Stories

“The Wild Boys of the Goulburn”  
People Magazine, September 12, 62

The boisterous Hunters tamed Victoria’s toughest country

By Francis Murray

During the early 1840’s, Lamb Inn in Collins Street, Melbourne, became notorious as the haunt of high-spirited young men, among the wildest of whom were the “Goulburn Boys” –squatters from the Goulburn River runs.

Led by the Hunter brothers, they swooped on Melbourne for intermittent après. Their boisterous practical jokes made them the bane of the constabulary and the despise of sober-minded citizens.

However, the Hunter brothers were not mere playboy-hooligans; they were tough pioneers who helped the Port Phillip district to blossom into the State and Victoria.

Overlanders and pathfinders in its alpine terrain, they also played a leading role in establishing Australia’s horse-racing fame.

In 1838, Alexander Hunter, Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh –a high judicial office- formed a company to take up land in Australia. The shareholders included the Marquis of Aisla and other Scottish noblemen.

Hunter then had six sons, of whom five came to Australia between 1839 and 1851. they were John, born 1820, Alexander McLean (1821), James Arthur Carr (1824), Andrew Francis (1827), and William Ferguson (1828).

In 1839, the company sent James Watson and Alexander McLean Hunter to Melbourne to find suitable land in the Port Phillip district. For the company they chose property near Keilor, about 10 miles from Melbourne, and sailed to Sydney to buy stock.

Soon after they arrived there, John landed. He was followed in 1840 by James and two cousins, Campbell Hunter, and “Old” John (later nicknamed Howqua) Hunter, and the Marquis of Ailsa’s younger son, Gilbert Kennedy.

Reckless gig race

Watson was essentially the business manager. He was too preoccupied with company affairs to keep a tight rein on the bunch of boisterous men under 21, who had been foisted on him. With no work to occupy them, they painted Sydney red.

They were all accomplished horsemen, John being particularly reckless. Challenged to a gig race, he drove furiously along George Street, scattering pedestrians in panic, until the gig collided with a wagon. The gig was a complete wreck and two men and a woman were injured.

Angry citizens demanded his arrest, but Alexander sent the young men out of town before the police acted. He kept them holding a mob of cattle on the outskirts of Sydney, while Watson negotiated for labour and more stock.

Although free labour was at a premium, assigned convict servants were available to landowners. Watson put in a claim for a run at Lake George to secure 20 servants for the company.

Speeding up his buying Watson built up the herd to 500 head to get his mettlesome assistants on the track before they could cause further trouble in Sydney.

Despite his youth, Alexander had a sense of responsibility, which was lacking in the happy-go-lucky John. He was tackily acknowledged as the leader in all matters other than business, and took charge of the drive southward. On the track, he joined forces with Edward Bell, who was overlanding with 1,000 head.

At Goulburn, Alexander was faced with mutiny. There was a race meeting on and his brothers and cousins flatly refused to break camp until it had finished. All the Hunters rode at the meeting, and James won his first race.

Long cattle drive

As the Lake George claim was a mere subterfuge to get labour, Alexander ignored it. Purchasing more cattle en route, he reached Tumut with 1,000 head and bought a run at Gilmore Creek. Leaving Bell in charge there, Alexander bought another 700 head of cattle before going on to Keilor.

With a fine homestead and head station established at Keilor, John joined the young bloods at the Lamb Inn. One of their favourite sports was to race through the streets at midnight, scattering the watch and yelling “Fire”.

Disgruntled citizens, roused from bed by the false alarm, returned home to find sheep’s heads and rude notices nailed to the front doors.

Meantime, the steadier Alexander searched undeveloped country for more runs. Disappointed with the poor soil on an area, he had selected at Ballowea, near the present Mansfield, he pushed into wild terrain at the headwaters of the Goulburn River.

Having located good land on a tributary, he returned to Melbourne to learn that John’s escapades with the Lamb Inn roisterers had earned him the nickname of Jack the Devil. Alexander cracked the whip. He dragged his relatives from their fun and games and put them to droving the Keilor cattle to the Goulburn.

Expert bush riders

At the first camp on the selected site, the brothers were awakened by banshee screams from the banks of a nearby stream. They discovered a big tribe of natives daubed with clay, dancing a fearsome corroboree around huge fires. Alexander named the stream Devil’s River.

Undaunted by this experience, Alexander took up six runs covering nearly 200,000 acres along Devil’s River. He stocked them heavily with cattle and with sheep from Van Diemen’s Land.

In this wild country the Hunter brothers found an outlet for their high spirits. Already expert riders in the formal style, they rapidly became superlative bush horsemen and gained the reputation of being ready to ride anything, anywhere, and at any time.

