As a volunteer at the Dundee City Archives, I am privileged to handle documents that show and tell many stories of Dundee and one piece of Dundee history caught my attention and I wanted to know more. At the end of 2023 I was working on digitally indexing the the St Peter’s Burial Record and came across several lives being unexpectedly cut short by accidents and tragedy. Intrigued as to what had happened with these individuals, I set out to research more into their lives and the events around their untimely deaths. A warning that this blog contains references to alleged suicide, injury to children and other details of fatal accidents.
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St Peters Church was built in 1836, designed by the Hean Brothers and started as an Established Church of Scotland Kirk but changed to a Free Church in 1843. Burials began in February 1837 and the first person to be buried there was Margaret McBain. She had died at age 24 of “decline due to bad health” and as far as we know Margaret’s death was not the result of tragedy.
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The first tragic deaths involve two sisters called Jemima and Mary McIntyre who had both drowned on the 6 September 1843. At the time of their deaths, they had been living in a room in a tenement on Hunter Street off Hawkhill near to where they worked as dressmakers at a shop on Hawkhill. They previously had been living with their father John McIntyre, who was a retired Excise Officer, on Perth Road. Their deaths were widely reported, even as so far as London and Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
The newspapers headlined their deaths as “Melancholy Circumstance” and “Melancholy Suicides.” The Scotsman reported their bodies were “found in the mud by the East Protection Wall” down by the docks and the Northern Warder and General Advertiser for the Counties of Fife, Perth and Forfar said, “one of them being a little disfigured in the face.” They had disappeared from the custody of Superintendent Mackison at the Police Station on West Bell Street on Monday and found on Thursday. So, what events led to them to their deaths?
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The Fifeshire Journal said they were “very much excited” by the ministrations of Reverend William Burns during the time of the Revivals in 1839 and “constantly attended” these sermons at St Peters Church. During this time their character seemed to have changed towards a “melancholy and eccentric disposition.” The Advertiser added that during this time both sisters reported to the Superintendent of Police that “they were being watched ‘by persons of the of the other sex for the purposes of annoyance.’”
Over the next few years their mental health steadily decreased. They often went to the police station to report they were “much annoyed with men on the streets, and particularly that they were afraid of them getting admittance to their dwelling” and “that a band of men were determined to break in on them.” At one incident, a watchman was placed in their room at Hunter Street to help calm them and to see if there was any truth in their suspicions. There were none. On one occasion when they still lived with their father, they reported to Superintendent Mackison they were smelling brimstone from the flat below and said this was done on purpose. This ended up being a hallucination as their father nor the neighbours could smell anything.
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The Fifeshire Journal reported the day before their bodies were found they had become “afraid to remain any longer” in their room and the neighbours let them stay with them. During the night, Jemima had said to Mary “she heard at least five hundred men in their room next door” and so Mary arose from the bed and dressed herself in her neighbour’s husbands clothes, smeared soot all over her face and left to go to the Barracks to get assistance of the “military to protect their house from malicious visitants.” They both were subsequently taken to the Police Station.
There were plans for them to be taken to the asylum in the evening. Their father was reluctant to admit them and said, “they were no worse than they had been” and wished to get them back to his own house. In the meantime, Superintendent Mackison felt their “mania was harmless” and let them roam about the premises and green in front of the building. Little did he know, they decided to escape. Four days later, they were found dead. Jemima was 22 years old. Mary was 25 years old.
The following year, there was another burial following a tragic death that involved a labourer called Robert Kettles who died from a “fall from a building” on 22 October 1844. The UK 1841 Census recorded he was living with his wife Margaret, and three young sons, William, George and James at Step Row off Perth Road. On the day of his death, he was working on the construction of the new church on the corner of Bell Street and Euclid Crescent for the use of the Second Relief Congregation who were intending to move from the Old English Chapel at Nethergate. The Dundee Courier reported he “was in the act of lifting a box with lime upon the top of the cast wall” and “he unfortunately overbalanced himself.” Robert was taken to Dundee Royal Infirmary and died 5 hours later. He was 40 years old.
The fourth tragic death in the burial register is that of a young boy called David Arklay Smith who died from burns on the 6 December 1845. He was living at Thomson’s Lane off Perth Road with his father John who worked as a lapper at the mills, his mother Janet, his grandmother Mary, his aunt also named Mary, his older sisters Mary, 7 and Elizabeth, 6, William, 3, Janet, 2, and youngest sister Georgina who was 9 months old. The Dundee Courier wrote one of the older sisters, most probably Mary, had been left in charge of looking after David and during the evening he “went too near the fire and set his pinafore on fire” and his older sister “ran for the mother, but by the time assistance was got the child was so severely burnt that he died next day.” He was 5 years old. Sadly, another bereavement befell the family just a couple of weeks later on the 23 December 1845 when Georgina died from “water in the head,” today diagnosed as Hydrocephalus. She was buried in the same grave with her brother.
A fifth tragic death involves a tollkeeper at Blackness called James Thomson who went missing on 30 December 1848, and was assumed to have drowned. Three months later in March 1849, his body was found by a sailor in the water at Earl Grey Docks with apparently no signs of foul play. The Dundee, Perth, Cupar Advertiser reported “From the appearance of the corpse, and also of the money and other articles about it, there can be no doubt, but it lain in the bottom of the dock since” December. Two months into his disappearance the Advertiser wrote James had been found at the bottom of a well in the east end of Dundee, but this was just a rumour. There is a mystery surrounding his death and many unanswered questions: how did James end up drowned? Was he frequenting a pub? Or did he stumble over on his walk home and hit his head in the process? Sadly, we will never know. He was buried on 3 March 1849 and was 44 years old.
The final tragic death is an engineer called James Ritchie who died from injuries resulting from a fall on 1 December 1871. The 1871 Census recorded that he lived at 312 Hawkhill with his wife, Isabella, daughter Ann and two sons Robert and James. He worked for Gilroy Brothers and Company, manufacturers of Jute, at Tay Works on Lochee Road. On the day James died he had been working in the south wing and whilst “placing or ascending a ladder to enable him to shut one of the windows, he fell against a flywheel, which struck him upon the head, fracturing his skull” wrote the Dundee Courier. The Montrose Review gave further information reporting the flywheel “was in motion, and that being struck severely on the head had caused instantaneous death.” He was 40 years old.
Ref: DCC-SA0616
Nowadays on building sites and in factories, health and safety regulations are largely and legally enforced and if not, will result in fines and or prison time; most houses do not have fireplaces and are heated through radiators and many people with mental health problems are treated by the NHS and a majority are not sent to mental health hospitals. Unfortunately, accidents by misadventure and death resulting from tragic circumstances are inevitable, but I wonder if there was contemporary health and safeguarding standards and better services to signpost people with bad mental health, would these individuals still have met their untimely deaths?
By Johanna Steele, Volunteer at Dundee City Archives, March 2024
You can view the index that Johanna worked on for the burials at St Peter’s churchyard 1837-1907 on the FDCA website.
The Dundee City Archives Blog 
Good morning
Would like to read this, but can’t access it as ‘password protected’. Anything you can do to unlock it?
With best wishes
Isla Keys West Bridgford
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