The McCombies: big men with bigger reputations
April 2010
Leader and breeder: The third William McCombie – of Easter Skene – was 6ft 2in tall and very muscular. Left: Portrait of William McCombie from Easter Skene House; centre: Initials of William and his wife above the entrance to the house; right: William McCombie in old age.
by Jim Fiddes
The name McCombie was well known in Aberdeenshire in the 19th century and three William McCombies, all cousins, were particularly notable.
William McCombie of Tillyfour will be known to most Leopard readers as a celebrated breeder of the Aberdeen Angus. The statue of the Aberdeen Angus bull just outside Alford is a place of pilgrimage for cattle breeders the world over and commemorates the work he and others did in developing the breed. This William was also Liberal MP for West Aberdeenshire, the first tenant farmer to sit in the House of Commons.
William McCombie number two farmed at Cairnballoch, Alford and subsequently became best known as owner and first editor of the Aberdeen Free Press, one of the forerunners of the Press & Journal.
The third member of the family was William McCombie of Easter Skene and Lynturk, less well known than the other two, but in his time equally renowned as an agricultural improver and breeder of the Aberdeen Angus.
All three of these men, as with most of the McCombies from West Aberdeenshire, were large men, over six foot tall. Indeed McCombie of Easter Skene is described as being 6ft 2in and very muscular, his brother James being similar.
The McCombies were a branch of Clan McIntosh, reputedly descended from the seventh chief of that clan. They had settled in Glenshee and Glenisla from at least the 16th century. This branch was known as McThomas and the names McThomas and McIntosh were used interchangeably at least until one line of the family moved to Aberdeenshire at the end of the 17th century.
Gradually McThomas became corrupted into McThomie, McHomie, McOmie and finally McComie. The ‘b’ was not added to become McCombie until around the middle of the 18th century. Of course these are generally anglicized versions of Gaelic names.
The original McIntosh from whom the McComies were descended is described as being “of stature exceeding that of common men”, and the McComie who first got the charter for Finnegand in Glenshee in 1571 was known as McComie Mor as were his main descendants.
Stories and traditions abound of one descendant in the 17th century, John McComie of Finnegand, a large man of immense strength and bravery. John was the only McComie to be styled ‘the McComie Mor’. As recently as the year 2000 some of his tales were re-told in Glenshee:Glen of the fairies by Tony Mackenzie Smith.
McComie Mor’s justice
The Earl of Atholl, the feudal superior for Glenshee, levied kain – a tax in the form of a hen collected from every household. On one occasion the kain gatherers took all the birds from an old widow in the glen, a tenant of the McComie Mor, despite her pleading. She sought help from McComie who set off in pursuit of the earl’s men. On catching up with them, he requested that they return some of the birds to the old widow. This they refused to do; worse, they were abusive, whereupon McComie Mor drew his sword and attacked the leader of the band, killing him.
After a brief fight during which more Atholl men died, the earl’s men fled to Blair Atholl. As McComie used his sword to flip open the creels in which the Atholl men had been carrying the birds, a young cockerel jumped on a stone crowing. The stone, known as the clach-na-coileach, or cockstane, became the rallying place of Clan Thomas and can still be seen in the glen today.
McComie used brain as well as brawn to outwit the Atholl men. A huge Italian swordsman who came to Blair Atholl challenged the Earl to put up his best fighter. The Earl, to his embarrassment, could not persuade any of his men to take on the Italian. Then he sent for McComie Mor who had put his men to flight, but he refused to fight, arguing that he had no quarrel with the Italian. Trying to goad McComie into a fight, the Italian lifted his kilt and ‘skelped his doup’ with the blade of his sword. This was too much! McComie drew his sword and killed him.
McComie Mor initially fought with the Marquis of Montrose on the Royalist side in the civil war, but later sided with Argyll and Cromwell. Initially this enhanced his power and influence, but at the Restoration of the monarchy his fortunes declined, not helped by litigation with Lord Airlie which he lost, and a feud with the Farquharsons which saw two of his sons killed. The feud between the McComies and the Farquharsons, including a clan fight at the Moss of Forfar, is described in some detail in Memorials of Angus and the Mearns published in 1885.
