The Perth Tank

Perth’s Unwanted Tank.

The British Government realised it could capitalise on the public’s fascination with the exciting new fighting ‘tank’ vehicles and raise funds to build more, so it used 6 of them to travel around towns and cities in the UK. A tank would arrive with a fanfare – in this case, marched in with soldiers – park in a central area for several days, and sell War Bonds and War Savings Certificates to raise money for the war effort. For this they used a model tank named ‘Julian’.

Perth’s tank that sat in Tay Street in 1920/1921 and on Craigie Knowes was one of the classic rhomboid shaped tanks. The tank it seems was not really wanted, nor loved by the city.

The picture suggests that the tank was a Mark IV, ‘female’ type. Female tanks had five Lewis machine guns, four in the outer side sponsons and one at the front. The ‘male’ had six pounder (57mm) Hotchkiss (naval) guns.

In 1919 the tank was presented to Perth’s War Savings Association in recognition of the city’s financial contribution to the war. After its arrival it was first parked out of the way at Craigie Haugh. Craigie Haugh is across from Perth Prison and was more famous as the first St. Johnstone football ground from 1885 through to Muirton Park opening in 1924.

From there, the tank was moved to outside the old Police Station at 18 Tay Street, at the bottom of the High Street. In around January to February 1921, its future fate was considered by the council and by early 1921 recommendations were made to just break up the tank and sell it for scrap.

A report on the transfer of the tank to the North Inch was considered, but due to the expense, and complaints from Charlotte Street residents, it was proposed that it be broken up and the engine sold.

An application was made to the War Office for the use of missing driving sprockets with a view to facilitating the transport of the tank to the North Inch. This request was granted but the cost had to be borne by the council, this was accepted. At this point the engines were still intact.

By May 1921, another chapter developed in the unfortunate history of the Perth Tank, when because of the heavy expense involved in building a foundation for the ponderous machine, the initial proposals were overturned, and the ‘Inches’ committee agreed that the tank should be placed on Craigie Knowes, the necessary arrangements be made and the tank was slowly moved up there on 19 July 1921.

Perthshire Advertiser 23 July 1921 Monarch of all it surveys. The Perth tank is in its final resting place on top of Craigie Knowes. After a rather toilsome journey, it was transferred on Tuesday “P.A.” Photo

The Dundee Courier of 20 July 1921 said in its reporting “The scheme of giving the tank a permanent site on Craigie Knowes became acceptable to all, for it permitted the machine being retained by the city authorities, while it could be removed to a place where it will not worry anybody. The necessary machinery for the locomotion of the tank was received from the military authorities, and on the 19th the tank was taken from Tay Street to Craigie Knowes. The route was by way of Edinburgh Road, Craigie Road and St. Magdalen’s Road.”

The tank was moved under the superintendence of former Perth Academy pupil, Mr. Gordon Clark (the son of Rev. P. A. Gordon Clark, Chaplain to the Black Watch). Clark was a former tank officer who had just left the army, returning to the UK on 3 April 1919. His father was The Reverend Peter Gordon Clark, 4th Class Chaplain to the Territorial Force (rank as Captain, from1st July 1909). The Reverend Peter Gordon Clark was minister of the Paisley Road Church in Glasgow, and the family moved to Perth in 1893 where he was the minister of Free Church, which is now St. Mathew’s in Tay Street.

Many of these surplus to requirements tanks were distributed to cities under the auspices of the Scottish Savings Committee on the understanding that the tanks should be permanently retained as War Memorials, but as the tank had become the property of the City of Perth, the War Office would offer no objection to the local council disposing of it.

Back in February of 1918, at the City Hall, during Perth’s Tank Bank Week, money was flowing in with the amount raised by the Friday, as reported in the PA on Saturday 9 February 1918, £421,786, 2 shillings and 6 pence. A pound back in 1918 was worth about £60 nowadays, that means the town raised an amazing equivalent of £25,537,924 (25 million) and in just that one week!

Research by Ken Bruce

Notes:

Scotland’s pioneering aviator, Percy Sinclair Pilcher set up a company in 1899 with Walter Gordon Wilson, later a successful motor engineer, subsequently acknowledged by the 1919 Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors as the co-inventor of the latest weapon of war, the tank. His partner was Sir William Tritton who in 1915 constructed the first tank prototype, ‘Little Willie’. It was Wilson who who came up with the rhomboidal design of the iconic tank, the Mark 1.

Sir William Tritton, who designed and built the first tanks, published the real story of their name … Since it was obviously inadvisable to herald “Little Willie’s” reason for existence to the world he was known as the “Instructional Demonstration Unit.” “Little Willie’s” hull was called in the shop orders a “water carrier for Mesopotamia”; no one knew that the hull was intended to be mounted on a truck. Naturally, the water carrier began to be called a “tank”. So the name came to be used by managers and foremen of the shop, until now it has a place in the army vocabulary and will probably be so known in history for all time

A replica of Percy Pilcher’s ‘The Hawk’ forms part of the substantial holdings of National Museums Scotland.

One of Pilcher’s other sponsors was the inventor and businessman
Sir Hiram Maxim, an American inventor known (primarily) for his deadly
World War I ‘Maxim Machine Gun’.

Research by Ken Bruce