Shooting spree in Scotland

In his weekly Times Past column, historian Jonathan Smyth looks back on this account of a Cavan man who was declared insane after shooting people in Dundee in the 1890s...

While looking for something to read, I found a curious book called ‘Undiscovered Dundee’ by Brian King. One of the stories in the book told of a tragic shooting spree in Scotland. Affected by insanity, the gunman began his attack on August 15, 1893. He was originally from Co Cavan.

Dundee is Scotland’s fourth largest city. It is an industrial centre located in Angus County in the Northeast of the country. Situated on the North bank of the Firth of Tay, it stretches out along the river towards the North Sea. This is Scotland’s longest river, and it gives Dundee its wonderful riverfront setting.

Number 15 was a rundown tenement on John Street, Dudhope Crescent, and was home to many families. Tenements were infamous places where the effects of hardship and poverty could be seen. The late Scottish film star Sean Connery grew up in a similar tenement in Edinburgh and once recalled that nobody had hot water or toilets in their flats.

The terrible incident that occurred on the Tuesday afternoon of August 15, 1893, was totally unforeseen by the residents. The author Brian King described the atmosphere: ‘Anyone walking into the tenement at 15 John Street, Dundee, as the time approached three o’clock in the afternoon… would have noticed nothing unusual.’

There was a message boy going up the stairs to deliver bread. Others noticed Mary Farley and her daughter Ann leaving their flat. Mother and daughter worked at Jute Mill and had gone home to have lunch but were then returning to work as the lunch hour drew to a close. The Farleys passed three neighbouring women on the stairs, Isabella Norrie, her daughter Catherine Millar, and Barbara Leckie, who stood engaged in gossip outside a flat on the third floor.

Mrs Farley’s husband James was often the subject of idle gossip around John Street. Being unwell, his strange ways included jumping about the place when he met the neighbours. This led the locals to shout ‘Jack the Ripper’ at him and this made him visibly upset. For many years, Farley who originally came from Cavan, had worked as a ship’s stoker and had sailed around the world and had been to Russia and America and he was a powerfully built man who, by 1893, became a stay-at-home father to look after his four-year-old son.

That afternoon, James Farley and his son were entered the stairwell and heard three women on the landing whom he assumed were talking about him. Farley snapped. Then, rushing back up to his flat, he grabbed a loaded revolver. Looking totally deranged, he re-appeared on the stairs. Isabella Norrie on hearing the commotion came out of her flat to see what was going on. Farley turned and shot her. The woman’s daughter Catherine Millar came to her aid and again Farley fired a shot. It struck the young woman in the ‘lower part of her body’. She was still holding her baby when the bullet struck.

Farley then locked himself into his flat and declared he would never surrender. Three unarmed policemen on the beat nearby, Anderson, Dickson and Clark, arrived and attempted to force open the door. Farley unloaded a ‘hail’ of bullets. The Southern Star recalled that the bullets dangerously wounded Anderson and Dickson and a binman who came to the policemen’s aid. Constable Anderson was shot in the face and his colleague was hit in the shoulder. Below in the street, people watched as Farley’s victims, still bleeding profusely, were carried out on stretchers.

Farley threw open a window and glowered down at Cochrane Street. A terrified crowd shuddered momentarily when Farley started removing flowerpots from the windowsill. They feared he might shoot at them. Every so often, his appearance at the window created panic.

Mary Farley was sent for by Lieutenant Lamb. He hoped she’d plead with her husband to surrender. But James refused, instead promising to shoot as many of them as he could. Mr Walker, the landlord, had a spare key. He tried reasoning with Farley who told him he didn’t want to shoot him but he would if he had to.

The gunman and his son remained in the flat for two hours. Eventually, the police broke the door open using a chunk of wood. The police used chairs as shields. There was a desperate struggle and Police Inspector David McBay sustained horrific injuries when Farley grabbed a large knife. McBay collapsed almost ‘disembowelled’.

Spectators screamed and threatened to lynch Farley as they took him away handcuffed to two policemen. On August 16, 1893, a correspondent for the Freeman’s Journal did not think that Mrs Norrie, or Inspector McBay would survive. McBay died six days later. Thousands of people lined the thoroughfares when Inspector McBay’s funeral procession passed through Dundee.

The investigation revealed more details about James Farley’s background. He was born in Cavan ‘around 1847’ and was working in Manchester in 1866 when he met his future wife, a Cavan lady named Mary McDonald, and they moved to the Gorbals, Glasgow. Mr and Mrs Farley had two children while in Glasgow. However, it emerged that Farley became mentally scarred by the events of a gas explosion in which he was one of the rescuers.

The Farleys moved to Dundee about 1890 but James had been unfit to work. However, shortly before the shooting, there was talk that Farley had purchased a ticket to America to find work.

Doctors diagnosed Farley as suffering from ‘acute melancholia’ and the court declared him insane. Farley was committed to Perth Prison in October 1893 and was eventually transferred to Westgreen Asylum in 1913.

On an early summer morning in May 1913, terror gripped Scotland when news of an escape from Westgreen Asylum became known. Farley was by now in his 60s and had been institutionalised for 20 years. However, his escape was short lived and he was recaptured that day in Perth City centre wandering amidst shoppers. James Farley died at Liff Hospital (formerly Westgreen Asylum), Dundee in 1930.

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