Gladstone comes to Juniper Green: packing them in like herrings in a barrel!
With contributions from Gordon McFadzean, James Dewar and John Robertson.
William Ewart Gladstone drew his carriage to a halt outside the Free Church Manse on his way to a political rally in Juniper Green on March 20th 1880
On Saturday 20th March 1880 at 3pm William Ewart Gladstone, former Prime Minister, came to speak in Juniper Green. Gladstone was leading a number of political rallies that day with other meetings at Balerno and Midcalder before returning to Dalmeny.
It had been originally intended to hold the Juniper Green meeting in the Free Church hall in the village which could hold 300 people. However, such was the interest it became clear to the organizers that the Hall would not contain the enormous crowd. The Church itself was undergoing a major extension at that time and so the local committee decided to clear the floor of the Church and this enabled over 1000 people to fill the space "packed like herrings in a barrel" according to the report in the Scotsman two days later. There was no glass in the windows to protect "the herrings" from the snell east wind!
Excitement had been high for some time with the village decorated with flags, streamers and two triumphal arches to welcome Mr and Mrs Gladstone as they approached the Church along the road from Dalmeny. Gladstone arrived shortly before 3pm and the manager, Mr Young, and the workmen of Sir William Gibson Carmichael's quarries at Hailes, proposed to take the horses from the carriage and draw it to the Church themselves. But instead, Mr Gladstone stopped the coach beside the Free Church manse (pictured in the photograph above) to listen to a welcoming address from the Reverend C McNeil MA who spoke on behalf of a group of local Liberals. Mrs Gladstone was presented with a bouquet of flowers by Miss Hodgson, daughter of Professor Hodgson of Bonaly.
Mr Gladstone then requested his coachman to take his carriage at walking pace the remaining quarter of a mile, to the Free Church on Lanark Road (seen in the picture below). The meeting itself was chaired by Mr John Usher of Woodhall House a distiller & wine merchant (according to the 1881 census).
The Right Honorable Gentleman MP for Midlothian was in really good form throughout his speech and in dealing with questions afterwards according to the Scotsman article. He exhorted his audience "Remember the rights of the savage, remember the happiness of his humble home, remember the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan among the winter snows is as viable in the eyes of Almighty God as can be your own!" This echoes today's conflicts. Mr Gladstone would have taken great heart from his reception at all his meetings that day but the Juniper Green gathering is one that the village would not forget for many years.
Over one thousand people packed into the Free Church on Lanark Road in Juniper Green to hear Mr Gladstone denounce Tory policies throughout the country and Empire during the 1880 General Election.
Other prominent local people present that day included:
- Frederick Sohns whose picture of the original church in Juniper Green can be seen elsewhere on this website.
- Mr W Scott, grocer and wine merchant of Juniper Cottage;
- Charles and John Hunter, the former of Woodhall Grain Mill and the latter in Woodhall Mains farm;
- Julius H Beilby Smith, a manufacturing chemist in the 1881 census and living in Rose Villa;
- Dr Peter Gordon, of Muir House ( now Baberton Court ), a prominent local medical practitioner;
- William Douglas, Commission Agent, a grain merchant and living in Rosemount on Belmont Road in 1881;
- John Lawson, grain merchant living in Sunnyside on Lanark Road and
- George Murray Porteous who became Session Clerk at the Free Church from 1884 - 1904.