William Merrilees figures prominently within the historical past of Edinburgh policing. Beneath regulation top by 4 inches and lacking the fingers from his left hand – the results of an industrial accident – he didn’t meet the factors to affix the police drive. Nevertheless, Merrilees’ heroism – rescuing over 20 males and boys from Leith Docks – noticed him advisable for service. He joined in 1924, on the age of 26.
His rise by means of the ranks was speedy. By 1940 he’d been promoted to the rank of detective superintendent, in command of CID. Between 1950 and his retirement in 1968 he was the Chief constable of Lothian and Peebles. Such a exceptional profession development was the results of his sturdy dedication to regulation and order and his involvement in various high-profile prison instances.
As you would possibly count on from a weblog on the persecution of queer individuals, there may be some dialogue of violence and harassment. There’s additionally some materials regarding sexual exercise that might not be appropriate for youthful audiences.
Focusing on homosexual males
Through the mid Thirties a lot of his time was occupied by a sequence of instances regarding male homosexuality. Merrilees had initially been alerted to a ‘worrying’ enhance within the variety of males prosecuted for so-called gay offences in Edinburgh by the then procurator-fiscal James Adair.
Adair is a distinguished and infamous determine within the historical past of gay regulation reform in post-war Britain. He was a member of the Wolfenden Committee within the Nineteen Fifties, and a agency opponent of the decriminalisation of intercourse between consenting males in non-public. Adair’s concern noticed Merrilees tasked with main ‘a particular enquiry into sodomy in Edinburgh’. Merrilees later described this enquiry as a ‘struggle on homosexuality’.
Stalking the streets
If we’re to imagine the accounts that Merrilees provides of this era detailed in his autobiography, this appears to have been an investigation he undertook virtually singlehandedly. Nevertheless, Merrilees regularly embellished his recollections.
What he may not have embellished had been his claims that he sometimes meted out his personal type of justice. He stalked the general public urinals, parks and public baths of the town, gathering names and addresses. He later claimed he would be capable to ‘level out at the very least 50 sodomites in Princes Avenue and the neighborhood’ on any given night. A few of them may also be capable to establish him, particularly in the event that they had been amongst the boys crushed or harassed by the detective. Merrilees was an intimidating determine with ‘a fist like a stone mallet’. His strategy to questioning suspects and witnesses was equally problematic.
The Rosebery Boys
One in all his investigations focussed on the Rosebery Boys, a small group of queer male intercourse employees working out of the outwardly respectable Rosebery Lodge in Haymarket.
Edinburgh’s Haymarket space within the early twentieth century. Picture © Courtesy of HES (Francis M Chrystal Assortment).
His investigation led him to Lochgelly. There he interviewed one weak 17-year-old witness at size, with out every other officers current. This younger man was a detailed buddy of one of many Rosebery Boys, James Allan.
Allan had written to Lochgelly to element his love for ‘Jack’, a sailor he had lately met. The final time that James Allan noticed ‘Jack’ was when ‘Jack’ was introduced by Merrilees to Saughton Jail to establish his former lover.
Both by means of the specter of prosecution or different types of coercion, the Lochgelly youth additionally offered proof towards his good buddy. Allan was convicted of sodomy and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment. The deeply private letters he had despatched to his buddy in Lochgelly shaped a part of the proof towards him.
Pursuing Peter Ogg
Merrilees was glad by his function within the Rosebery Boys case however had now gained an urge for food for rooting out homosexuals. The following goal for Merrilees was the Edinburgh businessman Peter Ogg. Ogg was the proprietor of a number of enterprise throughout the town, together with Maximes Dancehall.
The positioning of Maximes Dancehall continues to be a nightclub in Edinburgh.
Throughout his ‘enquiries’ the title of Ogg and his buddy Ewan King had cropped up commonly. This led to Merrilees to imagine that these males organised a lot of the gay life within the metropolis. For the authorities, homosexuality was thought-about a ‘commerce’, akin to intercourse work. They thought it was organised by highly effective members of Edinburgh society who offered our bodies and alternatives for illicit pleasure.
Ogg was suspected of being a first-rate participant in such a commerce. Merrilees had a idea that Ogg was supplying troopers from Redford Barracks to queer males from Edinburgh, Fife and Northern England.
Redford Barracks, the place troopers concerned within the case had been stationed.
These investigations took him to Morpeth, Northumberland, the place he detained three males.
Entrapment and false confessions
In the midst of this investigation, Merrilees took pleasure in his capacity to have an effect on the supposed mannerisms of a gay. Adopting a stroll and lisp, he apparently satisfied one of many males that he was a buddy of Ogg’s visiting for the needs of sexual journey.
William Merrilees devoted a chapter in his memoirs to discussing his “struggle on homosexuality” and the merciless methods he employed.
As soon as every of the boys had been ensnared in his entice, Merrilees undertook prolonged, confrontational and intimidating interrogations. Regardless of one of many males insisting one other officer stay current, Merrilees performed these interviews alone.
When the interviews had ended the witnesses had been proven their statements. The statements had been recorded in Pitman’s Shorthand, which meant the interviewees couldn’t learn the notes. Subsequently, a lot of the Morpeth witnesses disputed the contents of their statements at trial. They highlighted intimidation and the invention of particulars of which that they had no data.
The investigation reached its key level when King’s resort was raided. The police discovered the hotelier within the firm of a soldier. Ogg had by this level travelled house.
Eight hours after the raid on King’s resort, Ogg had been arrested and a search was undertaken by Merriless of the businessman’s workplace inside Maximes. Proof together with a ‘damp’ hankerchief was seized. The handkerchief was a key piece of proof that supposedly linked Ogg to the occasions at King’s resort. But in the course of the trial Merrilees’ conduct was questioned with the suggestion that the handkerchief seized in the course of the search was not the identical handkerchief utilized in proof. The inconsistencies with this proof had been highlighted by the trial choose in his summing up. Nonetheless, Ogg was discovered responsible of an offence with a soldier and for 2 different offences. He was discovered both not responsible or not confirmed for the remaining 4 offences. He obtained a sentence of two yr’s imprisonment, which he partly efficiently appealed.
Tall tales from a brief detective
When writing his autobiography Merrilees considerably embellished his model of the case. He positioned himself centrally and invented fairly ludicrous escapades which based on the trial information, and his personal proof, didn’t occur.
What the proof suggests is that Ogg might have sometimes met males for intercourse. These had been typically troopers, typically civilians. He might effectively have launched a few of his soldier pals to his pals from Morpeth. They could have gone out for dinner or to the theatre.
Troopers from Redford had been common guests to Maximes. Nevertheless, claims of mass orgies involving troopers and notable Edinburgh businessmen are fanciful. But Merrilees appears to have gone to extraordinary lengths to safe convictions.
William Merrilees spent appreciable time enterprise charity work for deprived youngsters and ex-prisoners. He featured on That is Your Life and obtained an OBE. Nevertheless, his sense of charity didn’t prolong to the queer males he performed such a central function in sending to jail.
Concerning the Creator
Jeff Meek is a lecturer in Financial and Social Historical past on the College of Glasgow. His ebook, Queer Trades, Intercourse and Society: Male Prostitution and the Struggle on Homosexuality in Interwar Scotland, shall be revealed by Routledge within the Spring.
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