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Alexander Riddoch was one
of three sons born to John Riddoch and Isabel Dow and christened on the
same day, 1 September 1745, in the village of Comrie, Perthshire. The
old myth of the penniless Scots boy who rose to fortune remains, in his
case, undemolished by later research. His father is described in the
parish register as ‘in Cultybraggan’ which must have been either a croft
or a very small farm in hilly country a few miles from Comrie. When
Alexander came to Dundee he was described as ‘a ketteran bit callan, wha
starved in the Hieland’ with his ‘wee tattered kiltie scarce covering
his knee’. It was, of course, common to exaggerate the humble origins of
Scotsmen who succeeded in business and the lampoonist had cause to
emphasize his vulgarity, but there is no reason to suppose any degree of
prosperity in Riddoch’s background. Comrie and the lands around it
belonged in 1745 to the Dukes of Perth and was let to a number of small
tenant farmers but after the ’45 the Forfeited Estates Commissioners put
most of the small farms into the hands of one farmer and displaced a
number of small tenants, making it necessary for their sons to leave the
neighbourhood in search of work.
One Artful and Ambitious
Individual, Alexander Riddoch (1745-1822)
(Provost of Dundee 1787-1819) by Enid Gauldie (pdf) |
