10 OF THE BEST 01
Archibald MacNab When Archibald MacNab inherited Kinnell House in the 1820s, he also inherited debts of over £2 million. MacNab did a midnight fl it to Canada, where the Canadian government was gifting land to settlers. MacNab asked for 80,000 acres in return for housing Scottish families. However, McNab passed the land off as his own and then demanded money for rent, timber and other impositions.
Fraud squad
Whether it is a simple matter of pulling the wool over people’s eyes or if the motivation is extortion, these are some of Scotland’s greatest hoaxes
ROBERT RAMSAY & JAMES STEELE The counterfeiting of Scottish money has been a problem for hundreds of years. In most cases the forged currency is pretty easy to spot but occasionally it is almost indiscernible from the real thing. This was the case of the coins forged in 1927 by joiner Robert Ramsay and electrician James Steele, from Edinburgh. Indeed, the pair were only caught because they used the same post offi ce to get rid of the coins, eventually alerting the suspicions of the postmistress.
03
Burns Temple hoax They say that pride comes before a fall, and it was February 1904 when Kilmarnock town council received a letter with news that the great philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, wanted to erect a temple in memory of Robert Burns in Kilmarnock, at a cost of half a million pounds. Rather than check the facts, the councillors immediately accepted the gift and when it quickly became apparent that the letter was a hoax the story became front page news, much to their embarrassment.
50
WWW.SCOTTISHFIELD.CO.UK 04
BRIAN MACKINNON When Brandon Lee enrolled into the fi fth year at Bearsden Academy in 1993, he looked like any other school boy. He took part in school plays and wrote for the school magazine. Lee passed his fi ve Highers with an ‘A’ grade and was accepted at Dundee University to study medicine. Incredibly, Brandon Lee was actually thirty-year-old Brian Mackinnon, who had been a pupil at the same school between 1974 and 1980 and had gone back in a desperate attempt to become a doctor.
Alexander Bannatyne The potato blight in the mid- 1840s caused widespread misery in the Highlands. The situation was so dire that over £200,000 was raised towards transporting grain to the starving. Tenders were sought from lowland Scottish grain dealers, one of whom was Alexander Bannatyne, based in Glasgow and with a good reputation. But Bannatyne became greedy and soon the grain was adulterated with sawdust and animal feed. The scam was detected and Bannatyne was sentenced to four months in jail, his reputation in tatters.
02
05
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179