John Porteous (soldier)

Having served in the Scots Brigade in the Dutch Republic, in 1716 he became drill master to the Edinburgh force in anticipation of a Jacobite rising, and two years later was appointed as ensign to the City Guard, and was promoted in 1726 to the rank of captain.

As the situation worsened, for fear of an attempt to rescue the victims, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh instructed Porteous to call out the entire guard and to furnish them with powder and shot.

Accounts of events are confused, but what is certain is that Porteous instructed his men to fire above the heads of the crowd, but in so doing, they wounded people in the windows of the high tenement buildings opposite.

However, public resentment at a possible reprieve was such that a plot to murder Captain Porteous was hatched, and when the authorities heard of this, it was decided to increase the guard at the Tolbooth prison.

In 1973, this was replaced with a headstone of Craigleith stone, bearing the inscription "John Porteous, a captain of the City Guard of Edinburgh, murdered September 7, 1736.

It was thought by Walpole, Queen Caroline and the Duke of Newcastle that Porteous had been unnecessarily sacrificed and there were even rumours that the conspiracy had involved the local city magistrates.

It was variously thought that Porteous' murder was carried out by friends of those who had been shot and killed, revenge by the smugglers, a Jacobite plot, or even a conspiracy by Presbyterian extremists.

However, the organisation of events seems to imply a degree of planning, thought to be the work of James Maxwell, an Edinburgh journeyman carpenter, together with a small group of city tradesmen and journeymen.

The events surrounding the Porteous Riots form part of the early chapters of the novel The Heart of Mid-Lothian by Sir Walter Scott (1818), where they are recorded in graphic detail.

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