In 1840s Fife, a deserted spouse could have their marriage annulled if they set a place at the dinner table and shouted out the door for the absent spouse to come eat. After a year plus one day, they were free to marry again.
Every evening a fresh table setting had to be put out when the jilted spouse was ready to eat, and every time they’d have to call out that dinner was ready. Think it was to demonstrate good faith that you *wanted* your spouse to come home.
More sage advice from auld Greenock (1895)
A recipe from Greenock, 1909.
n. the snuggest, most enclosed place you can think of.
Literally, ‘the corner of a corner’
During the 1831 Reform Riots, Edinburgh Anti-Reformers accidentally advertised details of a private meeting. The unpopular Tory MP, Robert Dundas, had to be smuggled past an angry mob outside the meeting hall. He hid inside a cello case on his porter’s back.
In the 17th century in Kilmartin, Skye, “melancholy and low spirits” were treated by the blacksmith. The patient was held face up on the anvil while the smith wound up with his biggest hammer. He’d swing it down and deliberately miss as close as he could. Spirits lifted! It was said of the blacksmith “he ends in a Faint, else he Cure the Patient of all diseases…”
Charming logo for Mrs. Fettes’s Tea Warehouse, Edinburgh (1761)
If you have a driving licence, think back to when you were first learning to drive. Maybe you had a relative or friend sit beside you, or maybe you had lessons with an instructor. Now imagine, after your first few experiences behind the wheel, embarking on a drive of 900+ miles from one end of Great Britain to the other, in a brand new car, with 4 passengers on board.
In September 1903, this is the challenge that 19 year old Lizzie Murison faced. She was the first woman to drive a motorcar from Land’s End to John o’ Groats and she did it after half a dozen short lessons, the last one on the night before she set off.
Lizzie Burroughs Murison1some sources give her name as Elizabeth, but Lizzie is what is given on her birth registration and her headstone. I also spell her name Murison as that is name on her headstone and how newspaper reports of her exploits spelt it. was born on the 5th January 1884 at Trumland, Rousay in Orkney, to Robert Mitchell Murison and Margaret McDonald. Lizzie’s father was the gamekeeper for the Trumland estate. In 1885, the Murison family moved to Farmley in Kilkenny where Robert became the factor on an estate there.
Lizzie was apparently part of a musical family; she was a noted violinist in Kilkenny and by 1901 was studying at Miss Jane J. Niven’s private school in Gilmore Place in Edinburgh which prepared girls for musical examinations or university entrance. Perhaps unsurprising for the daughter of a gamekeeper, Lizzie was excellent on a horse and a crack shot with a rifle.
In September 1903, the Automobile Club held their 3rd annual “Reliability Trial” at Crystal Palace–a week-long event where car manufacturers pitted their latest models against each other in various challenges to demonstrate their reliability and durability. Events included long distance tours to other towns and laps of dust-covered tracks to see how comfortable the driver would be in various conditions.
The Paisley-based Arrol-Johnston company sent two of their cars to take part in the trials, but their entry to the competition was revoked after they arrived three minutes too late; all entrants had to arrive at the Palace gates by 12 noon–no exceptions!
Denied the chance to demonstrate the durability and craftsmanship of their vehicle, George Johnston of the Arrol-Johnston company was at a loss. Enter Lizzie B. Murison. A family friend of Johnstons, Lizzie, who had travelled down with the cars from Paisley, volunteered to drive the Arrol-Johnston 12 h.p. “dogcart” back to Paisley from London. She knew that having a woman drive their car for such a long distance would be excellent publicity for the car maker, perhaps more than they would have garnered from success in the trials at Crystal Palace.
In September 1903 there were very few women motorists; whenever a woman got behind the wheel it was sure to make the papers. Earlier that year, Britain’s first female racing driver Dorothy Levitt had shocked Edwardian society by winning her class at speed trials in Southport2https://www.beaulieu.co.uk/news/women-in-motorsport-social-history-dorothy-levitt/, so there was a lot of publicity to be gained from Lizzie’s drive. However, a more daring plan was soon hatched and it was decided that Lizzie would drive from Land’s End to John o’ Groats instead–a trip of around 900 miles!
The dogcart was brought to Penzance and on the night of the 20th September, Lizzie had her first and only lesson on how to operate the car she would head to John o’ Groats in.
At 4pm, on Tuesday 21st September, Lizzie, her four passengers (“a lady and three gentlemen”), and all their luggage left from Land’s End amidst cheers and klaxons from fellow motorists who had turned out to support her. We know that she reached Penzance within 45 minutes and was expected to reach Exeter that evening. Unfortunately, that’s about all we know about how her journey progressed. She had expected to arrive at John o’ Groats on the Saturday, but ended up arriving on Monday afternoon–six days after she set off.
She drove, singlehandedly, 900+ miles on roads that were not built for automobiles. She averaged 180 miles each day over 57.5 hours of driving. Her average speed was 15.5mph and on her longest day of driving covered 213 miles.
