Historic and literary walks: Robert Barclary-Allardice
THOMAS CARLISLE tramped the 60 miles from Lanarkshire to study at Edinburgh University. Charles Dickens always walked some six miles after breakfast. Robert Louis Stevenson talked often of his countryside rambles. And William McGonagall had a painful peregrination to Balmoral in 1878.
I suppose I've done my bit for distance walking, too, with solo coast-to-coast crossings of three countries. Anything to escape Mrs Saleroom's singing!
When it comes to pavement pounding, though, none can match the prowess of Captain Barclay-Allardice. Robert Barclay-Allardice was born in 1779 into the well-known Kincardineshire family the Barclays of Urie, near Stonehaven. Son of an MP father and an heiress mother, who subsequently ran away from her husband and seven children with a family footman, he was schooled in England and attended Cambridge University, before sharing homes between Kincardine and London.
By the time he was 21 in 1800, he was already known for small walking wagers. That year he backed himself to accomplish 90 miles within 21 hours. In heavy rain he failed. But so confident was he of his fitness, that, in 1801, he backed himself again to the tune of 5000 guineas to perform the same feat. A measured mile was chosen on the York to Hull road, and, with lamps positioned to allow time-keepers to see, Barclay-Allardice set off to complete the distance 90 times - or forfeit his 5000 guineas. This time he triumphed. The six stopwatches contained in a sealed box at the winning post showed that he had achieved 90 miles with over an hour to spare.
He was commissioned in the army and adopted the name Captain Barclay, but continued to meet and defeat one after the other all the best walkers in Britain - always for substantial sums laid as wagers - and come 1808 he accomplished the astonishing feat of walking 1000 miles in 1000 successive hours.
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All of Barclay's remarkable record attempts were dependent on an instrument known as a waywiser. A waywiser consists of a large wheel that rolls along a level surface, and a dial that registers the distance travelled. Its principle is relatively simple: its wheel was of known circumference and was connected by gears to acounting mechanism, or the counter was actuated by a striker on the wheel, as with a modern cyclometer. Often the circumference of the wheel was either one or two yards exactly, and the counter gave the number of yards the instrument had covered when pushed along.
Also known as perambulators, hodometers and dometers, waywisers becamepopular in the 18th century - for example, John Smeaton of Perth Bridge fame is recorded as using a waywiser with a wheel of one-yard circumference in 1750. Perhaps that accounts for those enigmatic black circles on the bridge!
Waywisers are rare today. Few museums have examples, and they appear infrequently on the open market, occasionally finding their way into furniture sections because of their finely-made frames. I illustrate one which appeared at Christie's a while back, mainly because it was made by an acknowledged master of such things. Thomas Wright, who died in 1767, was the son of a London clockmaker, and so well regarded as a craftsman in his own right that he was appointed maker to the Prince of Wales in 1727.
His output included various contraptions,notably waywisers, which had become necessary after complaints about road mileages. Signed on the gilt brass centre plate, Made by Tho Wright, Instrument maker to His Majesty, the dial shows concentric recording rings for miles, furlongs and poles, with blue steel hands to indicate distance travelled. The oak frame and steering handles are painted in red oxide, and enclose the rod and gear mechanism driving the dial from the iron-clad, spoked wheel. And it walked off with £4800.
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