Annotation:Gaviside

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X:1 T:Gaviside M:C L:1/16 R:Strathspey B:”Printed and Sold by Stewart & Co. Music Sellers South Bridge Street” (c. 1793-1802, p. 4) N:Untitled, unattributed collection of 12 airs. However the Catalog of the Wighton Collection N:gives that it was printed for Alexander Campbell, editor of Albyn's Anthology B: https://digital.nls.uk/special-collections-of-printed-music/archive/118867800 Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:G DG3G3E D3B,DE3|G3Bc3B A3G E4|DG3G3E D3B,DE3|G3Bc3B A3G d4| e3fg3e d3BAG3|A3Bc3B cBAG E4|DG3G3E D3B,DE3|G3Bc3B A3B G4|| Bd3d3e d3Bd3e|d3B cBAG A3G E4|Bd3d3e d3Bd3e|de3Bd3 A3B G4| Bd3d3e d3eg3e|d3B cBAG A4G E4|DG3G3E D3EG3B|c3edB3 A3G G4||

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GAVISIDE. Scottish, Strathspey (whole time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. "Gaviside" is contained in a small four-page collection by an unknown composer or editor, that is simply entitled: "Edinr. Printed & Sold by Stewart & Co. Music Sellers South Bridge Street." However the Catalog of the Wighton Collection gives that it was printed for Alexander Campbell, editor of Albyn's Anthology, who is likely the composer of the contents. Gavieside (note spelling) is in West Calder, West Lothian, Scotland, the site of farms and shale mines. The modest landscape was at one time more developed, with a modest country house and a rectangular grid of gardens and orchards, created seemingly for pleasure and the pursuit of game. The lands of Gavieside (or Gaiside) were named in documents as early as 1650, and when it was offered for sale in 1730 already contained a "mansion-house and double dovecoat." Forty years later, again for sale, it had acquired "stables, coach-house and others office-houses, a double-dovecot and good gardens." The lands in the latter 18th century came into the possession of John Davie (who also owned the adjoining Brotherton estate, the name of another of Campbell's tunes, "Braes of Brothertown (The)"), known in Edinburgh as "Sooty Davie", proprietor of a chemical works that manufactured sal ammoniac (Ammonium Chloride) derived from coal-soot. Sooty married Mary Flint, whose family owned lands in Polbeth, and the couple raised six daughters before the last child, a boy, Adam, was born.

Adam was an unfortunate. He obtained a Lieutenancy in the 75th Regiment in 1787, and initially and for some time was an Edinburgh-based recruiting officer. There came the day, late in the 1790's, when he was stationed in the far reaches of the empire, in India, from which he did his best to abscond back to Britain, not waiting for proper approval. He was court-martialed, but acquitted. In 1803, still with the army, he was given command (reluctantly, it appears) of the British garrison in Kandy as part of a military and political struggle with the Dutch for control of the Ceylon trade. Adam had very little in the way of actual combat experience, and was described as a "well-disposed inoffensive man without any practical experience of hostile military operations," and very much out of his league when his garrison was attacked. Davie and the bulk of his forces retreated, but left the wounded and sick behind who subsequently were surrounded by the enemy. They surrendered but were clubbed to death. Adam was placed under a sort of open arrest by the authorities in Ceylon, and adopted the dress and habits of natives. He survived another eight years before he collapsed and died on the streets of Kandy. Officially, he expired from natural causes, and rumors of his being tortured and mutilated were suppressed. Sooty Davie died in 1803, and, there being no male heir, the succession of his estates was complicated. Gavieside was put up for sale several times in the following decades, but does not seem to have attracted any wealthy buyers who would renovated the estate, which devolved into a farm.

John Black's poem "A Ramble Round West Calder Parish", West Lothian, mentions the lands of Gavieside in one of the stanzas:

The bonnie glen o' Gavieside,
An' Brotherton's braw braes,
When robed in leafy, floral pride
Are worthy sweetest praise.

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