John Galt - a lucky find!

A great edition of John Galt’s best-known works – Annals of the Parish and the Ayrshire Legatees in one volume, published by Mercat Classics (TheMercat Press) in 1994.  According to the information on the inside page this is “a facsimile of the edition published by Macmillan & Co in 1895”.  In the modern edition, there is a new introduction by Ian Campbell.  This was a fortunate find in a charity shop recently at a cost of £3.49.  

This edition, like that of 1895 contains wonderful illustrations by Charles E Brock.  Both the Annals of the Parish and The Ayrshire Legatees were originally published separately in book form in 1821 after having been serialised in Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine.

Illustration by C E Brock

A very lucky find!

Macskipnish the dancing master

One of the great things about the novels of John Galt is the descriptive names he gives to his characters.  Mr Macskipnish the dancing master in Annals of the Parish (Year 1761) is a perfect example.

Galt writes – 

“Mr Macskipnish, who was, to be sure, a great curiosity, with long spindle legs, his breast shot out like a duck’s, and his head powdered and frizzled up like a tappit-hen.  He was indeed, the proudest peacock that could be seen, and he had a ring on his finger, and when he came to drink his tea at the Breadland, he brought no hat on his head, but a droll cockit thing under his arm, which, he said, was after the manner of the courtiers at the petty suppers of one Madam Pompadour, who was at that time the concubine of the French king.”  

In his Literary Life (Vol I) John Galt notes that 

“… Macskipnish is a caricature of one [dancing master] that afterwards taught me to walk minuets at Greenock.  His story, however, is a fiction.”

In Galt’s time, many Greenock youngsters attended dancing lessons at the Masons Hall at the corner of Hamilton Street and Charles Street, not far from Galt's home in West Blackhall Street.  John Williamson describes, from personal memory, local dancing master, James Crawford in Old Greenock From the Earliest times -

 “Mr Crawford, senior, was a little, broad man, with grey hair profusely powdered.  His function was to promenade the hall, and take a general supervision, while his sons showed the steps, one of them meantime playing the violin.  They were both graceful dancers.  Our masters’ pronunciation of the word “foot” always caused a titter, as they pronounced it futt.  Want of attention or careless dancing was not unfrequently visited by a whack on the shins or toes, and in this way the figures of the dances were literally whipped into us.”

Galt gives Macskipnish and his arrival in Dalmailing, town in which the Annals of the Parish is set, in 1761 a back story - 

“But a thing happened in this year, which deserves to be recorded, as manifesting what effect the smuggling was beginning to take in the morals of the countryside.  On Mr Macskipnish, of Highland parentage, who had been a valet de chambre with a major in the campaigns, and taken prisoner with him by the French, he having come home in a cartel, took up a dancing school at Irville, the which art he had learnt in the genteelest fashion, in the mode of Paris, at the French court.”

Dancing proved to be a popular pastime with young boys and girls in Dalmailing -

“For such a thing as a dancing school had never, in the memory of man, been known in our countryside; and there was such a sound about the steps and cotillions of Mr Macskipnish, that every lad and lass, that could spare time and siller, went to him, to the great neglect of their work."

Williamson also explains the dancing lessons in Greenock and how the Masons Hall – 

“When not required for the business of the Lodge, the Hall was let for lectures, public exhibitions, or auction sales.  It was also hired for a dancing school, and here for many years Messrs James Crawford & Sons, the fashionable dancing masters from Paisley, had classes for instruction in the terpsichorean art, dubbed “heel philosophy” by our sarcastic grammar school master, Dr Brown.  The classes were largely attended by the pupils of the English, writing, grammar, and other day schools.  They met in the afternoons of winter and spring.  Great attention was devoted to the pointing of the toes and the carriage of the pupils, the latter being the chief object of many of the parents in sending their children to the dancing school, rather than the learning of “steps” and “dances”."

Masons Hall, Charles Street, Greenock (later Crawfords Restaurant)

However, dancing masters were not always popular.  Williamson continues - 

“At the end of the season, sometimes before it, the grand gathering for the ball took place in the new Assembly Rooms, Exchange Buildings, when our positions and partners were assigned to us – sometimes to our no small disgust, when separated from the partners of our choice!”