With the estate in debt the surviving sons had to look elsewhere for a future and Donald McComie moved to Tough in the Vale of Alford in the late 1670s. McComie Mor died in 1676. At the time of his death in 1714 Donald McComie was tenant of Mains of Tonley and his gravestone is in Tough churchyard with the spelling ‘Danel Mackomy’.
Despite one or two of the family flirting with Jacobitism, the McComies settled to a life of farming and prospered in the Alford area. William McCombie, grandfather of our three Williams, was farmer at Lynturk in the second half of the 18th century.
He had seven sons, the fifth of whom, Thomas, father of McCombie of Easter Skene, was a tobacco and snuff manufacturer in Aberdeen, and owned a snuff mill at Peterculter (see Leopard, April 1979). Another member of the family also had a snuff and tobacco business in the Castlegate “on the north-east corner of the Plainstones”.
McCombie’s Court in Aberdeen
Thomas was a baillie who served on the Council in the early 1800s, but refused the provostship. His premises were at 51 Netherkirkgate, where Marks & Spencers side entrance is now, and his house was at 52 Netherkirkgate, just opposite. Hence when Archibald Simpson came to build on Union Street in 1814, the court running through from Union Street to Netherkirkgate was named McCombie’s Court. It is one of the few remaining courts in Aberdeen.
Thomas’s success in business led to his buying various country estates – Jellybrands at Newtonhill, Asleid in Monquhitter and in 1816 he bought Easter Skene from the Dean of Guild.
William, Thomas’s eldest son, born in 1802, was made an infant burgess, a normal practice at the time, and attended the Grammar School before graduating from Marischal College in 1820.
William fell heir to the snuff mill at Culter and also to Easter Skene in 1824 on the death of his father, a year after William was himself admitted as a full Burgess of Guild of the city.
It was at Easter Skene that William was to make his mark. It comprised the farms of Lochhead, Southbank, Howemoss, Millbuie and Northbank, as well as the Homefarm and most of the village of Kirkton of Skene. Much of the land was poor, the high ground covered in heather moor and the low ground boggy.
Agricultural improvements were taking place throughout Aberdeenshire, often promoted by city merchants who were buying estates in the country. William’s improvements to the estate included tree planting on a massive scale, enclosing fields, draining and laying out of roads. In later life he recalled that he had laid out 30 miles of stone dykes.
In 1832 he employed Aberdeen’s city architect, John Smith, to build him a new house at Easter Skene. This lovely house, with its walled garden, has views across to the Loch of Skene and Hill of Fare, and is in what Smith’s biographer calls his ‘Tudorbethan’ style.
McCombie, unlike many others, was no absentee landlord, but considered his tenants as friends. At a dinner of tenants in 1870, his cousin, McCombie of Tillyfour, commented, “He lives in his own country and amongst his own tenantry, and he spends his income amongst us. I wish there were more proprietors that did the same”.
By this time McCombie of Easter Skene had inherited Lynturk from his Uncle Peter, the tobacconist. Consequently his more famous cousin was one of his tenants, renting Bridgend, the largest farm on the Lynturk estate.
Donald Dinnie at Skene Games
McCombie’s love of his area and its people led him to establish the Skene Games around 1869, appropriate for one whose father had been a champion stone putter on the links at Aberdeen. The games drew crowds of 800-1000 in the 1870s, nearly 1000 sitting down to tea in the afternoon of the 1871 games.
Well known athletes of the day – such as Donald Dinnie – competed in the events; Alex Fraser of Kintore, for example, threw the 22 lb hammer 74ft 3ins in 1873.
An account of the 1870 games notes: “Mr McCombie of Easter Skene, who kindly grants free use of his fields, appeared everywhere on the scene in his towering straightness, and looked as young and supple as he did half-a-score years ago.” He also judged many of the events.
