Morton and Alexander Kay as bailies.141 Jeffrey’s unanimous election was declared at Perth, 22 May 1831, when he chaired a dinner for 100, supported by Hallyburton and the provosts of Perth and Cupar. Provost Haig of St. Andrews pleaded Perth’s case to have a Member of its own.142

The Commons received a petition from the shoemakers of Perth in the name of their deacon John Graham endorsing the ministerial reform bills, 30 June 1831. Petitions from the political unionists and others in Dundee and Cupar were, as their presenter Hume anticipated, refused on account of their strong language, 14 Aug.143 A powerful lobby was mounted that summer in favour of an independent Perth, which, as Cockburn privately suggested in April, had secured the ‘consent of the districts they propose to allot their own burghs among’. The main beneficiary was the Anstruther Burghs constituency, whose case against disfranchisement had been taken up in the 1831 Parliament as Member for Fifeshire by Lindsay’s nephew, the anti-reformer James Lindsay.144 On 30 June Lindsay presented and justified a new petition from the provost, magistrates and town council of Cupar requesting the inclusion of their burgh and St. Andrews in a new Fife Burghs constituency with Crail, Kilrenny, Anstruther Easter, Anstruther Wester and Pittenweem, so that Perth could be awarded its own Member.145 Perth’s inhabitants, provost and council forwarded petitions for additional representation, justified on account of its population, wealth and local importance, to Stuart Wortley for presentation, 6 Aug.146 A recent delegation to London headed by Stewart had suggested to Jeffrey that the proposed Leith constituency should be sacrificed to accommodate Perth, but this, at Cockburn’s insistence, was refused. The delegation also enlisted the assistance of six local peers, Breadalbane, Duncan, Glenlyon, Kinnaird, Lynedoch and Willoughby d’Eresby, who made representations on their behalf to Lord Grey. The ‘awkward struggle’ persisted and it was common knowledge by 15 Aug. that Willoughby d’Eresby was prepared to ‘risk the whole bill’ by moving for Perth’s separate representation.147 A scheme to unite Perth and the East Fife burghs was petitioned against by the latter and soon abandoned and the Caledonian Mercury reported on 17 Sept. that it was ‘all but absolutely fixed to give Perth a Member’.148 The concession and attendant provision for St. Andrews to head a reprieved and revised Anstruther district, to which Cupar was added, was announced by the leader of the House Lord Althorp as the Scottish reform bill entered its committee stage, 26 Sept. A crowd of over 9,000 celebrated on the streets of Perth, where 6,200 signed an address to the king, and Oliphant (who in 1832 defeated his fellow Liberal Lord James Crichton Stuart*) immediately commenced his personal canvass.149 On 28 Sept. 1831, in what its presenter Horatio Ross described as a bid to ‘be exempted from disfranchisement’, Forfar’s council and householders petitioned requesting the transfer of Peterhead to the Elgin district so that Forfar could take its place as a contributory of Montrose.150

Dundee’s buyers, merchants and factors petitioned against permitting the use of molasses in distilling, 27 July, and the ship owners adopted one for relief from fees charged on quarantined vessels, 11 Aug., which its presenter Jeffrey cast a rogue vote against, 6 Sept. 1831.151 The Lords received petitions from the provosts, councils and guildries of Dundee and Perth and the trades and inhabitants of all the burghs except St. Andrews in favour of the English reform bill, 30 Sept.