In an interview she gave to a journalist from the Northern Ensign and Weekly Gazette, she described the roads in Cornwall and the Highlands and being particularly trying driving and for much of the journey the roads were cloaked in rain and heavy mists. Asked if the journey went well, she replied:
“Yes! I had the good fortune to steer quite clear of all accidents to either man or beasts, although several of my party expected, I believe, to end their journey in glory.”
After arriving at John o’ Groats, she and her friends stayed overnight at the Randall’s Station Hotel in Wick, before setting off for Inverness the next morning. She thus completed more than 1000 miles of driving in one week.
Asked about her accomplishment, Lizzie said that she had no desire for fame as a record breaker and was said to have been humble about the achievement (though given her initial idea about publicity for the Arrol-Johnston Company, her nonchalance might be an invention by her interviewer).
So, why isn’t the story of her ground-breaking journey better known? Arrol-Johnston apparently didn’t advertise their dogcart, which remained in production for another few years, on the strength of her achievement. Newspapers up and down the country reported on her success (though she was only ever referred to as “Miss Murison, an Irish lady”). The picture with Lizzie at the wheel of the dogcart at John o’ Groats appears in many books on early British motoring, but no modern researchers have gone further into Lizzie’s own story; all are happy to reprint the photo with “Miss Murison” in the caption.
I think several factors came together to keep Lizzie B. Murison’s 900-mile drive from being better known. Allow me to speculate:
Lizzie was a family friend of George Johnston, who, within a few months3by 1904 he was no longer listed on any company documents, would acrimoniously leave the company he co-founded to start the All-British Car Company. If Lizzie drove as a favour for George, this could explain why her story was kept out of any press for Arrol-Johnston. The dogcart design of Lizzie’s car was already old-fashioned by 1903, and clearly hearkened back to the “horseless carriage” approach towards car manufacture when other companies were making cars with the engine up front.
While there were very few women in motoring (I mean, like very, very few) before 1903, there was a lot going on in September of that year, that may have created an atmosphere that might have made Lizzie’s accomplishment less exciting. The Ladies’ Automobile Club was newly founded and was in the news in September promoting broader participation in motoring events by women. Members of the club were almost all from the upper or landed classes and seemed to really be promoting motoring for ladies in those elevated ranks of society–I am not sure how or if the young single daughter of a gamekeeper would be welcomed in their club.
While Lizzie was driving away from the Reliability Trials at Crystal Palace, Dorothy Levitt was there stealing the show. Levitt was the only female driver at Crystal Palace and almost every report made from the event included something of her story there. From 1903, Dorothy Levitt was the woman in motoring, breaking record after record in speed and distance, and her stories had additional intriguing details like her co-pilot Pomeranian dog and the revolver in her toolkit. Though both Leavitt and Murison challenged Edwardian sensibilities on how single working-class women should behave, Dorothy was a high-speed sprinter to Lizzie’s slow and steady marathoner.
By 1905, the 900-mile journey of “Miss Murison” had all but gone from Britain’s collective memory; Dorothy Leavitt’s journey from Liverpool to London was lauded as record-breaking (“longest drive achieved by a lady driver”). Part of a publicity stunt for De Dion Motors, her 206 mile trip to London is remembered today while the longest drive of Lizzie Murison’s 1903 publicity stunt, 213 miles, has been forgotten.
I wasn’t able to find out much about Lizzie Murison after she returned to Ireland. She married a sea captain, Walter Brennan in 1909 but was widowed the same year. She married Harold Carter Crumplen, an English clerk in 1920. In 1939 she was housekeeper at Worsted Lodge in Cambridgeshire and was still there in 1951. She died aged 70 on 2nd February 1954 and is buried in Burnchurch Graveyard with her parents and siblings in Kilkenny.4http://kilkennygraveyards.blogspot.com/2017/01/burnchurch-graveyard-parish-of.html
Websites
http://kilkennygraveyards.blogspot.com/2017/01/burnchurch-graveyard-parish-of.html
https://rousayremembered.com/lizzie-burroughs-murrison-pioneer-motorist/
https://www.britainbycar.co.uk/isle-of-rousay/552-the-trumland-estate
Newspapers
Gentlewoman – Saturday 19 September 1903
Daily Telegraph & Courier (London) – Wednesday 23 September 1903
Inverness Courier – Friday 02 October 1903
Kilkenny Moderator – Wednesday 07 October 1903
John o’ Groat Journal – Friday 09 October 1903
Print
Dodds, A. (1996) Scotland’s Past in Actions– Making Cars. National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh
Grieves, R. (2002) Wheels around Caithness and Sutherland. Stenlake, Mauchline
Nicholson, T.R. (1970) Passenger Cars, 1863-1904. Macmillan, NY.
Oliver, G.A. (1993) Motor trials and tribulations. HMSO, Edinburgh.
BOVRIL! A Scotlands-worth of beef concentrated into a jar–so you *know* it’s beefy.
(Dundee Evening Telegraph, 1924)
Though it probably refers to a kind of shallow basket, the early 19th century Scots idiom “COUNT YER SKULLS” is a way better version of “count your blessings”
