How locals of one Scottish town earned their 'gable endies' nickname

In the past few days I have received a couple of emails asking me about county towns. I am always happy to answer interesting questions when I can, so I will interrupt this series next week to give a brief history of the county towns of Scotland.

I acknowledge once again as sources electricscotland.com and its online publication of the work of Montrose’s local historian David Mitchell that was published in 1866: The History Of Montrose, Containing Important Particulars In Relation To Its Trade, Manufactures, Commerce, Shipping, Antiquities, Eminent Men, Town Houses Of The Neighbouring Country Gentry In Former Years.

One reader contacted me with her own bit of Montrose’s history. Pat Davidson emailed me to say: “I’m an old ‘gable-endy’, ie, born in Montrose, in 1941 and grew up there till I married, so I was fascinated to learn history I knew nothing about in your article. At that time I hated history, since all we were taught was English kings and queens, their battles and wars etc. My knowledge and memories are therefore personal and anecdotal.

“I have very clear memories, even of the final war years, as I spent my first five years living about half-a-mile from the Spitfire base, before my family lost everything and we moved to a 300-odd-year-old neglected mansion, where my parents spent the next 18 years trying to make ends meet running it as a guest house.

“It was a wonderful house of its time, originally belonging to Sir George Ramsay of Balmain Estate near Blairgowrie, with three genuine Adam fireplaces, three windows blocked to lessen the window tax and half-an-acre of garden, set on the highest point of Montrose. In the 1960s, the council demolished the lot and built flats – sheer vandalism! I do still have a B&W photo and a very clear picture of every bit of it in my memory.”

The house was indeed built for the Ramsays of Balmain but they sold it to William Gordon for the sum of £1000 – “a good bargain certainly”, David Mitchell wrote.

READ MORE: Montrose: the Scottish town that was rebuilt from the ashes and prospered – more than once

Pat makes a very good point about being taught English rather than Scottish history. I suspect the sorry state of Scottish people’s knowledge of this nation’s fascinating history is due to the “Briticising”, as I call it, of history in our classrooms over the decades. I will return to this subject before July 4.

Pat tells me she’s writing more about her memories of Montrose. I would encourage more readers to write their personal memories of their home towns and maybe contribute them to their local library – I recall several libraries pulling together books of such reminiscences and they did good business.

I left off last week with the coming of the Reformation to Montrose, which played an under-appreciated part in those historic events, especially through the thoughts and activities of the town’s one-time provost, John Erskine, laird of Dun.

Last week I told how he led the defence of Montrose against an English incursion in 1548 – why is it not acknowledged as the Battle of Montrose? Although he was by all accounts a mild-mannered man, his courage in embracing the Protestant cause was never in doubt.

His encouragement of humanist education at the local grammar school, a forerunner of Montrose Academy, where he financed the study of Greek, saw him become a leading figure for religious reform.

A friend of the Protestant martyr George Wishart, Erskine knew John Knox (above), formerly assistant to Wishart, and all the other chief Reformers in the middle of the 16th century.

After Catholicism was banned and the Protestant faith made obligatory, in 1561 Erskine of Dun became a Presbyterian cleric, noted for his preaching and for his tolerance of liberty of conscience.

It was he who would effectively referee the disputations between Knox and Mary, Queen of Scots – she described him as “a mild and sweet-natured man, with true honesty and uprightness” – and the Montrose man was elected several times to be the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

He died aged 82 in 1591 and thus missed out on one of the big events of Montrose’s history, the General Assembly of the Kirk in 1600. This Assembly started in late March and the eyes of Scotland were upon the Angus town, as it was expected that the meeting would settle the burning issue of the day: would the Kirk have bishops, as was desired by King James VI, or would it embrace Presbyterianism entirely. The great Reformer, Andrew Melville, himself a product of a Montrose education, came to the town to promote the Presbyterian cause.

David Mitchell wrote: “It was no sooner known that Andrew Melville had come to Montrose than the King sent for him. His Majesty asked him why he was so troublesome, by persisting to attend Assemblies after he had prohibited him. He replied that he had a commission from the Church and he behoved to discharge it, under the pain of incurring the displeasure of one who was greater than any earthly monarch.