-5 Oct.152 Most had been adopted at meetings held during the council elections, which heralded major changes in Perth, where Stewart and ten of his party retired amicably and John Wright became provost, and also in Dundee, where they were the first held under the municipal government bill, reintroduced on 27 June, which received royal assent, 23 Aug.; William Lindsay replaced Jobson as provost.153 Following the English bill’s Lords’ defeat, addresses to the king in support of the ministry and reform were adopted at public meetings on 11 Oct. 1831 in Dundee, Forfar, and Perth, convened and chaired by their provosts.154 Forfar replaced Peterhead in the Montrose district in the revised Scottish reform bill. Interest in the progress of all three bills remained high in Dundee, Forfar and Perth and bells were rung when the English bill passed the Commons and tolled when the Lords rejected it.155 In Dundee, 23 Apr. 1832, over 3,000 attended a meeting in the Steeple church, with William Lindsay as praeses, to petition them urging its passage, and they received similar petitions from the guildries and incorporated trades of Perth and the seven trades of St. Andrews, 7-11 May.156 When a ministry headed by Wellington was contemplated that month, placing reform in jeopardy, the unions and town council of Dundee combined to call a meeting of burgesses and inhabitants for 12 May, which 14,000 attended. Provost Lindsay chaired, Kinloch and the chairman of the political union, the banker and future editor of the Advertiser William Christie, were the main speakers, and the resulting petitions to Parliament and address to the king pleaded for ‘economy and reform’. As at Perth that day, Wellington was burnt in effigy with copies of the Dundee Courier. Their petitions were entrusted to Jeffrey and Lord Camperdown (as Duncan had become) and received by both Houses, 21 May, with another from the hammermen of Perth calling for supplies to be withheld until reform was enacted.157 The magistrates and council of Cupar and the guildry of Perth petitioned against the Maynooth grant, 17 May 1832.158 Cupar, Dundee and St. Andrews joined in the late petitioning against the £300 property qualification for burgh Members, 27 June, 9 July, and St. Andrews vainly petitioned for separate university representation for Scotland, 23 Sept. 1831, 9 July 1832.159 The bill’s passage in June 1832 abolished the constituency without disfranchising its constituent burghs. It was publicly celebrated at rallies and dinners throughout the district in June and July and at reform jubilees in Cupar and Dundee in August.160 All five burghs returned or contributed to the return of Liberals, 1832-1884.

Author: Margaret Escott

Notes

  • 1. Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895), v. 177-88; PP (1823), xv. 698; (1831-2), xlii. 21, 22; (1836), xxiii. 401-23.
  • 2. PP (1823), xv. 697; (1831-2), xlii. 77, 78; (1836), xxiii. 479-91; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, vi. 293-305.
  • 3. PP (1823), xv. 699; (1831-2), xlii. 71, 72; (1835), xxix. 276, 282; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, ii. 329-31.
  • 4. Perth Courier, 28 Sept. 1820.
  • 5. PP (1835), xxix. 281.
  • 6. Ibid. (1823), xv. 719; (1831-2), xlii. 59; (1835), xxix. 537-43; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, ii. 35-58; D.T. Adam, Royal Burgh of Forfar, 5-7, 10.
  • 7. PP (1831-2), xlii. 17, 18.
  • 8. Ibid. (1835), xxix. 328; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, ii. 412-23.
  • 9. PP (1835), xxix. 328-30.
  • 10. Ibid. (1823), xv. 699; (1835), xxix. 332; Dundee in 1793 and 1833 (1999 edn.), 79.
  • 11. Roll of Eminent Burgesses of Dundee (1887), 270; City of Dundee ed. J.M. Jackson, 287-9; The Times, 2 Dec. 1819; A.M. Smith, Nine Trades of Dundee, 46, 47.
  • 12. HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii. 615.
  • 13. NAS GD51/1/198/21/64.
  • 14. NAS GD51/1/198/10/79, 82; 198/21/65, 66; 51/5/749/1, f. 182; NLS mss 1054, f. 177.
  • 15. Perth Courier, 17 Feb.; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 18 Feb.; Bradford mss (History of Parliament Aspinall transcripts), Lady to Lord Newport, 27 Feb. 1820; NLS mss 11, f. 14; NAS GD51/1/198/21/67.
  • 16. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 25 Feb. 1820.
  • 17. NAS GD51/1/198/21/68; Perth Courier, 2 Mar.; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 24 Mar., 7 Apr. 1820.
  • 18. G. Jackson and K. Kinnear, Trade and Shipping of Dundee, 3; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 31 Mar., 7 Apr.; Perth Courier, 20 Apr. 1820; CJ, lxxv. 253, 318.
  • 19. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 18, 25 May, 29 Sept. 1820.
  • 20. The Times, 29 Sept.; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 29 Sept., 6 Oct. 1820.
