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Fort William Section of the Inverness-shire Constabulary, outside the Fort William "County Buildings" (Police Station with officer accomodation above) – taken in Spring of 1893. The charge room is on the left and at its door stand Insp Chisholm’s sons Alister (Alexander Joseph -later an officer himself) and Donald, and on the right (erntrance to the house) are daughter Eliza with Mrs Chisholm who looks to be expecting daughter Ishbel.
The officers are from Left to Right:
1) Sergeant George Mitchell (recently promoted)
2) Constable John (Hird or Macdonald or MacPherson)
3) ditto
4) Inspector Alexander Chisholm
Yes, Fort William had three Constables in 1893 – all with the first name John. So – perm any 2 from 3!
Undoubtedly a Peter MacFarlane shot – and a particularly socially-relevant one at that.
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Alexander Chisholm, known as “Big Sandy”, had worked as an Ostler (stableman) before leaving his home in the Invercannich area of Inverness-shire (west of Beauly, at the mouth of Glen Affric) to join the Inverness-shire Constabulary. Appointed as a Constable on 19 March 1879, Sandy was 26 when he donned the navy blue uniform, and was immediately assigned to cover the “Dores District” of the County.
Dores is a village on the eastern shore of Loch Ness, just a few miles south of the town (now City) of Inverness. His patch would have included the rural area on the outskirts of Inverness and he was likely to have been based at Force HQ at Inverness Castle, rather than having a house and station within his beat. Dores was one of the locations sufficiently close to HQ to enable junior officers to patrol while still learning the job under close supervision from Chief Constable William Murray.
After 3 months getting used to wearing the uniform ,he was moved to the County’s busiest town of Fort William, on the west coast at the southern end of the Great Glen. Although Inverness was by far the largest conurbation, it did not actually lie in the County of Inverness, as the town (and Royal Burgh) was a separate local authority area, complete with its own Burgh Police. In fact the County HQ, at Inverness Castle, was located within Inverness Burgh but was actually an exclave of the County within the Burgh boundaries. The Burgh and County Police Headquarters were less than 50 yards apart, one on the Castle Hill and the other lying at the foot of that hill. The detailed mention of the Castle will be explained later.
Sandy then spent a year in Fort William, under the tutelage of the very experienced Inspector Lachlan Mackintosh. Mackintosh had been one of the original constables appointed when the Inverness-hire force was reconstituted in March 1858, and a brief period as a Constable at Kingussie, he was appointed Inspector at Fort William in May 1859. So he had been there almost from the very beginning, and his 20 years of experience and local knowledge would have been passed on to the young Chisholm.
After a year in “The Fort” Sandy was given his own station – Spean Bridge, just north of Fort William but at an important and strategic location at the west end of Glen Spean, where the Inverness/Fort William/Glasgow road meets the only road running to the west coast from Kingussie/Dalwhinnie (on what is now the A9 Inverness/Perth Road). Some three miles up that (Glen Spean -Laggan) road, lies the village of Roy Bridge.
Chief Constable Murray (who had set up the force in 1858) retired in October 1882, by which time Inspector MacKintosh was feeling his age and had negotiated his standing down to Constable (and moving to the remote station at Knoydart) where he would remain until 1891 (by which time police pensions had been introduced). To fill the vacancy for an Inspector at Fort William, Murray had promoted Sergeant Archibald Matheson from Beauly.
The new Chief Constable as Alexander ("Alister") McHardy, who had been Chief Constable of the County of Sutherland since 1866, and he had clearly been brought in to lead the force – and double its manpower – through what was already shaping up to be a turbulent time . Civil unrest was already rife in respect of land ownership and use – across the whole of the Highlands & Islands, and in particular in Inverness-shire, the largest Highland county.
McHardy immediately set about reshaping and enlarging the force and was clearly very impressed with “Big Sandy”, promoting him to Sergeant in August 1883. With Sandy having less than 5 years service, this was a major action on Mr McHardy’s part, so the new Sergeant had been identified as having great potential.
The rank of Sergeant was not one Mr Murray had much time for – or he was not permitted to use it. At set-up of the force, he had been allowed four supervisors, namely a Superintendent (Deputy Chief Constable) at Inverness to also command the Inverness Division, and three Inspectors – one each to manage the other Divisions of Skye, Lochaber and Long Island (Outer Hebrides). He had also eventually managed to achieve 3 Sergeant posts, in Portree, Beauly and Kingussie. McHardy took the bull by the horns. He was in 1883 authorised to take on 50 new men (the force establishment was only 44 when he arrived) and he needed supervisors to marshal these new recruits. He did indeed recruit the full 50 new starts during 1883, albeit 11 men went “down the road” in that same year for a variety of reasons.