John excelled as a horseman. Without saddle or bridle, he would race through the bush, swerving from trees and taking logs of fences without slackening speed. The not only trained a blind horse as a steeple-chaser, but won races on it.

As Alexander’s sense of responsibility never sapped his enthusiasm for racing, the brothers visited Melbourne whenever a meeting was to be held there. Two meetings had been held in Melbourne before the Hunters arrived, on a course on the site of the present Spencer Street railway station. Sportsmen as keen as the Hunters needed a secret track for trials. They found a mile-square flat beside the Saltwater (now Maribymong) River, where a semicircle of hills made a natural grandstand.

The track was so good that the Melbourne Race Club staged a three-day meeting there in March, 1840. Run under English Jockey Club rules, riders wore silks for the first time in Victoria. Within a year, the Saltwater track had ousted the old course, and Flemington racecourse was born.

When a new turf club took control of the new course, Alexander became the honorary secretary and held office for nearly 20 years.

Not content with executive office, Alexander was a formidable rival to his brothers as the leading rider. Their services were so much in demand that three of them often had mounts in the same race. When Andrew Francis joined them later, the four brothers rode in one steeplechase.

Having imported outstanding thoroughbreds, including Rembrandt, Pilot, and Romeo, Alexander not only raised the standard of racing, but helped to pioneer the Victorian bloodstock industry. Tiding Romeo in 1841, he won the Town Plate, forerunner of the famous Melbourne Cup.

Alexander’s popularity in Melbourne’s sporting world was emphasized in a practical manner on one notable occasion. He delighted in driving a mettlesome four-in-hand, and when they bolted in Collins Street wrecking the carriage of a prominent banker, damages of £500 were awarded against Alexander.

He called on his solicitor to arrange payment, only to be told that the damages had been paid by subscriptions from local sportsmen. Heading the list of contributors was William Stawell, later Sir William and Chief Justice of Victoria. He had been leading counsel for the plaintiff in the suit.

Meantime, James quickly rivaled John as a daring steeplechase rider. Riding a wild, untrained steeplechaser in a memorable race, he put his mount at a fence, but found a stray dog in the way. To avoid a bad crash, James swerved his horse and drove him at the high wing. To his horror, he saw a man and woman seated in a buggy drawn up hard beyond the wing.

It was too late to stop. James “lifted” his mount and they cleared both the wing and the vehicle without a touch.

In women’s clothes

John’s prominence among the Goulburn Boys led to reckless extravagance, which landed him heavily in debt. When the police came to arrest and imprison him on a creditor’s complaint he hid in a William Street house run by an old lag known as Slippery Sam.

Before things were safe for John a big meeting was scheduled for the Saltwater. Although constables would be there searching for him, John refused to miss the races.

During the last race two disgruntled constables stood near some Goulburn Boys who were grouped around a young woman in meticulous riding habit and mounted, side-saddle, on a thoroughbred.

The horses ridden by Alexander and James cleared away from the field over the last fence and the horsewoman’s excitement routed her discretion. She shouted enthusiastically in a deep bass voice and the startled constables moved in on their quarry.

At a touch of the crop the thoroughbred plunged wildly, scattering the Goulburn Boys and the constables. Then, jumping into stride, it cleared a fence on to the course proper. The “young woman” doffed her bonnet to the police before heading across country  to the comparative safety of the Keilor homestead. John returned to town within a few days. He was playing billiards in the Lamb Inn when troopers blocked the doorways. With no hope of escape, John submitted quietly and was taken away, mounted, with a trooper holding the reins.

Nonchalantly whittling tobacco to fill his pipe, John suddenly leaned forward and slashed the reins, simultaneously driving in the spurs. His horse sprang into a gallop and Jack the Devil, without reins, showed the police a clean pair of heels.

Blazed a new trail

Despite their sporting activities and frequent visits to town, the Hunters worked hard on their runs and Alexander constantly probed the Victorian Alps for new runs. In 1841 one of the major Victorian problems was to find a land route from Melbourne to the rich country found by Angus McMillan and named Gippsland by Count Strzelecki.

With two white men and an aboriginal named Pigeon, Alexander forced a way through the formidable Barkly Ranges (which he called the Snowy Mountains) to blaze a trail from Mansfield to the Macalister Valley and the infant settlement at Port Albert.

When word of the exploit reached Melbourne, Crown Lands Commisioner Tyers was instructed to report on the route. For two weeks Tyers’ well-mounted party battled through the dense scrub and deep gorges. For much of the time they were hopelessly hushed among the precipitous mountains and thick forest.