  • 21. Perth Courier, 5, 12 Oct.; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 6, 13 Oct. 1820; P. Martin, Cupar: A Short Hist. 38, 39.
  • 22. Perth Courier, 23 Nov.; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 24 Nov. 1820.
  • 23. Perth Courier, 23, 30 Nov., 7, 14 Dec. 1820.
  • 24. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 Dec. 1820, 12, 19, 26 Jan., 2 Feb. 1821; Perth Courier, 30 Nov., 7, 14 Dec. 1820.
  • 25. LJ, lxiv. 10, 12, 58; CJ, lxxvi. 12, 15, 27, 51.
  • 26. CJ, lxxvi. 246.
  • 27. Ibid. lxxv. 308, 318; xxvi. 356, 361.
  • 28. Ibid. lxxvi. 273; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 4 May 1821.
  • 29. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 21, 28 Sept., 12 Oct.; Perth Courier, 4 Oct. 1821.
  • 30. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 19 Oct. 1821.
  • 31. Ibid. 11, 18 Apr., 26 Sept. 1822; CJ, lxxvii. 178, 190, 194, 209, 232, 282, 302.
  • 32. CJ, lxxvii. 282.
  • 33. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 3, 10 Oct. 1822, 9 Jan. 1823; Scotsman, 12 Oct. 1822; CJ, lxxviii. 104-5, 264.
  • 34. I.A. Robertson, Tay Salmon Fisheries since 18th Cent. (1998 edn.), 95-100; CJ, lxxviii. 242, 249; lxxix. 132, 173, 265, 313; lxxx. 438; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 10, 17 Apr. 1823; Perthshire Courier, 16 Mar. 1824.
  • 35. CJ, lxxvii. 28; lxxix. 31, 430.
  • 36. Ibid. lxxvii. 243, 262, 367; lxxviii. 400; lxxx. 199; LJ, lv. 208, 209; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 5 Sept. 1822; Jackson and Kinnear, 51-58.
  • 37. CJ, lxxix. 279; lxxx. 316.
  • 38. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 20 Dec. 1820, 23 Feb. 1821, 27 Mar. 1823; CJ, lxxviii. 292, 315, 326, 346, 433; LJ, lv. 798.
  • 39. CJ, lxxix. 132, 156, 162, 212.
  • 40. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 7 Apr. 1825; CJ, lxxx. 316, 370, 438.
  • 41. CJ, lxxx. 351, 379, 402.
  • 42. Ibid. 163, 168, 243; lxxxii. 143, 174, 568.
  • 43. Ibid. lxxviii. 434, 408; lxxix. 253, 291, 507; Perthshire Chron. 19, 26 Mar. 1824.
  • 44. CJ, lxxxi. 37, 165, 175, 188, 217, 249, 270; LJ, lvii. 212; Perthshire Courier, 9, 16 Mar.; Fife Herald, 9, 16 Mar.; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 10 Mar. 1826.
  • 45. CJ, lxxix. 223, 242.
  • 46. Ibid. 319, 365, 353, 387.
  • 47. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 2 Oct. 1823.
  • 48. CJ, lxxix. 69, 503; lxxx. 77, 154, 230, 270, 510, 586; LJ, lvi. 424, 995, 1027; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 7 Apr. 1825.
  • 49. Perth Courier, 29 Sept., 6 Oct.; The Times, 11 Oct. 1825.
  • 50. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 16 Feb.; Caledonian Mercury, 2, 13 Mar. 1826; LJ, lviii. 58, 81, 113, 119, 124, 144, 225.
  • 51. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 23 Feb.; Perthshire Courier, 16 Mar. 1826; CJ, lxxxi. 101, 152, 165, 217.
  • 52. Perthshire Courier, 9 Mar.; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 16 Mar. 1826.
  • 53. The Times, 19 Sept. 1825; CJ, lxxxi. 101, 111, 152; LJ, lviii. 57.
  • 54. CJ, lxxxi. 157, 344, 377; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 2 Mar., 4 May, 1 June 1826.