Mr Macskipnish would appear to embody a lot of what John Galt remembered from his boyhood dance teacher in Greenock and provides us with a wonderful, almost visual character strutting about the dancefloor.

Jams, jellies and marmlet

With the current controversy about marmalade it is interesting to note that John Galt wrote about "marmlet", the old Scottish word for marmalade in the Ayrshire Legatees which was published in 1821.  His wonderful character, Mrs Pringle, wife of the Rev Dr Zachariah Pringle of Garnock, packed some to take with her on a trip to London.  It was then considered a delicacy.  In Chapter 3, Letter 6,  Mrs Pringle writes from London to her friend Miss Mally Glencairn back in Garnock.  She tells her friend about the supplies she packed before leaving Garnock which she thought would be necessary in London including some muslin because she had heard that London shops –

“get all their fine muslins from Glasgow and Paisley; and in the same bocks [box] with them I packit a small crock of our ain excellent poudered butter, with a delap cheese, for I was told that such commodities are not to be had genuine in London. I likewise had in it a pot of marmlet [marmalade], which Miss Jenny Macbride gave me at Glasgow, assuring me that it was not only dentice [a delicacy], but a curiosity among the English."

18th century recipe for marmalade

Mrs Pringle tends to spell words as she would say them.  However, Mrs Pringle’s careful packing of necessities and delicacies suffered from the journey, as she goes on to describe –

"Howsomever, in the nailing of the bocks, which I did carefully with my oun hands, one of the nails gaed in a-jee, and broke the pot of marmlet, which by the jolting of the ship, ruined the muslin, rottened the peper round the goun, which the shivers cut into more than twenty great holes.  Over and above all, the crock with the butter was, no one can tell how, crackit, and the pickle lecking out and mixing with the seerip of the marmlet, spoilt the cheese.  In short, at the object I beheld when the bocks was opened, I could have ta’en to the greeting; but I behaved with more composity on the occasion than the doctor thought it was in the power of nature to do.”

Galt also refers to the popularity of jams and other preserves in the Annals of the Parish (Chapter 28, Year 1787) when the Rev Michah Balwhidder notes –

“I should not, in my notations, forget to mark a new luxury that got in among the commonality at this time.  By the opening of new roads, and the traffic thereon with carts and carriers, and by our young men that were sailors going to the Clyde and sailing to Jamaica and the West Indies, heaps of sugar and coffee-beans were brought home, while many, among the kail-stocks and cabbages in their yards had planted groset [gooseberry] and berry bushes; which two things happening together, the fashion to make jam and jelly, which hitherto had been only known in the kitchens and confectionaries of the gentry, came to be introduced into the clachan.”

Greenock Harbour

Certainly at that time, Greenock was one of the biggest importer of sugar from the West Indies.  John Galt's father had been the master of a ship trading with Jamaica, so Galt would have been very much aware of the effect such imports had on everyday life.  Along with the regular imports, of course there were other "unregulated" goods, which the Rev Balwhidder goes on to mention -

“All this, however, was not without a plausible pretext; for it was found that jelly was an excellent medicine for a sore throat, and jam a remedy as good as London candy for a cough, or a cold, or a shortness of breath.  I could not, however, say that this gave me so much concern as the smuggling trade, only it occasioned a great fasherie to Mrs Balwhidder; for, in the berry time, there was no end to the borrowing of her brass-pan to make jelly and jam, till Mrs Toddy of the Cross-Keys bought one, which in its turn, came into request, and saved ours.”

One of John Galt's great strengths as a writer is the way he uses ordinary people and households to illustrate the changes that were going on in local society and the wider world.  Marmlet - what a great word!

Galt's books - "the Larger Catechism of the Scottish language"

In John Galt's novel the Annals of the Parish - (p10, Year 1760), Thomas Thorl speaks to the Rev Micha Balwhidder -  

“Come in, sir, and ease yoursel’: this will never do: the clergy are God’s gorbies, and for their Master’s sake it behoves us to respect them.  There was no ane in the whole parish mair against you than mysel’; but this early visitation is a symptom of grace that I couldna have expectit from a bird out of the nest of patronage.”

