Laid out below is an extract from the Third Statistical Account of Scotland. This excerpt, written in 1961, was published in 1966 for volume 18 of the accounts, this volume entitled "County of Stirling and County of Clackmannan". Tullibody, located within the County of Clackmannan, comes under the editorship of The Rev. T. Crouther Gordon, with overall organisation being carried out via Glasgow University.
The Third Statistical Account of Scotland – Volume 18, (1966)
Chapter 14
TULLIBODY
(County of Clackmannan.)
By the Rev. Dr. Crouther Gordon.
The parish of Tullibody extends from the western end of Alloa to the borders of Stirlingshire, and is both ancient and historic. The village traces its existence back to the era of Kenneth MacAlpin, who had perhaps a link with the lands of Kennet to the east of Alloa. The name is Celtic and signifies 'the knoll of the cot.'
The church was built in 1149 by David I and was served by the canons of Cambuskenneth Abbey, a couple of miles to the west. An oral tradition states that Martha Wishart, daughter of the laird of Myreton, lies buried at the door of the old kirk, a grim reminder to the local priest, Peter Beaton, who had seduced her, of his misdemeanour. On the eve of the Reformation Thomas Locklaw of Tullibody, though a priest, entered into the estate of marriage, and, influenced doubtless by the powerful example of Thomas Forrest [Forret] of Dollar, espoused other anti-Roman principles. But the old church was still powerful and Locklaw had to seek asylum in England.
In 1559 the French under D'Oysel were retreating to Stirling from Fife, pursued by Kirkcaldy of Grange, and finding a span of the Tullibody bridge dismantled, they promptly took the roof slabs from the old kirk of Tullibody to repair it and so escaped. In the same year Adam Erskine was appointed lay Commendator of Cambuskenneth Abbey, with responsibility for religious services and for a school. These it appears he failed to supply and in 1579 the people of the parish arranged for a minister, but they failed to maintain him. Although up to that time Alloa had been a mere appendage of Tullibody parish, in 1593 a minister was appointed for Alloa and in 1600 the General Assembly united the two parishes. It was, however, a mere ‘marriage of convenience,’ and the union was dissolved in 1930, when Tullibody was re-constituted as a separate and independent parish under the re-united Church of Scotland.
In August 1645 the Marquis of Montrose camped his men at the wood of Tullibody, while he dined with Lord Mar in Alloa House. After the battle of Sheriffmuir in 1715, forty of the dead, possibly local adherents of the Earl of Mar, were brought from the battlefield and buried just north-east of the kirkyard. It was a different story, thirty years later, when some Jacobites were firmly despatched at Cambus, their bodies being cast into the “Highlandmen’s Hole”. George Abercromby, who died in 1799, took steps to re-roof the church and so to improve it that it served as a place of worship, and not unnaturally he arranged that the little kirk should serve also as a place of burial for his family.
Ralph was born in 1734 in the Menstrie Castle and at nine was brought over to live in Tullibody House. Soon after he was sent to Rugby and from there he entered Edinburgh University, where he specialised in Civil Law. Continuing his studies at Leipzig, he finally decided to enter the army, and after many vicissitudes he was put in command of the army that faced Napoleon's forces in Egypt at Aboukir. There he was mortally wounded and, dying on 28 March 1801, was buried with full honours at Malta. His memorial adorns the auld kirk of Tullibody to the present day.
The estate continued in the family of Abercromby until the last of the line died in 1924 and the title became extinct. Sitting tenants bought their portions, and the rest, including the village itself, was purchased by the late Major J. Kennedy Tullis, who formed the Tullibody Land Co. which successfully administered it as agriculturalists, dairy farmers and cattle-breeders, specialising in Ayrshires and winning prizes at the Highland and other shows.
Just after the New Statistical Account was written, on 13 June 1843 elders and members of the church in Tullibody called George Stevenson, the assistant minister in Alloa and acting minister of Tullibody, to be their minister and within a year a new free church and manse were erected. Sir George Harvey's picture - Leaving the Manse - depicts Tullibody Kirk in the background, but the position of the manse is not historically accurate. Services by the Church of Scotland were desultory and irregular, until the Rev. Alexander Bryson in 1879 resumed these. Finally in 1904 the Rev. Dr. Lachlan MacLean Watt erected the beautiful new church, to the design of Macgregor Chalmers.
In 1875 the Rev. Andrew Thom was called to the Free church and served there until 1929, the long period of 53 years, to be followed in the united charge by the Rev. W. D. O. Rose, who for twenty years consolidated the union by his winsome and gracious ministry. In 1951 the Rev. Ian Cowie was called in time to meet the challenge of the expanding community, and he, after nine years, has been succeeded by the Rev. G. W. Charlton. Gifts, including stained glass windows and a pulpit, have enhanced this chaste and attractive Norman church. The roll has soared to close on 1,000 and the Sunday schools are overflowing. The Roman hierarchy in 1958 made Tullibody a separate congregation from Alloa and installed a priest for the care of Roman Catholics in the area.
These are but symbols of the profound revolution that has taken place in Tullibody since 1951, for, from being a small village of 350 inhabitants it has suddenly expanded into a large community of more than 5,800 souls. This is due to the development of the mineral resources of the area, and especially to the opening in 1952 of the Glenochil Mine, nearby, which till recently employed 920 miners. A large portion of this new labour force has been transferred from Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, where the collieries have been worked out, and the problem of integration into a new community has been most acute.
The village school was quickly supplemented by the luxurious Abercromby School and later by the smaller, single-stream, St. Serf and Banchory Schools.