  • 55. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 16, 23 Feb., 9, 16 Mar., 4, 11, 18 May; Caledonian Mercury, 8 Apr., 6, 15 May, 22 June 1826; CJ, lxxxi. 204.
  • 56. Perthshire Courier, 25 May; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 15 June 1826.
  • 57. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 1 June; Perthshire Courier, 8 June 1826.
  • 58. Ibid. 15, 22 June 1826.
  • 59. Perthshire Courier, 22 June; Caledonian Mercury, 26 June 1826.
  • 60. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 6 July 1826.
  • 61. Ibid. 5, 19 Oct.; Caledonian Mercury, 9, 5, 14 Oct; Scotsman, 14, 21 Oct. 1826.
  • 62. LJ, lix. 40, 57, 86, 200, 251; CJ, lxxxii. 149, 158, 167, 333.
  • 63. CJ, lxxxii. 158, 174, 356.
  • 64. Perthshire Courier, 8, 15, 22 Mar. 1827; CJ, lxxxii. 333.
  • 65. CJ, lxxxii. 321; The Times, 16 Mar. 1827.
  • 66. CJ, lxxxii. 424, 439, 558.
  • 67. Ibid. 106, 269, 330, 447, 449.
  • 68. Ibid. 407, 434, 447, 449, 462, 464, 472, 491, 529, 544; lxxxiii. 535.
  • 69. G.I.T. Machin, ‘Resistance to Repeal of Test and Corporation Acts: 1828’, HJ, xxii (1979), 123, 124; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 6 Mar. 1828; CJ, lxxxiii, 220; LJ, lxix. 154, 207.
  • 70. CJ, lxxxiii. 96, 246; LJ, lxix. 209.
  • 71. CJ, lxxxiii. 235.
  • 72. Dundee City Archives, council minutes, 2 Oct. 1828-7 Apr. 1829.
  • 73. Perth Courier, 19, 26, Feb.; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 19, 26 Feb., 5, 12, 19, 26 Mar., 2, 9 Apr. 1829; CJ, lxxxiv. 140, 148; LJ, lxi. 249, 250, 314, 380.
  • 74. LJ, lxi. 136, 140, 322; CJ, lxxxiv. 114, 165, 182.
  • 75. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 19 Feb.; The Times, 10 Mar. 1829; CJ, lxxxiv. 114.
  • 76. CJ, lxxxiv. 183, 184.
  • 77. Ibid. 201.
  • 78. Ibid. 276, 282, 288.
  • 79. Ibid. 65, 126, 153, 320, 354; Perthshire Courier, 22 Jan., 19 Feb., 26 Mar., 11 June 1829.
  • 80. Perthshire Courier, 4, 11, 27 Mar. 1830; CJ, lxxxv. 210; LJ, lxii. 158.
  • 81. CJ, lxxxv. 179, 210, 261; LJ, lxii. 115, 158, 199, 525, 527.
  • 82. Fife Herald, 15 Apr. 1830; CJ, lxxxv. 382; LJ, lxii. 306, 527.
  • 83. CJ, lxxxv. 463, 615; Perthshire Courier, 1 July 1830.
  • 84. Perthshire Courier, 25 Feb., 18 Mar., 8 Apr., 24 June 1830; CJ, lxxxv. 495.
  • 85. Perthshire Courier, 28 Jan., 1 July 1830.
  • 86. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 11 Mar., 27 May; Perthshire Courier, 1 Apr.; Fife Herald, 8 Apr. 1830; J. Hannay and G.G. Ritchie, Hist. and Development of Harbour of Dundee, 8-14; CJ, lxxxv. 52, 131, 144, 151, 176, 181, 192, 199, 206, 217, 218, 234, 358, 357, 392, 400, 446, 561; LJ, lxii. 527, 547, 557.
  • 87. Perthshire Courier, 11 Mar. 1830; CJ, lxxxv. 206, 258, 274, 327, 329, 342, 346, 429, 453, 471, 488, 561.
  • 88. CJ, lxxxv. 49, 138; Perthshire Courier, 3, 20 June 1830; T.H. Marshall, Hist. Perth, 445.
