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Dunbar House Museum and Gallery

Crime and Punishment

Dunbar’s Town House has stood in the centre of the High Street for around four hundred years. It was from here that the Town Council looked after the affairs of the Burgh until local government reorganisation in 1975. Dunbar became a Free Burgh in 1370 and a , with rights granted by King James ll, in 1445. Among the privileges held by the town council was the right to hold trials, with a court and prison. Three councillors would be appointed as magistrates or judges with weekly courts held in the Council Chamber on the top floor of the building. The powers of the magistrates were widespread. Early 17th century charters tell Dunbar Town House with octagonal us that at that time they held ‘full powers of calling suits, fining clock tower circa 1900. Courtesy of absents, accusing, punishing, and condemning to death Dunbar & History Society. malefactors as well strangers as neighbours.’ Executions are mentioned in Dunbar’s earliest records. In 1608, Swan was executed after he killed George Clarkson ‘by striking him with a fork on his head’. Criminals were banished from the town while flogging also took place. In 1824, Robert Dennet was found guilty of ‘assaulting, cutting and wounding with an intent to murder’. He was given 100 lashes, 20 on leaving the , 20 at the east end of the town, 20 at Thompson’s Close where the crime was committed, 20 at the seaport and 20 at the foot of Silver Street. A surgeon was to attend. Daniell Sanderson, prisoner in the Town House in 1668, was ‘found guiltie of scandalising his said master and threatening him with the hazard of his life’. He was banished and sent to the plantations. The executioner, or ‘lockman’, was named after his right to a lock or handful of corn from each sack brought to market. In 1698 George Gray was ordered to put beggars and vagabonds out of the burgh and to clean up the market-place, as well as scourging and branding of prisoners and caring for them in the prison and thieves hole. The executioner’s house was said to have stood at the head of Silver Street. It was demolished in the mid-18th century when the tenement on the north side of the Town House was used. The jailer and his wife lived on the premises, thought to be on the ground floor, and later in an addition to the rear of the building. In 1822 Betty Carse bemoaned the fact that her husband was to be retired, when the magistrates and council decided to take on a police officer ‘in room of John Carse whose age renders him unfit for office’. John Carse first appeared in records as a bellman and then Town Officer or jailor. His wife was also given duties, looking after prisoners and as a cleaner in the Town House. ‘Contingents, paid Betty Carse (wife of John Carse) for keeping a distressed woman 6 weeks at 1/-‘ (Dunbar Town Council Minutes, 16th 1811)

Image: John Hogg, Bell Man of Dunbar Licensor www.scran.ac.uk

Prisoners, many of them debtors and petty criminals, served their sentences in the jail room on the first floor. More serious cases could be tried at the Sheriff Court in Haddington or, in the case of witches, . Around seventy and probably more were tried of witchcraft within the Presbytery of Dunbar from the late 16th century to the early 18th century. Trials in Dunbar were held by commissions granted by ’s Privy Council. One well documented case is that of Catherine McTaggert, who was tried in 1688 when more than forty people appeared Recreation of prison cell conditions for an East Lothian Council Museums event 2018 as witnesses against her. On one occasion she was reported to have been seen through the High Street on a white - faced calf at 10 0’clock at night. Other crimes included causing the death of a man at the ‘shoar’ after cursing him for striking her while caught stealing coal, and causing the death of a cow where the milk turned to blood after she was refused the milk from a farm in Spott.

The church or Kirk Session played a large part looking after the morals of local people until the early 19th century. Offenders, often women who had committed adultery, would be held in prison until they were made to stand before the Sunday congregation in sackcloth, or appear on the penance stool. In the burgh records there is also mention of stocks and a gibbet, which is said to have stood at Gala (Gala) Green.

Kirking procession of Dunbar Town Council and By 1818, when John Gurney, the brother of prison Police to Parish Church circa 1900. Licensor reformer Elizabeth Fry, visited Dunbar, he noted the www.scran.ac.uk following – ‘You ascend up a narrow dirty staircase into two small cells, of which this little gaol consists. These rooms, one of which is for debtors, the other for criminals of all descriptions, are kept in a state of extreme filth, and are severely furnished with a little straw, and a tub for every dirty purpose. There is no court or airing ground in the prison nor any other accommodation whatsoever. Happily there was no-one confined here.’

In 1823 scandal rocked the town when William Borthwick, head cashier of the East Lothian Bank, absconded with funds amounting to £80,000. ‘First Mr. Goudie he maun thole To sit a while in yon dark hole With no a window, but a bole With iron grate…’ (contemporary rhyme)

Original investors included local businessmen, farmers and traders. A cotton factory had been set up at Belhaven where the main partners were a brother of Image: East Lothian Banking Company, William Borthwick and George Goudie. The company bank note printed 1810-1822. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk had obtained money illegally from East Lothian Bank to finance speculations. George Goudie was ‘incarcerated in the Tolbooth of Dunbar’. The few ‘captives’ who were confined by around 1830 were debtors who were either set free after paying their debts, or by an ‘Act of Grace’. The jail had fallen into disrepair by the mid-19th century and after finding temporary accommodation, the council purchased the property behind the Town House where they created three cells. A police force was organised in 1832 after the arrival of Inspector Alfred John List, a Metropolitan trained officer. While local constables had served Dunbar’s town council for many years, they did not join fully with the new county police force until 1869, under George Henry List, his younger brother. Dunbar’s police station was on the ground floor and latterly at No. 2 Silver Street. In 1949 work began on a new police station at Castellau, where it still stands today, to include an office, mortuary, garage, and with three adjoining houses for members of the constabulary.

Glossary Burgh – a town with special privileges conferred by charter, with a corporation Magistrates – judges – the head of a town or burgh council in Scotland Burgess – an inhabitant of a town or burgh with full rights of Tolbooth – a town hall, often including an office where market dues were collected and a prison

Gibbet – a gallows

Further Reading Anderson, David. Old Dunbar. Ochiltree: Stenlake Publishing, 2000. Bunyan, Stephen. A Walk Around Historic Dunbar, Source Design, 2017. Dennison, E Patricia, Stronach, Simon and Coleman Russel. Historic Dunbar, Archaeology and development. Historic Scotland, 2006. Friends of John Muir’s Birthplace. John Muir’s Dunbar. 1997. Miller, James. The History of Dunbar. Dunbar; James Downie, 1859. (available on line) Pugh, Roy. Swords Loaves and Fishes. Mid Lothian, Balerno; Harlaw Heritage, 2002

Websites Dunbar & District History Society www.dunbarhistory.org.uk East Lothian Council Museums Service www.eastlothian.gov.uk/museums John Gray Centre Archives & Local History www.johngraycentre.org SCRAN – Access to cultural resources www.scran.ac.uk