The numbers of Roman Catholic children do not justify building a new school and these are conveyed by bus to the central St. Mungo's School in Alloa.
While coal is by far the principal industry and employs the largest number of workers, many travel to work in Alloa mills and factories. In Tullibody itself the tannery of John Tullis and Son continued its activities till 1961, when the family sold out to a Glasgow syndicate, which has now closed it down. Alexander Paterson began the tannery in the late eighteenth century and it expanded under his son, who in 1806 entered the business. About 1880 business declined, but James Tullis bought up the concern and, installing the most modern equipment, he widened the range of his products to include some 50 types of processing, and the factory has been a great benefit to the village. Hides were secured not only from local sources but also from East Africa, Italy and South America.
The materials for tanning were largely imported. The adjacent pond, the Delf, was enlarged and deepened for tanning purposes. Sole leather, belting, leather for looms, hydraulic leathers, picking bands, combing leathers and lace leathers were all produced and much of the finished material is sent to India and South Africa.
The shopping facilities in such a 'mushroom' community are still at the haphazard stage, most of the small stores being converted houses. The Alloa Co-operative Society has a well-appointed set of grocery, fleshing, fishmonger and fruit and vegetable departments and the post office is combined with a general store. A community of such a size should have a well-planned shopping centre.
Meanwhile relays of vans and travelling shops hawk round the long, new streets and many of the more mobile housewives travel to Alloa and Stirling to shop. By 1971 it is planned to have 20 groceries, 6 fleshers, 2 stationers, 8 confectioners and 5 chemists in the township.
Amenities.
As far back as 1862 the Young Men’s Christian Association started a library in the old Abercromby Place School with some 462 volumes, and after fifty years it was still flourishing. This led on to the time of the Free Libraries Act and to 1936 when the Education Committee of the County Council assumed responsibility. They now maintain a service in a specially adapted room in the Tullibody School. In 1923 a football field was laid out by the authority, east of the Abercromby School, with seats and swings for old and young.
The Braehead Golf Club - a nine-hole course - caters for the more active, while organisations of all kinds enlist the patronage of the socially-minded, ranging from Scouts and Guides, youth and football clubs, to pipe bands, clubs for old age pensioners and church and co-operative guilds. The Labour Party branch claims a membership of 200.
The records of the Poor Fund go back to 1705 and it exists to to assist widows and fatherless children, its old sources of income including fees for lairs, use of mortcloth - which was last used in 1865 - dues from merchants selling wares in the kirkyard, and certain small legacies. Once paid by the elders, it is now administered by a small committee of trustees, who add to their numbers. There was a Mutual Improvement Association in 1878, which engaged in readings, recitations, essays and debates, but all this has been forgotten and the annual games are no more. The Maypole and the Crowning of the May Queen are replaced by the Miners' Gala Day, and the conversazione by the chip-shop.
Apart from Sir Ralph Abercromby, who was a figure of international stature, two notable sons were born in Tullibody.
One, Robert Dick, born in 1811, after a chequered career made himself a self-taught specialist in geology, studying in the Thurso area, where he was an impecunious baker; to him Hugh Miller acknowledged his indebtedness. Less known is William Burns Paterson, born in 1850, who went to America in 1869 and espousing the cause of negro education became principal of the Lincoln Normal School and later of the Alabama State College. He died in 1915, but his college is now the State University for Negroes and in 1950 boasted of 6,723 students. In 1918 a commemorative tablet was placed on Dick's house at 24 Main Street.
Of the antiquities which survive, the oldest is of course the standing stone, called 'The Haer Stone.' Part of an ancient druid circle, it is now set up in the Garden of Remembrance, where a lych-gate preserves the names of the 158 men who served in the first world war. The walls and belfry of the old parish kirk still stand, with the Abercromby memorial panels and the ‘Maiden Stone.’ The Old Bridge and the Bridgend and the Tullibody Bridge and the New Mills Doocot all are preserved, but the Tron tree and the Lady’s Well have vanished. The old Tulhbody House, now empty, is in danger of deteriorating, although proposals are afoot to preserve it by dividing it up into flats.
Enough has been written to reveal that the way of life of Tullibody has completely changed. Within ten years the old intimate village life has been swept away, family connections count for nothing and local loyalty or attachment does not as yet exist. Despite the sprinkling of professional people, who live in the new houses, the predominant outlook is short-sighted, materialistic, and self-centred. The churches are battling nobly to instil a higher scale of values and the schools are trying to build morale and character, but it will be a long time before a true community spirit develops and by that time Alloa may have swallowed up the place and made it a mere appendage. Already the two communities are within a stone’s throw of each other. Frequent bus services and the hire-purchase motor car entice the people out of their uneasy surroundings, or, failing these, the lure of the television screen keeps them within their own doors. There is no cinema, nor any central meeting point. The hall of the Abercromby School was designed to be a community centre, but it is almost too palatial for common use and it costs money to hire it.
The hopes pinned to the Glenochil colliery and other pits are not being realised and miners are tending to move eastwards into Fife for more promising work, so one may look for another shift in the population. A solid minority are hard drinkers and steady gamblers, but many are keen on their gardens and enthusiastic groups run clubs and functions of a social nature. While the old habits of prayer meetings and family worship have gone, the churches are filled each Sunday morning and much good work is done in the organisations. Through school chaplaincies and outside contacts the church is touching the two-thirds who are outwith its influence and in time this will yield rich fruits. It remains true, however, that many, especially of the newcomers, are living a day to day existence, without any self-transcending purpose, fighting a feeling of loneliness and suffering a nervous and emotional strain. Time and a spirit of fellowship can alone solve this problem.
Written, 1961.