The language used is everyday speech for Thorl. In the 1895 Blackwoods Edition of the Annals of the Parish, edited by David Storrar Meldrum, the author Samuel Rutherford Crockett (1859-1914) in his introduction, compares Galt's use of language with that of the Bard –

“Practically he [Galt] writes the Scots of Robert Burns.  His vocabulary is not so extensive, his adjectives scantly so trenchant.  He is by no means so “free in his discourse” as the poet.  But they are essentially shoots of the same stem.  They learned, as it were, at one parent’s knee.”

Crockett continues, comparing Galt's use of Scots with that of the Scottish authors Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) and Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) - 

"Galt’s variety of his Scottish tongue is full of fine old grandmotherly words, marrow with pith and sap.  Scott, like Stevenson, wrote his vernacular a little from the heights.  But Galt writes his Scots like one who has been cradled in it, who lisped it in the doorways and cried it to other loons across the street.  He lived among men and women who habitually spoke it.”

Another great example of the speech of Galt's ordinary, everyday folk can be found in The Entail (p120) when the Leddy speaks to Jamie Walkinshaw - 

“Haud your tongue, and dinna terrify folk wi’ ony sic impossibility!” exclaimed the Leddy – “Poor man, he has something else to think o’ at present.  Is no your aunty brought nigh unto the gates o’ death?  Would ye expek him to be thinking o’ marriage settlements and wedding banquets, when death’s so busy in his dwelling?  Ye’re an unfeeling creature, Jamie.  But the army’s the best place for sic graceless getts."

Crockett remarks on Galt's use of Scots - 

“Galt spares no pains to introduce every old and recondite Scots word he knows.  His books are, indeed, the Larger Catechism of the Scottish language, in so far that they are by no means written for those of weaker understanding.”

The language used by Galt in many of his works will be very familiar to a lot of Scottish people.  It makes his characters come to life and become more real - just by the way they use everyday language of their time and place.

Delap-cheese or Dunlop cheese?

In both The Annals of the Parish (1821) and The Ayrshire Legatees (1820), John Galt mentions Delap-cheese.  While of course the works are fiction, there was a particular type of cheese that originated in Ayrshire and would have been popular when Galt was a boy in Irvine.  It is called Dunlop cheese. 

Dunlop cheese takes its name from the Dunlop, a village in Ayrshire where it was supposedly first made.  The story goes that a woman named Barbara Gilmour, a farmer’s wife, was the first to introduce the cheese in Ayrshire.  It is said that Barbara went to Ireland to avoid the troubles around the time of the Covenanters and it was there that she saw the process which she thought improved the taste and texture of cheese.  On returning home around 1688, she applied it in her own dairy, and the cheese became very popular and was produced throughout Ayrshire and other parts of Scotland.

In The Ayrshire Legatees, Mrs Pringle in a letter from London to her friend Miss Mally Glencairn describing her preparations for her journey to London writes –

“and in the same bocks with them I packit a small crock of our ain excellent poudered butter, with a Delap cheese, for I was told that such commodities are not to be had genuine in London.” 

John Galt has his own version of the origins of the cheese.  In Annals of the Parish The Rev Micah Balwhidder describes his future wife - 

“Soon after this, the time was drawing near for my second marriage.  I had placed my affections, with due consideration, on Miss Lizy Kibbock, the well brought-up daughter of Mr Joseph Kibbock of the Gorbyholm, who was the first that made a speculation in the farming way in Ayrshire, and whose cheese were of such an excellent quality, that they have, under the name of Delap-cheese, spread far and wide of the civilized world.”

Dunlop cheese was well known throughout Scotland and thought especially good for roasting and spread on oat cakes.

John Galt - Social Historian?

For many years the Greenock Philosophical Society held an annual John Galt Lecture.  This little book, John Galt, Social Historian was presented to William M Brownlie, Rector of Greenock High School, who delivered the lecture in March 1951.

The bookplate states - "Presented to William M Brownlie PhD by the members of the Greenock Philosophical Society as a memento of a very interesting occasion".  It was published by the Telegraph Printing Works in Greenock.

