Porteous Riots in Edinburgh Take Place After the Hanging of a Smuggler by the City Guard

The Porteous Riots surrounded the activities of Captain John Porteous, Captain of the City Guard of Edinburgh (ca. 1695 – 1736). Porteous seems to have been an overbearing official, despised by the mob and the underclasses of Edinburgh society.

On 14 April 1736 three convicted smugglers, Andrew Wilson, William Hall and George Robertson, were arrested, tried and condemned to death. Halls sentence was commuted to transportation for life, while Wilson and Robertson awaited their fate. A few days before the execution George Robertson managed to escape by widening the space between the window-bars of his cell and, with the help of sympathethic supporters eventually made his way to Holland.

The remaining convict, Andrew Wilson, was taken to be publicly hanged in the Grassmarket, Edinburgh on 14 April 1736. The body of Wilson was cut down against the wishes of the mob, and the ensuing riot was such that the hangman had to be placed in protective custody. As the situation worsened, for fear of an attempt to rescue the victims, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh instructed Captain Porteous to call out the entire guard and to furnish them with powder and shot.

After the execution the mob became violent and began to stone the City Guard. Accounts of events are confused, but what is certain is that Captain Porteous instructed his men to fire above the heads of the crowd but, in so doing, they shot and wounded people in the windows of the high tenement buildings opposite. The crowd became increasingly violent and, as panic set in, Captain Porteous ordered the guard to shoot into the mob, which led to the deaths of six people in all.

Porteous was arrested the same afternoon and charged with murder. He was tried at the High Court of Justiciary on 5 July 1736, where a majority of witnesses testified that Porteous had personally fired into the crowd on 14 April, although sixteen others said they had not seen him do so.

However, public resentment at a possible reprieve was such that a plot to murder Captain Porteous was hatched, and when the authorities heard of this it was decided to increase the guard at the Tolbooth prison. However, on the evening before this was due to happen, a large crowd of over four thousand gathered at Portsburgh, west of the city.