With all horses except one dead, their clothing torn to rags, and reeling from exhaustion and near-starvation, the party stumbled on a cattle pad. It led to one of Hunter’s outstations and the salvation of the party.

Tyers reported that Hunter’s track was impassable. This prompted ugly rumours that Alexander had never reached Gippsland by the route he had claimed. He was so incensed that, with James, Campbell, Hunter, and a man named Hourdon, he followed his blazed track again in 1844.

An official apology

On reaching Gippsland, the party called at Tyers tendered profuse apologies, but, before Hunter’s track was used as a stock route, an easier track to Gippsland had been found.

Although Alexander obtained a grant of the (later) noted Tarwin Downs station in South Gippsland, he sold his option for £ 60 and returned to Devil’s River.

In 1846, trouble between the Scottish shareholders and the local management resulted in the company being wound up. The Hunter brothers were left without a station. They went to South Australia, where they established Moorak and other runs around Mt. Gambier.

Andrew Francis joined his brothers at Mt. Gambier in 1850, shortly before John sailed for the Argentine, where he married. He died in a cholera epidemic in 1868. William Ferguson, the youngest brother, came to Moorak in 1851.

A cripple from birth, William was not a rider, although an expert driver, but Andrew had served in the Cape Mounted Police and in the Victorian Police before going to Moorak. There he soon rivaled his elder brothers as a fearless horseman either with or without a saddle..

Tragic wild bull ride

Living up to the family reputation for daring, Andrew attempted to ride a wild bull, bareback, in a stockyard. He was thrown and gored so badly before the infuriated bull could be driven off that he died of his injuries on September 24, 1854.

About 1864, the surviving brothers disposed of their Mt. Gambier holdings, Alexander went to South Africa to engage in sugar production, while William elected to become a planter in Fiji. James sailed with his younger brother for the trip.

Impressed by the prospects in Fiji, James decided to settle there but found it necessary to return to Australia to wind up his affairs. He was unlucky in his choice of a ship for the passage home.

After sailing, the captain revealed himself as a chronic drunkard. He had neglected to take on sufficient stores and by drunken reckoning laid an erratic course through the South Pacific. With food desperately short, the ship was virtually lost at sea.

In those desperate straits, James took the law into his own hands. He clapped the captain in irons and put the mate in command after having ordered him to find the nearest landfall. With the entire complement in the last stages of starvation, the ship sailed into Twofold Bay.

Abandoning the Fiji project, James entered the stock-and-station business at Penola (S.A.) but later retired to a farm near Warragul where he died in 1889.

After six years in South Africa, Alexander returned to Victoria to become Director of Police Remounts. To secure a supply of good troop horses, he arranged a partnership with two high-class bush riders, Peter Snodgrass and Cuthbert Fetherstonehaugh, to hunt brumbies.

Hundreds of these gone-wild horses roamed the rugged, mountain country between the Goulburn River and the top of the Great Dividing Range. They mustered in small mobs of about eight good stock mares and their progeny, bossed by a runaway thoroughbred stallion with a cunning old mare as chief consort. She could smell a trap a mile off.

Brumby round-up

For two months Fetherstonehaugh camped in the Yea and Flowerdale districts, studying the habits and runs of the best mobs. The partners then built strong stockyards with long hidden wings leading to the sliprails.

With three expert, if reckless, riders on their tails, the brumbies were rushed between the concealed wings and into the yard. They were ridden on the spot, before being driven to Melbourne for final handling.

The partners caught more than 150 brumbies in the ranges, but their prize capture was the brumby king of Flowerdale. He was a big piebald stallion, which, as Ahdelkader, became the pride of the Cobb and Co string on the Melbourne-Kilmore run.

Alexander bought a 3,840-acre station near Cranbourne, and held it for a few years before selling, to visit Scotland. While abroad, he completed negotiations to buy a farm near James’ holding at Warragul, but he did not live to enter into possession. While returning aboard S.S. Tongariro, he died at sea on November 16, 1892.

Only the crippled William then remained of the five Hunter brothers who came to Australia. During his 25 years as a planter in Fiji, William had several narrow escapes from death. One night a dozen natives crept into his bungalow to kill him. His guns were beyond reach, but his crutch was at hand.

When he retired, William returned to Victoria to live with one of James’ sons on the Warragul farm. There, on March 9, 1906, he died, closing the epic of the five Hunter brothers’ pioneering in Victoria  

[Wild Boys]

From A History of Peeblesshire

J. W. Buchan and Rev. H. Paton. Published 1925-7.

POLMOOD

This estate, which includes the farm of Patervan (1695 acres), lies along the north side of the Polmood burn, which runs to the Tweed down a deep narrow glen, and is bounded on the north by Stanhope, on the south by Hearthstane (Tweedsmuir), and on the west by Kingledoors.