  • 89. CJ, lxxxv. 51, 57, 247, 322, 355, 500.
  • 90. Ibid. 274, 327, 345.
  • 91. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 27 Sept., 4, 11 Oct. 1827, 25 Sept., 2 Oct. 1828.
  • 92. Ibid. 11, 18 Mar.; Fife Herald, 11, 25 Mar., 1 Apr.; Perthshire Courier, 18 Mar. 1830.
  • 93. Fife Herald, 8 Apr., 13 May, 10 June, 1 July 1830; Wellington mss WP1/1117/61; 1162/1.
  • 94. Fife Herald, 8 July; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 15 July 1830.
  • 95. Ellenborough Diary, ii. 313; Fife Herald, 15 July; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 15 July 1830.
  • 96. NAS GD16/34/387/7, D. Ogilvy to Airlie, 8 July; Fife Herald, 22 July; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 22 July 1830.
  • 97. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 22 July 1830.
  • 98. Fife Herald, 22 July 1830.
  • 99. Wellington mss WP1/1112/4, 20; 1126/27; Dumfries and Galloway Courier, 27 July 1830.
  • 100. Dumfries and Galloway Courier, 27 July; Perthshire Courier, 29 July 1830.
  • 101. Perthshire Courier, 29 July; Fife Herald, 5 Aug. 1830.
  • 102. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 29 July, 5, 12 Aug.; Perthshire Chronicle, 29 July, 5 Aug.; Fife Herald, 5 Aug. 1830.
  • 103. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 29, July, 12 Aug.; Caledonian Mercury, 21 Aug. 1830.
  • 104. Brougham mss, Hallyburton to Brougham, 25 Aug.; Fifeshire Herald, 26 Aug.; Caledonian Mercury, 26 Aug. 1830.
  • 105. Brougham mss, J. Brougham to Brougham, 27 Aug. 1830.
  • 106. CJ, lxxxvi. 144, 175, 445, 455; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 2 Dec. 1830.
  • 107. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 9 Sept. 1830.
  • 108. Perthshire Courier, 7 Oct. 1830.
  • 109. Ibid. 14 Oct., 4 Nov. 1830; CJ, lxxxvi. 83, 169; LJ, lxiii. 142, 166.
  • 110. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser 14 Oct., 18 Nov.; Fife Herald, 21 Oct., 11, 18, 25 Nov.; The Times, 17 Nov. 1830; CJ, lxxxvi. 83; LJ, lxiii. 119, 166.
  • 111. Fife Herald, 21, 28 Oct., 4, 11, 18 Nov., 16 Dec. 1830.
  • 112. LJ, lxiii. 36-37.
  • 113. NAD GD16/34/387/7, Kinloch and Drummond to Airlie, 7 Sept.; Caledonian Mercury, 7 Oct. 1830; CJ, lxxxvi. 14; LJ, lxiii. 25-27.
  • 114. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 25 Nov., 2, 9, 16 Dec. 1830, 10, 24 Feb.; Brougham mss, Hallyburton to Brougham, 17 Mar. 1831; CJ, lxxxvi. 188, 193.
  • 115. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 18 Nov., 2 Dec. 1830; LJ, lxiii. 119, 166.
  • 116. CJ, lxxxvi. 84, 139, 157, 167; The Times, 16 Nov., 15 Dec. 1830; NLW, Ormathwaite mss FG1/5, pp. 139-44.
  • 117. Ormathwaite mss FG1/5, pp. 143, 144 (11 Dec. 1830).
  • 118. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 16, 23 Dec. 1830.
  • 119. Add. 51677, Lord. J. Russell to Holland [22 Dec.]; Caledonian Mercury, 23 Dec. 1830.
  • 120. Perthshire Chron. 23, 30 Dec.; Fife Herald, 23, 30 Dec.; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 23, 30 Dec. 1830, 10 Feb. 1831; CJ, lxxxvi. 209, 211, 212, 221, 371.
  • 121. Caledonian Mercury, 23, 25, 27 Dec.; Stair mss (History of Parliament Aspinall transcripts), J.A. Murray to Dalrymple, 27 Dec.; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 30 Dec. 1830.
