The Highland Archive Centre’s records offer a fascinating insight into the region’s motoring past – car registrations in Inverness-shire from 1903 to 1975.
These are held in ten handwritten ledgers, ‘Register of Motor Cars’ (HCA/CI/3/19/1-10), and the information given for each vehicle varies depending on the era, but can include the index mark and number allotted, date of registration, the name of the owner, their address, the make and class of vehicle, the type of body and cubic capacity, the seating capacity, unladen weight, the wheel plan and type of propulsion.
The very first vehicle registered in Inverness, licence plate number ST1, was to one Granville Hugh Baillie, on December 28, 1903. Although registered in Inverness, Baillie’s address is shown as 19 Pelham Place, London SW. The description and type is ‘Gardner, Propelled’. The distinction was presumably made to clarify that it was ‘propelled’ as opposed to horse-drawn!
The later volumes from the 1970s do not contain the same amount of detail, and most of the vehicles are registered by local garages, but one of the last vehicles to appear in the handwritten ledgers is a Hillman, by Hamilton Bros for a customer named Curran in September 1974. Earlier that same month the name Baillie crops up again, as a customer of Calterdon garage, who bought a BMW. Perhaps this Baillie was a grandchild of the owner of the first registration in 1903!
The front cover of the Register of Motor Cars, 1903-1920.
It is interesting to see the variety of makes of vehicles being registered over the years. From the Daimler Waggonette and Clyde Steamcar of the first decade of the 20th century, through the Austin Cambridge and Morris Minor popular in the 1940s and 1950s, to the last few entries of the mid-1970s, when the Austin Allegra and the Ford Cortina were de rigueur.
“We often receive enquiries from owners of historic vehicles, who are trying to trace the original registration,” said a spokesperson for the archive centre. “One such query some time ago came from a gentleman who had had an ancient tractor lying dormant on his land for so long that he could not find any paperwork relating to the tractor nor could the DVLA help him. Using these ledgers he was able to track down the exact date of first registration.
“Another archive item that we hold here that relates to road vehicles is a ‘General Schedule of Licences for Horse-Drawn Carriages, Hackney Carriages and Tramcars’ ((HCA/CI/3/19/11).
An excerpt from the Register of Motor Cars, 1967-1971.
“This is a book of counterfoil carbon copies of licences issued by the taxation department in the county buildings at the castle in Inverness between 1933 and 1943.”
The majority of the licences in this book were issued to carriage owners living in the Western Isles, specifically Benbecula, North and South Uist and Skye. Three horse-drawn hackney carriages were licensed to Mr Donald MacAulay of The Hotel, Creagorry, Benbecula in 1939, and one Jane Anne Ferguson of Cuilrach, Portree kept a carriage licence in 1943 at the rate of 15/- per year.
The only remotely ‘urban’ licence for a horse-drawn carriage was issued in 1935 to a Mrs Ishbel Cameron, whose address is given as Enfield of Raigmore, Inverness.
These records can all be consulted in the search room at the Highland Archive Centre in Inverness.