Fury over call-up of market cashier

Food production will be hit say petitioners

Farmers and others connected to agriculture were“up in arms”100 years ago after a key member of staff at a Stirling auction mart was called up.

No fewer than 500 names had been added to a petition calling for Mr Henry Adam, bookkeeper and cashier at Speedie Brothers Ltd, to be released from Army service.

Farmers, butchers, dairymen and cattle and sheep dealers from the counties of Stirling, Perth, Dumbarton, Kinross and Clackmannan signed the petition which was sent to the Board of Agriculture. It stated that the absence of Mr Adam from Speedie Brothers would hit national food production as the firm was the principal livestock dealer in Central Scotland and he was “indispensable” to their operation.

The Observer said: “This is more especially the case when the period of the great autumn special sales of sheep and cattle is approaching and when, in a single day, £75,000 is sometimes handled by him.”

It was also pointed out in the petition that the annual cash turnover of Speedie Brothers was £1.6 million. Adjusted for inflation, that’s around £74 million today.

•Meanwhile, at a county tribunal hearing, Mrs Campbell, Inversnaid Cottage, Loch Lomond, appealed for exemption for her only surviving son, David G Campbell who worked as a carter.

Mrs Campbell’s husband died in October, 1917, while one of her sons was killed in France a year earlier and another had been invalided out of the Army and was a commissioned officer in Hong Kong.

David Campbell, subject of the appeal, had been medically examined and found to be Grade One for military service but his mother said to take him away would lead to hardship for the family.

The tribunal was told Mr Campbell had, however, recently undergone an operation for appendicitis and the wound was “still open”.

His fitness for service was to be re-assessed in a few days time when he was due to undergo another medical examination and the case was adjourned until then.