Looking back with Ian Scott on possibly the most influential man to leave his mark on Falkirk district - William Forbes

His portrait was a copy of the Raeburn now in the National Portrait Gallery and brought us face to face with possibly the most influential man to leave his mark on Falkirk district. After 400 years dominated by the Livingstons, the shock of his arrival in 1783 changed everything both for good and ill.

He was not a Falkirk bairn but hailed originally from Aberdeenshire where his family were in the copper business. Having moved to London to make his fortune, William did just that by persuading the Admiralty to buy huge quantities of copper sheeting which was used to sheath the hulls of wooden ships. Now, as was the custom, he decided to use his new wealth to buy himself a place in landed society. In 1783 Callendar House with the huge land holdings which the Livingstons had lost for supporting the Jacobites came up for sale. It was thought polite in those days to allow the descendents of the original family to buy the property but Forbes had no time for such niceties. At the auction he outbid his Livingston rival, the Earl of Errol, offering nearly £90,000 and when challenged to establish his bone fides he is said to have handed over a £100,000 note from the Bank of England and asked for his change!

The huge area which now fell under his control was the second largest in all of Stirlingshire consisting of nearly 8000 acres, farmed by hundreds of tenants from great stretches of muir in the south to the carselands. This was the time of agricultural improvement and Forbes with his business acumen, considerable capital and determined, even ruthless, character set about applying the new principles. Enclosure, drainage and crop rotation was the order of the day and there were new leases for those tenants prepared to do as instructed and the exit door for the others. Hundreds of men were shaken from their traditional land into uncertain futures working for their neighbours or in one of the growing industrial companies. As well as multiplying the Forbes family wealth these actions brought increased prosperity to the whole district though those who suffered did not see it that way.

Altogether he enclosed over 7000 acres of land creating hedged fields of up to eight acres which were heavily limed and drained and in the process upset many by his dictatorial and unfeeling methods. A favourite story has William returning to Callendar House from the south in 1797, seeing it apparently on fire and fleeing from what he took to be the revenge of disgruntled former tenants. It turned out to be no more than the fiery glow from the mighty furnaces of Carron Ironworks which had been established some forty years before. John Kay's famous portrait shows ‘Copperbottom’ – he had brought the nickname from London with him – fleeing in terror!

William Forbes influence was not limited to agricultural reform. He was the principal heritor in several parishes and no important decision about church or school could be made without his approval and financial support. At his death in 1815 Forbes was one of the wealthiest men in Scotland and the unchallenged master of Falkirk and district. He is buried in the mausoleum in the woodland south of Callendar House.