It is a very interesting account of Brownlie's lecture in which he looks at Annals of the Parish by John Galt and compares the accounts of the Parish of Dalmailing (the setting of the novel) with changes to the social and industrial lives of the people of Greenock and Irvine.  Changes in farming methods and introduction of large scale industry are particularly noted.

Greenock Philosophical Society (link leads to present Facebook page) was instituted in 1861 and still continues to this day.  Many interesting and learned speakers over the years.  The annual John Galt Lecture ran for a number of years along with an annual James Watt Lecture.

John Galt at Makars' Court

The Royal Mile in Edinburgh is a very popular tourist destination.  Near the top of the Royal Mile, is Lady Stair’s Close.  Here can be found Edinburgh’s Makars' Court - makar is the Scots word for poet or author - and the Writers’ Museum.  One of the first things you will see on entering Lady Stair's Close is this paving slab commemorating author John Galt with the words birr and smeddum.

John Galt slab in Makars' Court, Edinburgh

Birr and smeddum are Scottish words often used by Galt in his writing.  Birr usually means energy or enthusiasm and smeddum can mean strength.

Galt uses the term “birr and smeddum” in Annals of the Parish when describing a book by the son of a parishioner -

“And his mother had the satisfaction, before she died, to see him a placed minister, and his name among the authors of his country; for he published at Edinburgh a volume of Moral Essays, of which he sent me a pretty bound copy, and they were greatly creditable to his pen, though lacking somewhat of that birr and smeddum that is the juice and flavour of books of that sort.”

Galt uses the words individually.  In his work The Annals of the Parish, when Mrs Craig states to Mr Snodgrass –

“For my part, it’s a very caldrife way of life to dine every day on coffee; broth and beef would put mair smeddum in the men.”  

The word caldrife can mean, cold, cheerless.  In The Provost, one of the characters is called “Mr Smeddum”.  Also in the Provost is an account of a council meeting when the Provost relates -

“Mr Keelevine made an endeavour to dissuade me; but I set him down with a stern voice, striking the table at the same time with all my birr, as I said “Sir, you have no voice here.”

The courtyard called Makars' Court contains many other slabs commemorating Scottish writers and poets.  The Writers' Museum faces the courtyard and has fabulous exhibits of the life and works of Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson.  Unfortunately, there is nothing inside concerning John Galt – surely a great omission.

Lord Eaglesham and the Eglinton shooting

One of the aspects of John Galt’s writing which is interesting and appealing is the way he manages to retell factual, real life events, sometimes very trivial, within the characters and plots of his novels. 

Alexander Montgomerie, 10th Earl of Eglinton

One of the characters in Annals of the Parish (published in 1821) is Lord Eaglesham who is shot by Mungo Argyle, an exciseman.  Lord Eaglesham can easily be identified as Ayrshire's Alexander Montgomerie, 10^th Earl of Eglinton who, in 1769 was shot by an exciseman, Mungo Campbell.  There is a very interesting account of the incident here.

Galt writes in Annals of the Parish, (Chapter 22) -

“About the end of summer my Lord Eaglesham came to the castle, bringing with him an English madam, that was his Miss.”  “And sure enough it so happened; for the next day, being airing in his coach with Miss Spangle, the lady he had brought, he happened to see Mungo Argyle with his dogs and his gun, and, my lord being as particular about his game as the other was about boxes of tea and kegs of brandy, he jumped out of the carriage, and ran to take the gun.  Words passed, and the exciseman shot my lord … and the same night my lord breathed his last, and the made and wild reprobate that did the deed was then up and sent off to Edinburgh.”

As for “Miss Spangle”, as Galt calls her, Lord Eglinton had a long term mistress, Mrs Brown.  James Boswell (another Ayrshire man) who knew Eglinton well, wrote in his London Journal on Thursday 10 March 1762: –

“I breakfasted with Lord Eglinton.  He generally breakfasts with his family above stairs, whom I shall now paint.  It consists of three.  In the first place, Miss or Mrs Brown, who has lived with him seven or eight years.  She is a good-looking woman, and I dare say is the best of her profession that ever existed.  She is quiet, good-humoured, and diligent at slight pretty work.  She is neither avaricious nor extravagant.  She has a degree of laughing simplicity that is agreeable so far, but when she shows it too much it appears foolish.” 