Tradition records that King Malcolm Canmore, in or about 1057, gave to Norman Hunter the lands of Polmood, and in proof of this the fantastic rhyming charter so well known in connection with the origin of this family is quoted

'I, Malcolm Kenmure, King, the first of my reign, gives to thee, Norman Hunter of Powmood, the Hope, up and down, above the earth to heaven, and below the earth to hell, as free to thee and thine as ever God gave it to me and mine, and that for a bow and a broad arrow, when I come to hunt in Yarrow; and for the mair suith I byte the white wax with my tooth, before thir witnesses three, May, Maud and Marjorie.'

This is as Pennecuik (1715) gives it, who had it from the proprietor as the original charter of the lands, and says 'The broad arrow is still in the house, and the bow has been seen by several persons.' A copy of a similar charter, with variations, is reproduced. It belongs to Miss Mitchell Thomson, and is said to have been made in 1790 by Thomas Hunter, but who he was or from what document the copy was made, there is no record to show. On the face of it the charter is an absurdity, and manufactured to uphold a family tradition. Yet there is no reason to throw aside the tradition itself, as it is quite a probability that Polmood may have been given by one of the early Scottish kings for some signal service to one of his hunters called Norman. The difficulty is that the lands in that case would be a Crown gift, and the transmissions would appear in the Register of the Great Seal, whereas there are no such records, and the earliest reference to Polmood shows that in the fifteenth century it was part of the barony of Oliver Castle, and held of the Flemings and afterwards of the Hays of Yester as superiors. Before the Flemings that barony was a possession of the Frasers of Oliver from the twelfth century. How it was acquired is not known, but it is not impossible that when the grant was made, the Hunters were in possession of Polmood, and in consequence became vassals of the Frasers. Certain it is that the Hunters are the only known possessors in early history.

The earliest notice occurs in 1439, when, on 14th August, WALTER HUNTER OF 'POLEMOOD' was a witness at Mossfennan to a charter, and the next is in 1470 when Robert, Lord Fleming, made over his superiority of Polmood, with other lands, by way of excambion to Sir David Hay, father of John, first Lord Hay of Yester. Of these, Sir David Hay had a Crown charter on 12th July, 1470 . There is an attestation in writing on 15th May, 1474, on the occasion of the service of James Hunter to the lands of 'Polmude,' by Robert, Lord Fleming, as he was unable to be personally present, that Walter Hunter of Polmood up to the time of his decease held his lands of Polmood of the Baron of Oliver Castle, ward and relief, and that the said lands had been in the hands of 'Fleming's gransser and fader' from the decease of the father till the entry of the said Walter.

EDWARD 'HOWNTER DE POLMO' served on the jury at Peebles on 22nd December, 1479, for the retour of John Govan of Easter Hopkailzie. There is an entry in the Acta Auditorum for December, 1475, showing that Edward Hunter of Polmood had summoned both Sir David Hay of Yester and his son John the Hay of Oliver Castle to determine which was chief baron of Oliver Castle, but he did not appear to prosecute his claim. This Edward Hunter was killed about 1502 by Gilbert Tweedie.

He was succeeded by WALTER HUNTER, who gave his bond of manrent to John, first Lord Hay of Yester and Baron of Oliver Castle, his overlord, on 6th April, 1502, following upon which and a resignation of his lands he was infeft in them on 26th April of that year on a precept from Lord Hay; and when the second lord fell at Flodden, he sat on the jury in Peebles on 11th May, 1519, which served his son as heir to him in some Temple lands. Walter Hunter had a wadset from Patrick Dickson about 1523 of the lands of Quarter and part of Glencotho, but he assigned his right to Malcolm, Lord Fleming, who redeemed them. He was among the friends and dependants who were taken under the royal protection in 1536 when Lord Fleming was sent on embassage to France in connection with the marriage of King James V. He married Janet Lauder, who as his widow in 1551 had as part of her terce certain soums of the lands of Glenumphard or Badlieu, which was also a possession of the Hunters at this time, and of which the Tweedies of Drumelzier were the superiors.

