Cartsdyke's problem piggeries

In 1857 doctors in Greenock were very concerned with public health and the unsanitary conditions arising from ordinary people keeping pigs in back courts of houses.  Stanners Street in Greenock's east end was one of the town's older streets and very overcrowded.  It ran from John Street north to Main Street where Hutcheson's Court stood (almost across from the shipyard entrance).  In 1856 the Nuisance Removal Act had been passed, and Greenock had its own Inspector of Nuisances - John Walsh.

Photo source Greenock Burns Club

The pig problem in this area was described:-

"It is a densely populated district, and within a court till recently wholly undrained, a yard of seventy feet by sixty, a congeries of piggeries, occupied by not fewer than forty swine, imbedded in stagnant ordure, emitting foul and offensive smells, which the tenants of the neighbouring houses declare to be so abominable that they dare not open their windows which look into the yard, and which the medical gentlemen employed to inspect the place pronounce to be prejudicial to the public health.  It appears from another witness, the proprietor of the premises, that the place had been, for a great number of years, occupied as a piggery; and we are therefore not surprised to find, on the unimpeachable testimony of DrWallace, that the street had, during epidemics, produced a greater number of fever patients, in proportion To its size, than any other street in the town.  Fifty-three cases of typhus fever were admitted into the Infirmary in 1847-1848 from the Stanners; and last year there were nine cases.  So recently as the month of January last, Dr Wallace was called to attend a case of typhus fever in Hutcheson’s Court, which looks into the piggery yard."

John Walsh reported:- "On the 11th December the pig-houses were in a very filthy condition, the pigs were very badly bedded; and in some of them, being lower than the general area of the court, the filth was allowed outside, along the front of another property into a cesspool in Main Street.  I took Dr Wallace down with me to inspect the premises and he gave me a certificate.  I saw the premises upon the 3rd February, when I served the complaint.  The houses were in the same state, but a small drain had been made on one side of the court, but it was not acting.  There was a foul and offensive small in the court at that time.  I was frequently at the place last summer, the smell was More offensive in warm weather.  I was there again on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  There appeared to be a quantity of clean sawdust put into the pig-houses.  I examined them in presence of Dr Marshall.  The houses had a quantity of ordure and filth under sawdust.  I served each of the defenders, on the 18th January with notice to remove the swine."  

The pigs were not removed and the case was taken to court.  On the first day of proceedings in February 1858, Daniel Macfarlane, one of the proprietors of land in the area announced that he would represent the 14 people accused of keeping piggeries in Cartsdyke.  they were  – Murdoch Robertson, Thomas Beith, Hannah McNeill, Hugh McConnell, Janet McFeat, Malcolm McKechnie, George Croiley, Helen Barr, Susan McGlaughlan, Elizabeth McBride, Mary Lyons, Michael McAnulty, John Gray and James Brown.  Many of the men were at work and were represented by their wives in court. He was informed by the sheriff that he needed to either speak just for himself or be represented by a lawyer.

Macfarlane explained that he was not receiving payment because most of the others were too poor to pay for legal representation.  The Sheriff replied that if the others could not afford to employ an agent he would appoint one for them.  Macfarlane was not permitted to address the court.  However, when the others were called to plead Macfarlane seemed to be advising them on what to say and occasionally made remarks to the court.  Many said that they were widows and had no other means of making a livelihood than keeping a pig and without that they would be unable to pay rent or taxes and would have to go on the poor roll.  Eventually the Sheriff who, as the local newspaper reported:-

 “had shown great forbearance during the “scene”, at length said, Now, Sir, listen to me; I have never known the dignity of this court assailed in such a manner as it has been by you.  There is a power vested in me to protect the court against contempt.  That power is imprisonment.  Take care; don’t force me to use it”.

Macfarlane replied “I am here to represent these poor people; I know my rights, I am neither a child nor an interloper”.  The Sheriff again warned Macfarlane to be silent and appointed lawyer Andrew Boag as agent for the others.  

In his statement to the court Macfarlane stated:-  "I reside in Glasgow.  I have known the pig yard behind Stanners for 40 years.  I am a proprietor in the neighbourhood.  My property is about 100 yards from the spot.  I never heard any complaints from parties in the neighbourhood but rather the reverse.  The opinion was that both the keeping and eating of pigs fortified against disease.  I inspected the piggeries in this locality several months ago.  I saw them again today.  The yard is in a very proper state.  I have rarely seen a place of the kind in so good a condition.  The pig houses are very clean indeed many people are lying in worse beds here and elsewhere.  The pigs are confined to proper beds and houses.  I felt no smell, beyond what is usual among cattle ... The value of the pigs in the neighbourhood is about £2000."

Photo source Greenock Burns Club

The Sheriff decided that the pigs should be removed from the area, but gave the defendants three weeks to find a better place in which to keep them.  James Brown who lived in Stanners Street and was the proprietor of the ground was to pay three quarters of the cost and the other defendants the rest.

Photo source Watt Institution

Stanners Street - in the book "Greenock Place Names" by Sandra Macdougall and Joy Monteith, the name of the street is said to be from the fact that the official inspection of weights and measures was made from a shed in this street - Standards Street became Stanners Street.