if he had not fallen on his doup during the pull!
John's second son, James was a blacksmith and a competent heavy, being eclipsed, however, by his brothers. The youngest son, Charles, moved to Newe in 1854 at the age of 20 as a carpenter and later as a forester. He had distinguished himself as a heavy, and continued to do so, his main opponents in the 50s being the Corgarff brothers John and “Big Wullie” McHardy from Burnside. But Wullie was to have a sad end. Leaving his employment at Corgarff aged 44, he then took a gamekeeper's job on a Lancashire estate but died after being savaged by dogs set on him by the sacked keeper he had replaced.
The pinnacle of Charles' career was the Gathering of 1859, held at Balmoral by Queen Victoria's command. Wearing the Forbes tartan of his employer, he triumphed in both the caber and the hammer, and received a sword and silver-mounted dirk from the monarch's own hand. The dirk and kilt are still proudly preserved by his descendants in New Zealand.
Charles married while at Newe, and his first son was named Charles Forbes in honour of his employer. He was to be perhaps the mightiest of all the McHardys. Restive by nature, Charles left Newe, first for Durris, and then Skene. By this time, he had a family of six sons and five daughters, and Charles Forbes, a prodigiously powerful young man who habitually carried a book of Greek poems in his pocket, had, after winning a £60 Classical Scholarship, gained an MA degree at Aberdeen University (as did also his brother Alexander). Surprisingly, neither made use of their degree in later life.
Many of the McHardys had emigrated after the '45, and Charles, tired of keepering and wishing to better his family, decided to do likewise, along with his 11 children. There must have been much heart-searching but finally the choice of destination was narrowed down to New Zealand or Australia, and the eldest son volunteered to visit both countries and report back.
In due course a letter was received: “Go
to New Zealand — Australia is full of ruffians”. The advice was taken, and on 2nd January, |
 |
1886, 12 members of the McHardy family disembarked in New Zealand, later to settle in Taranaki. Perversely, Charles Forbes had not followed his own advice. He stayed in Australia, and in 1882 joined the
New South Wales Police, being stationed in the gold mining town of Goulburn. It seems clear that the challenge of police work in the rough and tumble of the mining camps suited him perfectly, since he was highly intelligent, as strong as an ox, and intensely competitive. It was not long before his name was known as a principal prize-winner at Highland gatherings over a wide area.
He excelled at the hammer, weight, and Cumberland wrestling, and from 1885 to 1888 beat all comers at Sydney Highland Games in these competitions. He also gained the Sydney Highland Society's Gold Medal when, at Goulburn in 1890, he broke all records throwing the 14 lb. weight. Like Dinnie, he was an all-rounder, a good sprinter, and once cleared 5 ft. 8½ in. at the high jump.
It was in contest involving sheer strength, however, that he revelled, and he issued a challenge to all comers in a variety of events, with a wager of up to £1000 a side. So far as is known, his challenge was never taken up — not surprisingly, since in Sydney in 1886 he lifted 9.5 cwt. (482.6 k.) of iron off the ground for a wager. Donald Dinnie, however, provided the final accolade. About 1890 he stated publicly that he, as holder of the world championship for heavy athletic events, considered that McHardy was more entitled to it than any other man. He went further, and stated that he referred not only to traditional Scottish events, but to all feats of strength. Also, McHardy could beat anyone in Scotland at wrestling, and possibly only John L. Sullivan could beat him at boxing. Dinnie at this time was 53, and McHardy 30, so there was no question of Dinnie saying that McHardy was better than he — he was merely naming his successor.
Charles Forbes McHardy died in Sydney in 1929, something of an enigma to the end. This Herculean policeman, with a world championship in one hand and a book of Greek poems in the other, appears to have set |