On 17th March, 1549, ROBERT HUNTER OF POLMOOD, called son and heir of Walter Hunter, younger of Polmood, was infeft in the 4 merk land of Glenumphard on a precept by James Tweedie of Drumelzier, under reservation of the liferent of Janet Dalmahoy, which shows that the first-mentioned Walter had a son of the same name, whose wife this Janet Dalmahoy may have been, and a grandson Robert, who had succeeded to Polmood. This Robert in July, 1552, had a gift from John, Lord Hay of Yester, of the fines due by James Tweedie of Drumelzier for absenting himself from the sheriff courts, but under reservation to the granter of half of the composition received, and to the other members of court of what was due to them. How much he obtained, if anything, does not appear, but it is on record that on 12th July he went to James Tweedie, when they were both at Neidpath, and required of him the fulfilment of an agreement between their deceased predecessors, to which he had only the reply that time and place were not convenient. In July, 1555, he married Katherine Hay (probably of the Smithfield family), for which he had a dispensation from John, Archbishop of St. Andrews, and in view of this marriage made resignation of Polmood at the Castle of Neidpath in the hands of his superior, receiving a new infeftment thereof to himself and his spouse. Similarly he dealt with the lands of Glenumphard; and on 5th March, 1555-6, Thomas Hay of Smithfield and Janet Scott, his mother, acknowledged that the terms of the marriage contract had been fulfilled.

In May, 1558, Sir John Allan took out lawburrows against Robert Hunter, who in January, 1559-60, also came into collision with the burgh bailies, John Dickson, younger of Winkston, and Ronald Scott; he refused them as judges, and on St. Thomas's Day last, used disorderly language to Dickson in the execution of his office, and for this he was tried by an assize and fined. He had also a litigation with the tenants of Glenumphard from December, 1565, until April, 1566, regarding certain 'dawarkis' (day services) claimed by him from them, which also seem to have been claimed by Drumelzier. Hunter took the case to the bailies of Peebles, and Drumelzier demanded that the tenants be repledged to his baron court, but Hunter declared that William Tweedie of Drumelzier had threatened his life if he appeared there. Replegiation was refused, and after parole evidence had been heard, the decision as to the rents and carriages due to Robert Hunter was referred to John Hay, Tutor of Smithfield, and William Veitch of Kingside.

Robert Hunter had also dealings with the Hunters of Duddingflat in the parish of Broughton, who seem to have been related. In November, 1557, Matthew Hunter, grandson of the deceased John Hunter of Duddingflat, was infeft in Duddingflat as his grandfather's heir, and he then resigned it in favour of his cousin William, to whom thereupon sasine was given, under a deed of reversion. To this reversion Matthew gave an assignation in the following June to Robert Hunter of Polmood, but in November of 1558 he went through the same process as in 1557, William Hunter being described as 'in Langlandhill.' Robert Hunter, who acted as a witness on both these occasions, in 1561, on receipt of a sum of money, resigned his right to the reversion, and Matthew and William then appear to have changed lands, for William is styled 'of Duddingflat,' while Matthew is designed 'in Langlandhill.' William Hunter may have been the son of John Hunter in Scrogs.

Robert Hunter died in 1587. He had a brother John, and at least three sons and one daughter.

1. Michael, who succeeded to Polmood.

2. George, who died without issue, his testament being given up in August, 1594, by his brothers, Michael and James, and mention is made in it of his sister Isabel.

3. James, who was in Hearthstane in 1611, and who had a son Walter, described as in Polmood in 1632.

4. Isabel, mentioned as above.

MICHAEL HUNTER, son of Robert Hunter of Polmood, was witness to a sasine at Easter Happrew on 4th November, 1586, and was served heir to his father in Polmood on 18th January, 1587-8. He married Helen Scott, and had two sons and two daughters.

1. Norman and 2. Robert,  both of whom were lairds of Polmood.

3. Elspeth, who married Robert Veitch, second son of William Veitch of Dawyck (contract dated 4th, 15th May, 1442).

4. Margaret, who married (contract dated 3rd, 12th, 16th September, 1632) Thomas Naesmyth, son of James Naesmyth of Posso.

NORMAN HUNTER OF POLMOOD was a witness to sasines in August, 1627, and April, 1628, and was a consenting party to the marriage contract of his sister Margaret in 1632, but he must have died very soon afterwards.

ROBERT HUNTER OF POLMOOD, his brother, succeeded, and as laird was admitted a burgess of Peebles on 23rd September, 1633. He was infeft in Polmood on 27th June, 1635. In 1645 he is mentioned as collector for the shire of Peebles, and as an elder in the church of Drumelzier. He had a wadset in 1574 from David Tweedie of his lands of Chapel Kingledoors for 4000 merks, which he assigned to Alexander Williamson, provost of Peebles. He does not appear to have married, but had a natural son, George, born in 1650, to whom on 10th June, 1676, he disponed the lands of Polmood, with remainder to the lawful heirs male of his body. On 7th, March, 1683, he denuded himself of his half of the lands of Glenumphard or Badlieu for a regrant in his favour in liferent, and in favour of the said George, in fee, and sasine at once followed. Robert Hunter died in 1689.