The Earl of Eglinton was responsible for planning and building the village of Eaglesham in East Renfrewshire, now a conservation area - obviously where John Galt got his character's name from.  Eglinton was also known for introducing improvements to his Ayrshire estate.  He was also a keen horseman and raced his horses at many events around the country.  Galt has Reverend Micah Balwhidder describe the character Eaglesham: –

"His Lordship was of a genteel spirit, and very fond of his horses, which were the most beautiful creatures of their kind that had been seen in all the countryside.”

Smuggling in Ayrshire is described in the Annals of the Parish and the Reverend Balwhidder is not averse to enjoying some of the goods which are available.  Customs officers, or excisemen as they were known, were obviously not well liked!  John Galt's character, Mungo Argyle is described by Reverend Balwhidder -

"Mungo Argyle, the exciseman, waxing rich, grew proud and petulant, and would have ruled the countryside with a rod of iron.  Nothing less would serve him than a fine horse to ride on, and a world of other conveniences and luxuries, as if he had been on an equality with gentlemen.  And he bought a grand gun, which was called a fowling-piece; and he had two pointer dogs, the like of which had not been seen in the parish since the planting of the Eaglesham-wood on the moorland.”

While this story plays just a small part of the narrative in Annals of the Parish, the events which took place in 1769 played a part in the history of Ayrshire.

The Annals of the Parish

One of John Galt's best known books is The Annals of the Parish published in 1821.  Its secondary title, The chronicle of Dalmailing; during the ministry of the Rev. Micah Balwhidder, written by himself, provides an explanation of what the book about.

It tells the story of a small Ayrshire community seen through the eyes of their minister Rev Balwhidder who relates the changes over the years as well as a bit of gossip about his parishioners.  It is a wonderful book and freely available to read online.

The John Galt Society have an online version of the novel read by members of the Society made to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the book's publication.  You can view and listen here at Annals of the Parish @ 200.

John Galt's first love?

There is very little evidence from his work that John Galt was in any way a romantic - evidence would show quite the opposite.  In his novels, many of the marriages that take place are for purely practical or financial reasons.  In the Annals of the Parish, the Rev Micah Balwhidder, after the death of his second wife recounts the the reasoning behind choosing his third -

 "I was now far down in the vale of years, and could not expect to be long without feeling some of the penalties of old age, although I was still a hail and sound man.  It therefore behoved me to look in time for a helpmate, to tend me in my approaching infirmities."

It comes as a bit of a surprise then to learn that in his own younger life, John Galt had a secret love!  She was someone he met before his departure from Greenock to London in 1804.

The Greenock Advertiser published this article in December 1849, ten years after Galt's death -

"For half a century the late John Galt kept in his desk, never seen by human eye save his own, the miniature of a young lady who was, we may suppose, his first love.  The likeness was taken when the lady was about to proceed to the south of England for the benefit of her health; but the hopes of lengthened days from the change of climate were doomed to be disappointed, as she there died.

During his varied career, our clever townsman seems ever to have retained fresh in his memory a tender recollection of her who first called forth his affection.  Very shortly before his death, Mr Galt gave the portrait to his friends, with directions that it might be presented to some one of the relatives of the lady who had not any other remembrancer of her, and this wish was complied with."

It seems that John Galt also kept some verses which he wrote at the time.  The article continues - 

"It [the likeness] was accompanied by the following lines, which were written on hearing of the lady’s decease.  They are chiefly remarkable as among the earliest, perhaps the very earliest, effusions of Mr Galt."  

The second verse of the poem reads -

"How sweet was that face and mild its expression,
As a lamb on the lea in the evening beam;

And kind was that heart, and soft its impression,

So soft as the moonlight that sleeps on the stream."

 The work ends -

"But consumption’s pale hand, with a touch cold and pining,
Has wasted those charms; on a strange distant shore
The lily was withered, wane and declining,
It bowed it sweet head, and it never rose more."

It would appear that John Galt's first love remained for a long time in his thoughts.