  • 122. Perthshire Courier, 13, 20 Jan.; The Times, 15 Jan., 1 Feb. 1831.
  • 123. Cockburn Letters, 287; Stair mss.
  • 124. Dundee council minutes, 27 Dec. 1830, 24 Jan.; Caledonian Mercury, 17 Jan.; Stair mss, W. Murray to Dalrymple, 18 Jan.; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 20 Jan.; The Times, 1 Feb. 1831.
  • 125. Cockburn Letters, 289, 290.
  • 126. CJ, lxxxvi. 224, 231-2; St. Deiniol’s Lib. Glynne-Gladstone mss 197, T. to J. Gladstone, 11 Feb. 1831.
  • 127. NAS GD16/34/387/8/3.
  • 128. LJ, lxiii. 196, 217, 256, 282, 301, 318.
  • 129. M. Dyer ‘"Mere Detail and Machinery"’, SHR, lxii (1983), 19-21; Cockburn Letters, 265.
  • 130. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 10, 17, 24 Mar.; Fife Herald, 31 Mar., 7 Apr. 1831; LJ, lxiii. 314, 319, 345-8, 353, 354, 357 359; CJ, lxxxvi. 371 406, 416.
  • 131. CJ, lxxxvi. 310, 371,416, 423.
  • 132. Ibid. 417, 419, 440; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 24, 31 Mar. 1831.
  • 133. Macpherson Grant mss 361.
  • 134. CJ, lxxxvi. 291, 375, 413.
  • 135. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 14, 28 Apr., 5 May; The Times, 16 May 1831.
  • 136. Perthshire Courier, 12, 19, 26 May 1831.
  • 137. Fife Herald, 7, 14 Apr.; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 14, 28 Apr. 1831; Cockburn Letters, 314, 315.
  • 138. Brougham mss, Hallyburton to Brougham, 17 Mar.; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 24 Mar., 14, 21, 28 Apr., 19 May 1831.
  • 139. Dundee City Archives GD/Ca/EC/28/1.
  • 140. Caledonian Mercury, 5, 12 May 1831; Dundee in 1793 and 1833, p. 76.
  • 141. Montrose, Arbroath and Brechin Review, 20 May 1831.
  • 142. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 26 May 1831.
  • 143. CJ, lxxxvi. 597; The Times, 15 Aug. 1831.
  • 144. Cockburn Letters, 314, 315, 340; Dyer, 21.
  • 145. CJ, lxxxvi. 592; Cockburn Letters, 314, 315; The Times, 1 July 1831.
  • 146. CJ, lxxxvi. 733; The Times, 7 Aug. 1831.
  • 147. Caledonian Mercury, 1, 7, 15 Aug.; Cockburn Letters, 336, 337, 340.
  • 148. Caledonian Mercury, 3, 17 Sept. 1831; CJ, lxxxvi. 863.
  • 149. Dyer, 22; Perthshire Courier, 6 Oct.; Caledonian Mercury, 13 Oct. 1831.
  • 150. CJ, lxxxvi. 873.
  • 151. Ibid. 703, 746.
  • 152. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 22 Sept.; Fife Herald, 29 Sept. 1831; LJ, lxiii. 1022-6, 1034, 1036, 1037, 1044-6, 1061.
  • 153. CJ, lxxxvi. 569-70, 580, 653, 696, 777; LJ, lxiii. 864, 872, 899; Perthshire Courier, 6 Oct. 1831.
  • 154. Perthshire Courier, 13 Oct; Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 13 Oct. 1831.
  • 155. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 19 Apr. 1832.
  • 156. Ibid. 26 Apr. 1832; LJ, lxiv. 185, 194, 199.
  • 157. Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 17 May 1832; LJ, lxiv. 364, 366; CJ, lxxxvii. 326.
  • 158. CJ, lxxxvii. 318.
  • 159. Ibid. lxxxvi. 863; lxxxvii. 435; LJ, lxiv. 363, 364, 366.
  • 160. Dundee. Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 9, 16 June, 26 July, 16 Aug. 1832.