GEORGE HUNTER OF POLMOOD was made a burgess of Peebles on 3rd May, 1677, and succeeded to Polmood on his father's death. He obtained letters of legitimation, married (his wife's name not known), and had two sons, Robert and Archibald, who succeeded in turn to Polmood.

ROBERT HUNTER, as younger of Polmood, was a witness in April, 1718, to the marriage contract of Alexander Murray of Cringletie. He married Veronica Murray, daughter of Sir David Murray of Stanhope, and inherited Polmood in 1721. On 25th January, 1729, he appears as laird of Polmood, witnessing a disposition by William, Earl of March, at Broughton. He lived till 1744, and died without issue, being succeeded by his brother.

ARCHIBALD HUNTER OF POLMOOD, who is styled second son of George Hunter of Polmood, was the subject of a charge of horning by James Burnet of Barns for a debt on 13th December, 1721. He was served heir to his brother Robert on 26th January, 1747, and 1st March, 1748. He married (the name of his wife has not been ascertained) and died in 1752 leaving one son Thomas who was nine years old.

THOMAS HUNTER OF POLMOOD, the last of the old line, was left by his father under the charge of three tutors, 'Lady Polmood' (Veronica Murray, widow of Robert Hunter of Polmood), Alexander Hunter, merchant in Edinburgh, and his son James. These two, Alexander and James, were creditors on the estate; they were not related, in any degree, to the Hunters of Polmood, and in view of their appointment Lady Polmood declined to act. In 1758, Thomas Hunter was served heir to his father Archibald, and the same year he chose as his curators the above-named Alexander Hunter, and a writer in Edinburgh named Deuchars. Shortly thereafter he granted a deed, with consent of his curators, conveying the estates, failing heirs of his own, to the said James Hunter, the son of Alexander. From this deed the signature of Thomas was afterwards torn, whether by accident or design is not known; but when he came of age in 1764 he executed a memorandum (5th December) in which he confirmed the provisions of the deed, and stated that the tearing of his signature was accidental. Thomas Hunter was bred to the law, and apprenticed to a Writer to the Signet. But he was in bad health, and contracted a serious illness, and on 28th January, 1765, executed another deed bequeathing his property to James Hunter and his heirs, whom failing to Alexander (the father of James) and his heirs. Of this illness he died on 20th March, 1765, within sixty days of the granting of the deed. He was predeceased by James Hunter, and the property accordingly passed to Alexander. This state of matters undoubtedly excited the interest of the countryside, and fifteen years afterwards the famous Hunter lawsuit began of which an account will follow.

ALEXANDER HUNTER OF POLMOOD died on 22nd January, 1786, succeeded by his nephew, Walter, the son of William Hunter, a farmer and brewer at Straiton near Edinburgh. He was served heir to his uncle on 8th March, 1787, this service including the lands of Wrae in Glenholm, and again on 6th September, 1787, on which date he was a surgeon in the artillery at Guadeloupe. He married Lady Caroline Mackenzie, fourth daughter of George, Earl of Cromartie, and dying on 15th January, 1796, left Polmood, etc., and also Crailing in Roxburghshire, to his eldest daughter, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH HUNTER was born on 9th May, 1775, and married in 1792, at Crailing House, James Ochoncar, eighteenth Lord Forbes, and died on 11th October, 1830, succeeded by her eldest son, James.

JAMES, MASTER OF FORBES, born in 1796, was a Lieutenant-Colonel of the Coldstream Guards at Bayonne and Waterloo, and died with out issue in 1835, succeeded by his brother Walter.

WALTER HUNTER, nineteenth Lord Forbes, born 1798, entered the navy, but subsequently joined the Coldstream Guards, and served at Waterloo in command of a company of that regiment in the defence of Hougomont. He was served as heir to his brother on 5th August, 1835, and on 1st September had a precept of clare constat from the Earl of Wemyss, the superior of Polmood. In 1847 he sold his Peeblesshire lands - Wrae to Thomas Tweedie of Quarter, and Polmood, which included Badlieu and Tweedhopefoot, for £6600 to Houston Mitchell, formerly of Maitland, New South Wales, and then of Trinity Lodge, Edinburgh.

