Lamplighter was shot trying to help police BY NORMAN SILVESTER IN 1906, 19-year-old William Millar was one of more than 700 men in Glasgow who were…
IN 1906, 19-year-old William Millar was one of more than 700 men in Glasgow who were employed as lamplighters.
William alerted two local constables McLeod and MacDonald who asked him to take them to the scene of the break in. Constable MacDonald who had also arrived on the scene telephoned for an ambulance and a doctor. However, by the time help had arrived William was already dead. He revealed he had committed a couple of burglaries and had then been chased by the police with shots being fired.By this time, a suspect had also emerged, 24-year-old George Robinson who lived in lodgings in Bridgeton in the East End of the city.
Robinson, unperturbed, asked if he could get his cap and jacket from a small cabinet on the kitchen floor. Davidson later told reporters: “I took particular notice of the assassin, brief as was my glimpse of him, I was able to identify him without difficulty. You see, it is a rule amongst us lamplighters to take special notice of men whom we meet in these quiet streets in the early hours of the morning, and we are accustomed to size them up at a glance.”There was a massive turnout including 200 lamplighters and police officers.
It also transpired that he had been the same agitated youth who spoke to the witness on Union Street. On leaving school Robinson served his time as a baker and then went on to be a steward on several private yachts, making trips to Russia and many other countries. It is possible that on one of these trips he obtained the revolver.
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