By the 1890s, after his death, the games were attracting crowds of up to 2000, with buses running from Aberdeen. Eventually the games moved to Skene House, then to Dunecht, surviving until 1929.
J.P. for about 60 years and chairman of Skene Parochial Board for many years, at the age of 65 William McCombie took on the role of captain in the recently formed 3rd Aberdeenshire Rifle Volunteers. “When nearly 70 years of age he stood as straight as many in the ranks, the tallest man in his company of 100 volunteers,” it is said.
McCombie had a keen interest in history and genealogy, building up a substantial library of antiquarian books. On his own estate he had the lettering carved on the Drumstone, said to be where Sir Alexander Irvine, Laird of Drum, stopped on his way to the Battle of Harlaw in 1411.
Fond of the local dialect and of our national music, McCombie was a patron of fiddle players, one such being John Strachan, known as Drumnagarrow. John’s son James worked for 46 years at nearby Garlogie Mills and inherited his father’s musical skill. However his shyness meant that he didn’t play in public.
McCombie’s Aberdeen Angus herd
During his lifetime McCombie was best known as a major breeder of black polled cattle, the Aberdeen Angus. His herd was established around 1845 and won major prizes at the Highland Society and the Royal Northern show. As late as 1887 ‘Black Beauty of Easter Skene’, a heifer, won first prize in its class and Champion Scot at both Smithfield and Birmingham. Indeed his cousin at Tillyfour pointed out that, for its size, the herd had produced more prizewinners than any other in the north.
At his death the herd was sold off, some of it to the north of England, but most of it staying in the north, including the top sale ‘Adonis of Easterskene 6517’ which sold for 35 guineas.
When William McCombie died in 1890 aged 88, his funeral was attended by many dignitaries, including the Earl of Caithness and ex-Lord Provost William Henderson, 20 carriages conveying the party from Aberdeen. The shops in the village were closed and blinds were drawn as the cortege passed, the church bell ringing out every half minute. The Aberdeen Journal reports the coffin being carried down the tree-lined avenue by relays of the tenantry to “the quiet little God’s acre just outside the policies”.
In 1831 William had married Katherine Ann Buchan Forbes of Inverernan, a Forbes by both parental lines. She died young in 1835, followed six years later by their only child, Thomas. Their massive monument of red granite which stands in Skene kirkyard shows heraldry from both families; it is copied from the 16th century monument to William Forbes of Tolquhon in Tarves churchyard. The McCombies of Easter Skene also have a stone in St Nicholas kirkyard in Aberdeen.
McCombie was succeeded at Easter Skene by his nephew, advocate Peter Duguid of Cammachmore, an expert on heraldry, who added McCombie to his own name.
His son, Colonel William Duguid McCombie, was a colonel of the Scot’s Grey’s and lived at Easter Skene until he died in 1970 at the age of 96. Some in Skene still remember the regimental band marching up the driveway of Easter Skene on the occasion of his 90th birthday. For the last 44 years of his life he was a tenant of Dunecht Estates, having sold the estate to Lord Cowdray in 1926. It is still owned by Dunecht Estates.
Jim Fiddes was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School, then studied History at Aberdeen University. Librarian for Gray’s School of Art and Scott Sutherland School of Architecture; chairman of Skene Heritage Society; secretary of Aberdeen Town & County History Society. He has written a history of Gray’s, a history of Pitfodels & Garthdee, and articles on Skene.
TweetThis is an article from the April 2010 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, subscribe to Leopard Magazine.
An excellent article by Jim Fiddes but with a few inaccuracies. William of Cairnballoch was not a cousin of the other two Williams. Although he married Marjory McCombie who was indeed a cousin of the other two, he himself was from a different family of McCombies who were in Aberdeenshire (Logie Coldstone) long before “the end of the 17th century”. McCombie, with a “b”, first appeared in the Old Machar Parish records in the middle of the 17th (not 18th) century. Glad to provide further details if anyone is interested.
— Hamish McCombie 30 April 2010 #