THE HUNTER CASE

In 1780 Adam Hunter, tenant of Altarstone - with the assistance of friends, for he was himself poor-took out a brieve to serve himself as heir of line and provision to Thomas Hunter of Polmood, the last of the old line He led evidence which satisfied the jury, and in 1781 he brought an action to reduce the deed by Thomas to Alexander Hunter, on the ground that it had been granted on deathbed. That action failed (22nd November, 1781), because it was held that his own service was bad. Adam, thereupon, applied for another brieve to serve himself as heir of Robert Hunter, the father of George (illegitimate), using the same links. Alexander Hunter opposed, and showed that the pedigree was wrong, as Adam claimed to be descended from William Hunter, a brother of Robert, whereas Robert had no such brother. That brieve was accordingly abandoned, but the case was not at an end. In 1802 Adam Hunter appeared on the scene again; he had left Altarstone, and was then residing at Slateford near Edinburgh, and he had been spending the interval in going carefully into his family history. The Kirk Session records, the Sheriff Court books of Peebles, the public registers, and the rental books of the Tweedsmuir estates, had all been laboriously searched; and the result was that he now came forward, claiming on a different and a more elaborate pedigree.

He had ascertained that his great-grandfather was not William, but John, and he now claimed to be the son of William, who was the second son of James (Old Shank), who was the son of John, who was the son of Walter, who was the son of James, who was the son of Robert of Polmood and brother of Michael of Polmood, which Michael was the father of Robert of Polmood, who was the father of the illegitimate George. Proof in this service was taken before a jury at Peebles, and it was granted. There was no opposition. Again Adam Hunter raised an action of reduction, this time against Lady Forbes (Elizabeth Hunter) and her husband, who replied with a counter action for reduction of the service. And again (14th May, 1805) the service was held to be bad, this time, however, on purely technical grounds that the evidence had not been properly placed before the jury, and the Lord Ordinary indicated that a new service might be advocated before the macers. And so, for the third time, Adam failed.

Next year (1806) a new claimant appears - John Taylor, residing at Wanlockhead. He died shortly afterwards, and for a few years no further steps were taken.

In 1810 Adam Hunter, acting on the hint given by the Lord Ordinary in the previous action, took out a new service. He claimed as before, but his claim was now a three-fold one as the pedigree shows (1) that Robert Hunter (father of the illegitimate George) was a son of the brother of the claimant's great-grandfather's grandfather; (2) that Robert Hunter was a son of the brother of the claimant's grandmother's great-grandfather; and (3) that Robert Hunter was a brother of the claimant's great-grandmother.

ADAM HUNTER'S DESCENT

[Pedigree included in book]

But John Taylor's son, Robert, tenant at Castle of Sanquhar, also put forward a claim, and his pedigree is also reproduced.

ROBERT TAYLOR'S DESCENT

[Pedigree included in book]

These two claims were heard together, and elaborate and tiresome pleadings were lodged, extending to over 300 quarto pages of print.

In Adam Hunter's pedigree interest centred chiefly in his grandfather James, who was known as Old Shank. It was said that he had previously been tenant of Fingland, that he was a Cameronian and attended the field meetings, that during the persecution he had to leave Tweedsmuir, that he then lived in a place called Shank, and afterwards returned to Tweedsmuir, where he built himself a house between Carterhope and Fruid and died in 1721. Old Shank had four sons:

1. James, a packman, who it was said was mentally weak 'Daft Jamie Hunter' he was called: his favourite expression was 'Come awa', Polmood,' and he called himself laird of Kilbucho and other estates, because 'it was as good to him as if it really were so.'

2. William, the father of the claimant, who had been a herd at Polmood.

3. Walter, who was also a herd in Tweedsmuir.

4. George, known as the Squire. He, it was said, had also the 'family failing,' and attempted to go to Edinburgh to the funeral of Thomas Hunter, as chief mourner, to the horror of Mr. Mushet, the minister of Tweedsmuir.

Taylor claimed through an Isobel Hunter, a child of Robert Hunter - known as Uncle Robert - who was said to be a great-great-grandson of Robert Hunter of Polmood (who died in 1587). Uncle Robert was born in 1651, and married Mary, daughter of Mr. Patrick Fleming, minister of Stobo; he was tenant of Craig Kingledoors and Hearthstanes, but was turned out of these places because he refused to conform to prelacy. Afterwards in Stanhope for a time, he went to Abington, and spent his later years at Polmood and Hearthstane. His sister Margaret married David Tweedie of Chapel Kingledoors; and another of his sisters, Marion, married David Tweedie's brother Alexander. His niece Margaret Tweedie occupied Hearthstane - the 'gudewife o' Herstanes' - and looked after him in his declining years; she was twice married, to a Murray and then to a Welsh.

