#july19 — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

Horseless Carriages: the thread about the first motor car in Edinburgh and Scotland (and why motoring began with deliberate law breaking)

I’ve been waiting for July 19th to write this. On this exact day – 127 years ago – something momentous happened. Something that would change Edinburgh, and Scotland, forever: The first ever motor car entered the city, on the first ever (legal) cross-county drive in Scotland. Thomas R. Barnwell Elliot of Cliftonpark, Kelso, had been causing a stir in the south of Scotland ever since he imported his 3.5hp Panhard et Levassor Phaeton “horseless carriage” from France in December 1895. It was the first motor car imported into Scotland, the 7th in the UK.

T. R. Barnewall Elliot and his car. At this time the Daimler Syndicate held the British rights for Panhard et Levassor

At this time, the Locomotives Acts, meant any “locomotives” (which included motor cars) on the road were limited to 4mph (country) and 2mph (city), and a man had to walk 20 yards in front. (The red flag requirement of popular lore was actually abolished by the Locomotive Act 1878.) Barnewall Elliot was the son of the Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Roxburghshire, and had been given exemption by the county constabulary from the restrictions of this act within their borders, unless any specific complaints were raised against him.

The “Red Flag” acts didn’t actually mean a red flag was carried infront of motor vehicles.

The July 17th trip took him from Kelso, via Edinburgh and Stirling, to the Highland Show at South Inch in Perth. The Provost of Perth had invited him to demonstrate his contraption there and had gained an exemption for this journey from the 14 police jurisdictions he had to pass through.

The car had been imported via the Daimler Syndicate (hence sometimes referred to as such). It had a 2hp engine, weighted 1 ton, had iron tyres, tiller steering, no radiator, ran on petrol (at the rate of 1pint / hour), had a range of 100 miles and could do 12mph on the flat. It could seat 4 persons, but on any sort of a gradient 3 of them would have to get out and walk. Barnewall Elliot took his first drive in it on December 27th 1895 and made local news headlines (and turned many a Roxburghshire head) when he drove the 50 miles from Kelso to Ladykirk in it on 31st January 1896. On February 2nd, he went to Jedburgh, where Inspector Dickson of the Constabulary stopped him. However, after a brief check of the facts and that all was in order, he went on his way again and proceeded along the Jed water.

Edinburgh Evening News illustration of Barnewall Elliot’s Panhard et Levassor Phaeton. Monday 10 February 1896

On 19th March though he did something he shouldn’t have: he drove it over both county and country borders and into Northumberland. When he was stopped by the Police in Berwick, he agreed with them that he was “probably breaking the law” and he was charged. This was deliberate on Barnewall Elliot’s part, he was trying to force a test case, and was successful. He admitted to the magistrates that he drove at “up to 14mph“, defending himself with the contention that his motor car was not a locomotive as defined in those acts. The magistrates were sympathetic, but stuck to the letter of the law. Describing Barnewall Elliot as a “most obliging defendant” they found him guilty, buy only with failing to have a man walk 20 yards in front of him and fined him a total of… 6 pence! (plus 19s 7d costs)

These events made Barnewall Elliot something of a household name in Scotland. At this time, the organisers of the Highland Show were keen to have an exhibition of motor cars as it was felt they would be of great transport use to country farmers, and so Barnewall Elliot – a gentleman farmer – was the perfect man for the job. He accepted their invitation and “those who witnessed [his demonstration] were struck by its easiness and steady progress“.

He had bought his car for £250 (c. £27k in 2023). After driving a few thousand miles in it he sold it in October 1896 for £112 in order to buy another. He suffered 55% depreciation on account of the crummy build quality of these early vehicles.

A Panhard et Levassor Phaeton of the type driven by Barnewall Elliot

But although his was the first motor car imported into Scotland, and although he made the first legal road journeys in it, it was not actually the first horseless carriage in Scotland. That honour goes to Glaswegian locomotive engineer George Johnston. ohnston had been engaged by the Glasgow Corporation to build a tramcar that did not require electricity or horses. He came up with an oil-fuelled steam tram. Unfortunately it burned down before it could really prove its worth. Johnston went back to the drawing board.

