John Porteous
John Porteous (d. 1736) was captain of the city guard of Edinburgh during the riots of 1736. He was the son of Stephen Porteous, an Edinburgh tailor. Having served in the army, he was employed in 1715 to drill the city guard for the defence of Edinburgh in anticipation of a Jacobite rising, and was promoted later to the command of the force.
In 1736 a smuggler named Wilson, who had won popularity by helping a companion escape from Edinburgh's Tolbooth prison, was hanged. At his execution there was a slight disturbance, upon which the city guard fired on the mob, wounding many people and killing some. Porteous, who was said to have fired himself, was brought to trial and sentenced to death, but then reprieved. The reprieve was hotly resented by the people of Edinburgh, and on the night of 7th September 1736 an armed body of men in disguise broke into the prison, seized Porteous, and hanged him in the street.
It was rumoured that persons of high position were involved in the crime; but although the government had offered rewards for the apprehension of the perpetrators, and although General Moyle wrote to the Duke of Newcastle that the criminals were "well-known by many of the inhabitants of the town," no one was ever convicted of a part in the murder. The sympathies of the people, and even, it is said, of the clergy, throughout Scotland, were so much on the side of the rioters that the original stringency of the bill introduced into parliament for punishing the Edinburgh had to be reduced to a fine of £2000 for Porteous's widow, and the disqualification of the provost from holding any public office. The incident of the Porteous riots was used by Sir Walter Scott in his novel The Heart of Midlothian.
John Porteous is buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh.
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