Uncle Robert, it was claimed, was on intimate relations with the Polmood family. It was said that he prevented by force the laird from joining the Jacobite rising of 1715, and that on his death Lady Polmood 'made and helped on his dead clothes.' A wonderful dog belonged to him, called Algiers, who ran errands for his master even to Edinburgh and back, swam the Tweed and brought back tobacco from the Crook, and, when his master was at Woodend, went to Lamington, three miles away, for snuff, with the money tied in a napkin round his neck. From this remarkable animal a fleece was cut every year, sufficient to make a pair of stockings. Uncle Robert died at Hearthstane in 1733. His daughter Isobel married John Taylor, a miner - 'Old John' he was called, for it was said that he was 130 when he died.

To the proceedings for the service of Adam Hunter and Robert Taylor, Lady Forbes objected, but unsuccessfully, because she did not and could not make any claim herself to be heir at law of Robert Hunter. The assessors to the service were Lords Meadowbank, Newton and Robertson, and of the jury of fifteen appointed to consider the evidence, seven were nominated by Hunter, seven by Taylor, and one by the assessors. The jury were composed of seven advocates and eight writers to the signet. After hearing evidence, the claim put forward by Taylor was rejected, and with regard to Hunter's three-fold claim, the first was sustained by 12 to 3, the second by 11 to 4, and the third was rejected by 9 to 6.

And then, for the third time, Adam Hunter, now over eighty years of age, brought an action in 1811 to reduce the title to Polmood by which Lady Forbes held, claiming on the law of deathbed, and also on the clause of return in the entail by Robert Hunter to the illegitimate George. But that claim was never investigated by the Court, for Lady Forbes again brought a counter action that his service was not valid, as the proof of the different links, although it had satisfied the jury, was not sufficient; and she contended that her action must be dealt with before the question of reduction of title was discussed. This contention was upheld on 8th July, 1812, when the Second Division of the Court of Session decided by a majority (Lord Roberson dissenting) :

'that the discussion of Lady Forbes' process of reduction of Adam Hunter's service is preliminary to his challenge of Lady Forbes' title under which she is in possession.'

Possession in this case was truly nine parts of the law. Again elaborate pleadings were lodged by Adam Hunter in defence of his service, and these were replied to at great length by Lady Forbes. There is no doubt that the information which had previously been prepared by Robert Taylor in support of his own pedigree and in criticism of Hunter's was a material advantage to Lady Forbes in preparing her own case. Hunter's weak link was Old Shank: it was suggested that he was illegitimate, or at any rate that although John Hunter had undoubtedly a son James, who was in Fingland, it had not been proved that he was Old Shank; and what told rather heavily against Hunter was that in his first brieve for service he had claimed that Old Shank's father was William, and not John, a claim which had been supported by the sworn testimony of half-a-dozen witnesses.

On 18th January, 1814, the Court reduced the service. Hunter appealed to the Second Division, and they on 5th July adhered, and by a majority refused the appeal. Lord Bannatyne was in Hunter's favour, but he was the only one; Lord Robertson was against; the Lord Justice Clerk, although he had doubts, thought that James Hunter, the son of John, had not been identified as Old Shank; and Lord Meadowbank was plainly influenced by Hunter's first service. That was the end of the story. Lady Forbes remained in possession on a title, which was undoubtedly questionable, but which by that time had been fortified by prescription. No other claimant, after Adam Hunter, could come forward.

MITCHELL OF POLMOOD

As we have seen Houston Mitchell purchased Polmood (along with Badlieu and Tweedhopefoot) in 1847. He erected a new dwelling-house at Polmood, and in 1873 acquired the lands of Glenbreck. In 1877 he executed a disposition and deed of entail to Livingstone Frederick Mann, his grand-nephew, and others, but by a codicil made the following year he appointed his nephew, Richard Blunt Mitchell, as institute of entail.

Richard Blunt Mitchell disentailed the lands in 1883, and in 1887 acquired from James Tweedie of Quarter a small part of the lands of Kingledoors (.313 acres) to serve as an access to Polmood House from the highroad. Glenbreck, Badlieu and Tweedhopefoot he sold in 1889, and in 1894 he sold Polmood itself to Mitchell Thomson, afterwards Sir Mitchell Thomson, Baronet, Lord Provost of Edinburgh.

In 1917 Sir Mitchell Thomson sold Polmood to the present proprietor, Sir William Milligan, an eminent surgeon in Manchester.

The present rental is £361 15s. 6d.




This information is reproduced from A History of Peeblesshire by J. W. Buchan and Rev. H. Paton, published in three volumes between 1925-7 by Jackson, Wylie and Co. of Glasgow. The original book includes many refences to the sources of the information, pedigrees and plates.



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Summerhill, Prixford, Barnstaple, EX31 4DW, UK

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