Tales of True Crime, Orkney : The Killing of Rev Grant’s Goose

This is a true tale of a crime which took place in Sanday in the year 1810.

The accused was farmer George Dinnison, Voy, Sanday. The aggrieved making the complaint was Rev William Grant, in the parish of Cross, also Sanday.

Most of Orkney in 1810 was common land where those who lived and farmed in the neighbouring Townships could graze their animals. It was essential for the people to be able to use the common land. Their animals might be one cow, a couple of sheep, a few pigs, and many geese.

The Goose Girl / Girl feeding geese. Antonio Montemezzo.

A dyke separated the common land from the fields which were in a runrig arrangement but there were as yet no fences, the barbed wire came later in the 19th century.

The story goes that George Dinnison came across several of Rev Grant’s geese when the birds had wandered into his field and were feeding on his crop. This was some distance from Grant’s own place. Dinnison ‘vexed at seeing his crop destroyed’, and not knowing to whom they belonged, drove the geese off using his staff.

Dinnison then found it necessary ‘to urge their speed a little by way of throwing a small stone at the flock which without the least intention on his part, happened unfortunately to kill one of the birds’.

Geese were a valuable commodity in the islands and farmed for every part of their body: not just the meat but the feathers which were used for export. Very few of the ordinary islanders could afford to eat meat.

One of those who witnessed what had happened was a tenant of Rev Grant’s, Charles Cross, and according to his account Dinnison, who had been attending church, was driving the geese along. He was using his staff to do this and when one fled he struck the goose and killed it.

Rev Grant, when he heard of the killing sent for George Dinnison and demanded 20/- in payment which he would donate to the Poor of Orkney.

Rev Grant ‘considered it a duty to convince [George Dinnison]..he had done wrong.’ As a consequence he started proceedings at the Civil Court demanding Dinnison be fined for the killing of the goose and if necessary imprisoned. The case went on for many months with both Grant and Dinnison pleading their side of the argument. Expenses mounted up.

Both men in their evidence reminded the court of ‘nefarious deeds which have lately been perpetrated in Sanday…crimes which are a disgrace to this county and this age.’

Tales of True Crime, Orkney : Assault in Sanday

George Dinnison offered to pay for the value of the bird or to replace the goose with one at Martinmas, but also stated that he would have been entitled to kill all the geese because they were making ‘prodigious havoc among his corn.’

None of this was acceptable to Rev Grant who said that Dinnison had illegally and cruelly put to death his goose. In addition to that the crime was committed on a Fast day.

Rev Grant stated that the crime ‘affects the morale of the people if he [Dinnison] gets away with it…anyone to do something so cruel would do the same to cattle and horses’. Clearly a reference to the previous crimes committed in Sanday.

The case which had carried on into March 1811, was found to be ‘frivolous’ and each party was to pay their own expenses. That was not the end to the matter because the expenses had mounted up for both men. George Dinnison pleaded that he was ‘a very poor man totally unfit to defray the expense of a Lawsuit, especially of such a frivolous and vexatious one…into which he has been wantonly dragged by [Grant].’ – 8 March 1811.

In 14 March 1811, Rev Grant was still corresponding with the Civil Court over the matter complaining that the case was being ‘treated with too much levity by the People.’ He demanded Dinnison pay the £1 10shillings for the Poor of the Cross parish.

On 14 November 1811 George Dinnison was invoiced by his lawyers for expenses amounting to £5 2 shillings and 2 pennies.

Reference: Orkney Archives, Sheriff Court, Civil Court Proceedings SC11/5/1810/012

Reverend Grant, Minister in the Cross Parish, was married twice and had six children. He often resorted to the Civil Court to pursue cases and tenants for unpaid rents. This too had a cost and in 1825 he applied to Walter Traill of Westove for a loan of money. His account of the parishes of Cross and Burness was drawn up by Robert Scarth of Scarth House, Sanday, and published in the New Statistical Account of Scotland.

The goose keeper. Giuseppe De Nittis. (Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris)

Fiona Grahame