After almost a year as Sergeant, Sandy was moved into Fort William, a much more tidy arrangement in McHardy’s view in order to be on the sport to cover for the Inspector, so that one or other would always in the Station to keep command while the other might be far away in a distant part of the scattered division.
During his time in Lochaber Sandy met and married a young schoolteacher, and in June 1887 they had to up sticks and move, as Sandy was transferred to Force Headquarters in Inverness, where he would be in daily charge of the officers posted around the rural area in the environs of Inverness. Force HQ (Inverness Castle) also included living quarters, and here their son Alexander Joseph was born in 1888.
The following year, the Deputy Chief constable Donald Aitchison had to retire through ill-health and Mr McHardy promoted “Big Sandy” to Superintendent to take his place on 25th October 1889. This was a shock to the system for “Big Sandy”, as much of his work would entail “driving a desk” rather than being out and about in the fresh air with his men. McHardy too was a hard taskmaster, leading by example – but able to tutor too as he had been Deputy Chief himself in two forces. For some reason, Sandy was not officially designated Deputy Chief Constable until 28/9/91 – it may be that McHardy did not realise a separate appointment (ratified by the Police committee) was necessary.
Big Sandy’s health was clearly suspect by this time, doubtless exacerbated by the desk jockey role. Fate then intervened however, when Inspector Matheson at Fort William died in February 1982, aged only 53.
To explain developments from then, who better than – in his own fair hand, as duplicated and notified to all members of the force on 7th June 1892 – none other than Chief Constable McHardy himself:-
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Inverness-shire Constabulary
Memorandum to the force
Promotion, Rates of Pay etc
Supt & Dep. CC Alexander Chisholm, who was during Summer & Autumn suffering much from ill-health caused by Office work & consequent confinement was on the death of the late Inspector Matheson, Fort William, in Feb’y last sent to Fort William for a change & to take charge of that Division for a time. The Superintendent has during his stay at Fort William found his health thoroughly restored, and being medically advised has requested to be relieved of the rank and duties of Supt, and appointed an Inspector in the Force, and being satisfied that if he returned to Office work his health would again be injured, the Chief Constable has agreed to change the rank of Supt Chisholm to that of Inspector and has placed him at Fort William in charge of that Division.
Supt Macaulay: Consequent on the appointment of Inspector Chisholm as above, Inspector Malcolm Macaulay has been promoted to rank of Supt and appointed Dep. C.C. at Headquarters.
PC Keith Webster promoted to Sergeant at Headquarters in charge of the Home Section
PC William MacInnes promoted to Sergeant vice Sergeant A.B. MacLennan retired on pension.
PC High Chisholm promoted Det. Sergeant vice Macaulay promoted
The following are now the Headquarters Divisional and Section Officers of the Force:-
Headquarters: Supt & Dep. C.C. Malcolm Macaulay
Office clerk Sergeant James Philip
Det Sergeant Hugh Chisholm
Sergeant Keith Webster
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So it seemed everybody was happy – albeit McHardy managed to “mislay” an Inspector post, meantime replacing it with Detective Sergeant – the first such mention of the word “Detective” in the force.
As Inspector for Lochaber “Big Sandy” was apparently in his element, and his health did indeed remain improved. He and his growing family occupied the “County Buildings” (Police Station) in Fort William, and son Alexander Joseph (Alister) would eventually join the force in 1908, although the two men never served together at the same place.
Big Sandy died in service, at the age of 62, on 10th January 1915 and is buried in Cille Choirill churchyard in Roy Bridge .
The Chisholm family were clearly good friends with the MacFarlane family from Spean Bridge, and Big Sandy’s son (Alister, of whom more later) would marry into that family. Peter MacFarlane took over the chemist shop in Fort William, and also established a photographic business, which likely explains the superb photographic studies of the Chisholm police officers.
I am most grateful to Mr Peter Chisholm (grandson of “Big Sandy” and son of Alister) for allowing me to copy and use these photographs and documents, and to Big Sandy’s great-grandson Alister McDermott (another retired police officer) for putting me in touch with Peter.
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