BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, 101
foot of the Candlemaker Row, He was employed and paid by the fishmongers
to announce that fish were in the market. His horn was a long, white, iron one,
which he always kept exceedingly well polished. The practice of announcing the
arrival of fish by ‘‘ tout” of horn is now discontinued. Davidson was a welldoing
man in his way. His wife kept a small grocery shop; and by means
of their united efforts, brought up their family in comfort. Some of his
daughters were respectably married.
No. ccv.
WILLIAM WILSON OR “MORTAR WILLIE.”
THIS venerable personage was a native of Perthshire, and born in 1709, to use
his own words, ‘‘ within a bow-shot of Castle Huntly,” parish of Longforgan.
The first thirty years of his life were devoted to agricultural employment. He
then enlisted, fought against the Pretender, and afterwards served for nineteen
years in the army-the greater portion of which was spent in the German and
American wars.‘ After obtaining his discharge, he wrought for nearly twenty
years in a bark-mill in the neighbourhood of London.
About 1778 he returned to his native country, and settling in Edinburgh,
found employment in the capacity described in the Print. He was a long time
in the establishment of Dr, Burt of this city,* who generously continued to pay
him his usual allowance of two shillings daily for his labour, after he had
attained the long age of a hundred years, and although unable to work more
than a small portion of the day. Willie was gratefully sensible of the Doctor’s
kindness in this respect-“ Eh, man,” he would remark, on:occasions when he
had done little, “ ye’ve got a bad bargain the day.” He was remarkably honest
and attentive. He occasionally nursed the children j and as he sat by the fire,
used to tell them amusing stories. He always rose about four in the morning ;
and, at this early hour, seldom failed to rouse the domestics of his employer,
in order to gain admission to the laboratory. He lived in the Old Hard-Well
Close, Canongate, where he died on the 16th July 1815, in the hundred
and sixth year of his age. It is supposed that, but for a hurt he received by
a fall, he might have lived several years longer. He left an infirm old widow,
aged seventy-three, in very poor circumstances, to whom he had been married
fifty years.
He was for many year8 servant to Lord John Murray, eldest son of the Duke of Atholl, who,
in 1745, was appointed Colonel of the 42d Highlanders, and fought at the battle of Fontenoy.
He had previously been in the employ of Mrs. Macdonald, who kept a laboratory shop in the
Lawnmarket, with whom Dr. Burt served his apprenticeship, and to whose business he afterwards
succeeded. Indeed the labours of “Mortar Willie” were not confined to one or two employers, his
important services having been rendered, at various periods, to almost every drug establishment of
any extent in town.
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