Bryce Gilliland RN - how Galt used his story

John Galt writes fondly of his early years in Irvine before moving to Greenock in 1789 when he was 10 years old.  A sickly child, he was often at home with his mother and heard stories told by the women she met with around Irvine.  One particular person he remembered hearing about was Bryce Gilliland (1769-1805).  Galt writes in his autobiography: -

"This infirm state led me not only to avoid the hearty exercises of other boys, but to seek indoor amusement that was, had it been observed, remarkable in one so young.  I remember that there were a number of old women who lived in the close behind my grandmother's house, and in their society to hear their tales and legends I was a frequent visitor.  One of them was the mother of Lieutenant Gueliland, who was flag-officer to Lord Nelson, and killed at the battle of Trafalgar.  He was older than me, and I do not recollect him very well, but he was a brave and intelligent officer; his townsmen have erected a monument to his memory in the church, and I have the gratification to record that I obtained for his only sister a munificent donation from the Patriotic Fund formed during the war at Lloyd's."

There is a monument to Lieutenant Gilliland in Irvine Old Parish Church which reads: -

“To the memory of Bryce Gulliland.  Late first Lieutenant of His Majesty’s Ship Royal Sovereign.  A native of Irvine, who after receiving his education there as a seaman, was impressed and from his own merit, advanced to that distinguished station, and in the 36^th year of his age, was killed in the memorable Battle of Trafalgar upon the 21^st day of October 1805.  He fell at his post in his Country’s Cause and with Nelson.  This monument as a Tribute of respect is erected by his Townsmen.” 

It is likely that Bryce Gilliland he went to sea, as many Irvine men did.  It is recorded that he was later press-ganged into service with the Royal Navy.  His naval career seemed to have started as an Able Seaman on HMS Diana in 1794 and proceeded with service on many navy ships such as HMS Standard.  He was Quartermaster on HMS Northumberland and rose to the rank of Midshipman and Master's Mate.  In 1801 he served aboard Nelson's flagship HMS Foudroyant.  He saw service in the Egyptian Campaign becoming a Lieutenant and serving on HMS Druid. (This information was obtained from a fabulous website "TrafalgarAncestors" at the National Archive.) 

Ironically, Between 1801 and 1802 Gilliland was part of the impress service based at the Strong Man pub in Lower East Smithfield, London, recruiting for the Royal Navy ship HMS Determinee.  Thereafter he was transferred to HMS Dreadnaught where he came to the attention of Admiral Collingwood. 

Admiral Collingwood

He must have made a good impression on the Admiral because on 9 October, Collingwood wrote to Lord Nelson that he wished to take his Signal Lieutenant, Bryce Gilliland with him from the Dreadnaught to the Royal Sovereign.

On 21 October 1805 Bryce Gilliland, aged 36 was killed on board the Royal Sovereign during her heroic struggles in the Battle of Trafalgar.

As John Galt points out in his Autobiography (Chapter 10), quoted above, Lloyds did, on 28 July 1803, set up a Patriotic Fund "to assist the many casualties of the Napoleonic Wars".  It is still in existence, working with armed forces charities providing help to those in need.

Perhaps John Galt was remembering the old stories he heard told by Bryce Gilliland's mother when he wrote the following passage in his 1821 novel Annals of the Parish.  The passage refers to a young man from the locality, Charles Malcolm and is told by the narrator of the book, the Rev Micah Balwhidder:-

    “I had, in the meantime, written a letter to the Lord Eaglesham, to get Charles Malcolm out of the clutches of the pressgang in the man-of-war; and about a month after, his lordship sent me an answer, wherein was enclosed a letter from the captain of the ship, saying that Charles Malcolm was so good a man that he was reluctant to part with him, and that Charles himself was well contented to remain aboard.  Anent which, his lordship said to me, that he had written back to the captain to make a midshipman of Charles, and that he would take him under his own protection, which was great joy on two accounts to us all, especially to his mother; first, to hear that Charles was a good man, although in years still but a youth; and, secondly, that my lord had, of his own free will, taken him under the wing of his patronage.”

In the Annals of the Parish, Charles Malcolm rises through the ranks becoming Captain of his own ship but dies in action against the French.

John Galt was a master at weaving real life events into his work.