“Recourse was then had to menaces but they only served to rouse Melville’s spirit. On quitting the royal apartment, he put his hand to his throat and said, ‘Sir, is it this you want? Take this head, and cut it off: you shall have it before I will betray the cause of Christ’. He was not allowed to take his seat in the judicatory but it was judged unadvisable to order him out of the town, as had been done on a former occasion. He accordingly remained, and assisted his brethren with arguments and advice during the sitting of the Assembly.”

The great issue of episcopacy was not settled at Montrose. Instead there was a “fudge” of an outcome with Kirk “commissioners” taking seats in Parliament while James VI (above) simply waited for the death of Elizabeth I of England, knowing that country’s church had bishops and assuming after the Union of the Crowns he could simply extend that policy to the Kirk – how wrong he was, as it stubbornly remains Presbyterian to this day.

The most famous citizen of Montrose was actually born just outside the town at Old Montrose. James Graham was the son of the Earl of Montrose, also James, and his wife Lady Margaret Ruthven.

His exact birth date is not known but it was in the autumn of 1612.

He was educated locally and then in Glasgow before later attending St Andrews University.

James succeeded to the earldom when his father died in 1626. He married Magdalene Carnegie when he was 17, and they had six children.

He travelled abroad and learned about soldiery and tactics, and signed the National Covenant in protest at King Charles I’s attempts to foist bishops on the Kirk.

He joined the Covenanting army under General Alexander Leslie and took part in several battles before switching allegiance to the King, largely due to his political convictions and deep hatred of Archibald, Marquis of Argyll, chief of Clan Campbell.

Becoming the King’s general in Scotland, Graham was made Marquis of Montrose – I prefer the French spelling to the English Marquess – and with a mixed force of Highland clansmen and Irish soldiers, he promptly set out on a brilliant campaign on behalf of Charles I, winning six battles using fast, innovative tactics, until he was surprised and defeated at the Battle of Philiphaugh near Selkirk on September 12, 1645.

Montrose escaped to Norway but returned to avenge the death of Charles I and fight for his successor, Charles II. He could not raise the clans, however, and after defeat at the Battle of Carbisdale in Sutherland in April 1650, he was betrayed to his opponents who had already secured his conviction for treason.

The Great Montrose, as he was known, was hanged in Edinburgh and then decapitated. His head was impaled on a spike in the capital and his quarters sent to Scotland’s cities. The town of Montrose was not selected for displaying a limb of its most famous son.

In the 1670s, a plan was concocted to create more agricultural land by creating a dyke across the tidal basin. Known as Dronner’s Dyke after its Dutch engineer, it was unfinished when a huge storm destroyed it. Local woman Maggie or Meggie Cowie was accused of using witchcraft to summon up the storm. Her only “crime” was to be elderly and addled, but in January, 1679 she was burned at the stake, the last woman to suffer that fate in Angus.

Montrose was “out” for the Jacobites in both the 1715 and 1745-46 risings. The Old Pretender, King James VIII as recognised by France, left from the port after he arrived too late to save the day for the ’15, while a naval battle was fought in and around the harbour during the ’45.

Montrose was one of the finest planned burghs in Scotland. The National Library records: “For a period the medieval layout of the town was obscured when a row of houses, the Rotten Row, was built down the middle of the lower part of the High Street, but this was demolished in 1748 and the town restored to its original design.

“In common with other towns on the east coast of Scotland, many of the older houses were built with their gable ends facing the street and the sea, to afford added protection against the strong winds.”

It was from this feature that Montrose people are known as “gable endies”, and that is also the nickname of the town’s senior football club.

The attractions of Montrose were detailed by Dr Samuel Johnson, who wrote during his tour of Scotland in the 1770s: “We [he was with James Boswell] travelled on to Montrose, which we surveyed in the morning and found it well-built, airy and clean.

“Town house is a handsome fabrick with a portico. We then went to view the English (Episcopal) chapel and found it a small church, clean to a degree unknown in any other part of Scotland, with commodious galleries, and what was yet less expected, an organ.”

In the 19th century, Montrose developed as a manufacturing town with flax mills, linen weaving, a soap factory, a shipyard, two iron foundries, two machine works, and several breweries. It had long been and remained a market town with a port that exported fish and cattle and imported timber and coal.

Industry declined in the late 1800s, and the town’s population fell. But the coming of the railways made it something of a tourist attraction and it’s well worth a visit today.

To feature in this series, towns have to have played a part in the history of Scotland and have been established as a town, usually a burgh, before the Reformation in 1560. Anyone who wants to promote their town for a column should email me at nationalhamish@gmail.com