Illustration of Johnston’s mechanical tramcar

He gave up on the idea of the steam tram and having seen a motor car in operation, decided he could build one of those too, but better. He imported a Panhard chassis and Daimler engine via Leith and combined them with a “dog cart” carriage body in late 1895. Very early in the morning of November 12th that year, Johnston took his machine for a test run through the streets of Glasgow. He knew full well he was breaking the law and even invited a journalist for the Scotsman along for the ride.

The Johnston Dog Cart in 1897, probably not the original model from the 1895 test run, however it did not change much in subsequent years.

Not long after midnight, they set out from Springburn, taking Buchanan Street, to cross the city. They went along the Broomielaw to Shawlands “and back by a more circuitous way“. They deliberately tested a range of road surfaces, noting that macadam roads gave the best ride. The 3 occupants noted “the feeling of greatest exhilaration” on the Parliamentary Road when Johnston took them up to the giddy speed 12mph. The Glasgow Polismen on their early morning beats were dumbfounded and didn’t know what to do. The law caught up with Johnston on January 24th 1896, when he was convicted by Judge Mitchell in the Glasgow Police Court and given a token fine of 2s 6d. He would go on to become one of Scotland’s most successful early motor engineers under the Arrol-Johnston name.

1902 Arrol-Johnston Dog Cart car. Note the similarity to that in the previous photo. CC-by-SA 2.0 Graham Robertson

While Glasgow and Kelso took an early lead in motoring, the Edinburgh Evening News noted “Edinburgh people… Did not readily take to innovations and preferred to wait until they gained experience from others.” We can be confident that Barnewall Elliot indeed brought the first car to Edinburgh because when the Locomotive Acts were repealed on 14th November 1896, the Evening News reported there were no cars in the city at that point and his had been the only one to pass through up until then. Despite the repeal of the Acts, it was not until 11th December that another car came to Edinburgh, when Glaswegian firm Colosseum Warehouse Co. brought a Daimler with a taxi cab body to the city and gave rides in it. It took until February 1897 for a citizen of Edinburgh to troubled themselves to get a car, when Mr John Drew of Belford Road exhibited an “almost noiseless” electric car of the Neale type that he had built.

Illustration of the Neale electric car from “The Automotor Journal” March 1897

It was not long thereafter that the Rossleigh Cycle Company (named for partners Thomas Ross and the Sleigh brothers) went into the chauffeuring business with a number of Daimler Dogcarts acquired for the purpose. Driver Thomas Morrison is seen here in Holyrood Park in 1897.

Thomas Morrison, Holyrood Park, in a Rossleigh Daimler Dogcart 1897.

On 22nd September 1899, Sarah Renicks, a domestic servant from Broxburn, was the first reported person to be knocked down by a car, when a vehicle of the Edinburgh Autocar Co. hit her as she stepped off a tram on Princes Street. She sued for £150. In January 1900, the Edinburgh Autocar Co. was again in court, having knocked down Thomas Woolard in Newington. Sheriff Maconochie however found that the car was not being driven in a “furious and reckless manner” and that the pedestrian was at fault for not looking. In April 1900, James Collins of Duncan Street, Newington, was fined £5 (or 20 days imprisonment) for having driven his car in a “reckless and careless manner” on Lothian Road and crashed into a horse and carriage.

On June 16th 1902, the first pedestrian fatality as the result of being knocked down by a motor car took place on Princes Street. Christina Currie, 56, of Cumberland Street was hit by a vehicle being driven by Thomas Morrison as she crossed the street at the foot of the Mound. A policeman on tram points duty witnessed the event, and estimated the accused had driven at 15mph. He said he had tried to stop the vehicle but it had not. Other witnesses put the speed between 12 – 17mph. The defendant stated the victim had stepped out from behind a tramcar. A jury took only half an hour to find Morrison not guilty, however the foreman expressed “their strong disapproval of the too common practice of driving motor cars in crowded thoroughfares at too high speeds and without due regard to the safety of the public“.

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