Election fever in Juniper Green (1880)
As Holyrood elections approach I doubt whether Juniper Green will get as excited as it did in late March 1880 when the Scotsman reported that the village was in a "ferment for a week and triumphal arches had been erected on Lanark road". The cause was a visit by Gladstone the former Liberal Prime Minister as part of the famous Midlothian campaign which would get him elected, returned as Prime Minister and lead to the overturn of Disraeli's imperialistic foreign policy.
Driving up from Rosebery's house in Dalmeny, Gladstone came to the Juniper Green manse where the Rev Mr McNeil gave a welcoming speech and the workers from Hailes Quarry offered to drag his carriage through the arches to the church. The meeting was planned for the church hall but with a capacity of 300 it was too small. The meeting was hastily switched to the Church. However, major extensions were in progress and the church was no more than a shell. The thousand- strong audience that piled in to hear Gladstone had neither pews to sit in nor windows to shelter them. They were, the Scotsman reported "packed like herrings in a barrel".
On the platform that day was Mr Usher of Woodhall House (and of the famous drink) and Dr Peter Gordon the campaigning medical officer living in the present Baberton Court and who would fight for clean water and proper sanitation for the village. Alongside them were the Hunter brothers of Woodhall Grain mill and the Mains Farm, Robert Lawson a grain merchant and Frederick Sohns a painter from Belmont Road. There were no women: politics was men's business and women were to wait nearly another fifty years before they would get the vote on equal terms. The research in this article is by the Juniper Green Diggers. For more information see www.junipergreen300.com and the story on Gladstone.