BILL MCALLISTER: Motoring medic was first of many to acquire a car in Inverness
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The first car in Inverness proved just what the doctor ordered – but the first ST licence plate went to a Londoner with local links while a later one was driven by a Saint!
When local GP Dr England Kerr acquired the burgh’s first car 120 years ago, there was no licensing system. Dr Kerr lived at the junction of Culduthel Road and Old Edinburgh Road but his car was garaged in Friars Street.
He had his own chauffeur, a chap named Campbell, and when heavy snowfalls made it too dangerous for the vehicle, Campbell drove Dr Kerr’s pony and sleigh to take the motoring medic to his patients.
Because of the rising tide of accidents and the need to identify cars, the government introduced the Motor Car Act 1903 with compulsory registration to local councils. It came into force in January 1904, but Inverness-shire County Council, quick off the mark, began issuing licences the previous month.
The first Inverness-shire licence, ST 1, went to Granville Hugh Baillie of London, whose father Evan Baillie owned Dochfour Estate. Granville, who wrote several books on the history and design of watches, affixed his new licence plate to French car designer Leon Serpollet’s gray-coloured Gardner-Serpollet, imported from Paris.
James Leslie Fraser, of Daviot Lodge, had ST 2, a Toledo car built in Ohio. ST 9 was registered that same month by Lord Lovat of Beaufort Castle for a 10-horsepower Packard.
In those early times, cars were beyond the budget of all but the wealthy, particularly in the Highlands.
In 1904, Colonel Lionel MacKinnon of Dochgarroch Lodge registered ST32, an Arrol-Johnson six-seater car built in Glasgow – with the driving wheel in the middle row!
Between 1905 and 1906, clan chief Alfred, the Mackintosh of Mackintosh, registered three cars – ST 60, a Wolseley, ST 64, a Daimler, and ST 86, a Siddeley – at his Moy Hall home. The motor car era gathered momentum locally and by 1913, Roderick MacRae of Academy Street – a founder of MacRae and Dick – registered ST 525.
Six years later ST 1349, a 20 horsepower Model T Ford became the Highlands’ first motor fire tender, with bodywork from Frasers of Fraser Street, a local coachbuilder. It seated two people, with a hose in the back and a wooden ladder attached above!
In the 1960s, Baillie’s ST 1 became a celebrated sight on TV as it coincided with the initials of fictional detective Simon Templar, played by Roger Moore (later James Bond) who drove a Volvo P1800 with the licence plate in countless episodes.
Many early cars were bought by Highland entrepreneurs to transport well-heeled visitors to tourist attractions or to and from shooting lodges.
In those days you could simply keep your ST plates to use in your next car, without paying the eye-watering prices of today’s second-hand registration market.
For instance, Ewen Campbell’s garage in Kingussie, replaced its 1909 car five years later with another Ohio-built car, an Overland Laudanette, keeping the same ST 200 plates, and hiring out the vehicle to shooting parties.
And in 1910 Roderick MacRae transferred ST 221 plates on to a yellow Halley charabanc in which MacRae and Dick ran daily tours from Inverness, including collecting passengers from Loch Ness steamers.
JS, of course, was the Ross-shire number plate and in 1907 a Mr Mackay of Achnasheen bought JS 86, an Albion 16 horsepower model, and sold it a year later to Donald MacGillivray, who ran Gorthleck General Store. It became the Stratherrick Mail Bus, carrying eight people and the postbag.
In 1912, Beauly man James Maclean, owner of the Lovat Arms Hotel and a licensed grocery shop in the village, invested in ST 412, another Albion 16 horsepower car – they were made in Glasgow – and introduced the Tomich and Beauly Motor Service. This elongated car seated up to 10 people and called in at Cannich, where Maclean later acquired the hotel.
There was a 20 miles an hour speed limit – as recently imposed on many Inverness streets – but it was scrapped in 1930 as it was too difficult to enforce.
Now two million new vehicles are registered every year in the UK – changed days from Dr Kerr’s era!
Sponsored by Ness Castle Lodges.
