Greyfriars Bobby: the true story of the faithful dog, between history and legend

The dog statue and what the stone says

The fountain went up in 1873, the year after the dog died. It's the work of a sculptor called William Brodie, no relation to the thieving deacon of the same name on the Royal Mile, who'd been hanged almost a century earlier. It was put up, with permission, by Baroness Burdett-Coutts.

The inscription on the base sums it up in one sentence: "In 1858 this faithful dog followed the remains of his master to Greyfriars churchyard and lingered near the spot until his death in 1872."

It's worth reading carefully, because an inscription shows what a city wanted to remember, not necessarily what happened. A stone can't prove that a dog guarded a grave for fourteen years. For that, you need other paperwork.

The firmest evidence: a licence

The most solid document in Bobby's story is a collar. In 1867, dogs without a licence were rounded up off the streets, and many were destroyed. That year Bobby was picked up without one at John Traill's café, where he ate every day. The Lord Provost, Edinburgh's equivalent of a mayor, paid for his licence and a collar. The collar survives in the Museum of Edinburgh, along with the dish he ate from, donated by the Traill family.

There's a nice twist. Going by the dates, the Lord Provost in 1867 was William Chambers, brother of Robert Chambers, author of Traditions of Edinburgh, the book that gathered up the old town's legends and memories. Bobby had friends in high places: the man who paid for his licence was the brother of the man who'd written down the city's stories.

Who was his master?

Tradition gives him a name: John Gray, or Grey, buried in Greyfriars in 1858. Both Historic Environment Scotland, the national heritage body, and the city's museum refer to him as Bobby's master. Some versions add that he was a policeman.

The picture many people have in their heads, an old shepherd coming down from the hills with his dog, doesn't come from those records. It comes from a novel. In 1912 the American writer Eleanor Atkinson published Greyfriars Bobby in New York, in which the master, "Auld Jock", is a farm labourer with a shepherd's plaid who works in the Pentland Hills. And it was that novel, not the archives, that fixed the popular image of Bobby.

The cinema added its own layers. In a 2005 film Bobby appears as a West Highland terrier, supposedly so that he'd stand out better against the Edinburgh backdrop. The museum, for its part, believes the real Bobby was a Skye terrier, or possibly a Dandie Dinmont. Even the breed isn't settled.

The two-Bobbies theory

In 2011 the historian Jan Bondeson put forward a far less sentimental version. In his view, the story was pushed by the kirkyard's curator, James Brown, and the restaurateur John Traill, to drum up custom. Bobby, he argued, was a well-fed stray looked after by the neighbourhood, who'd go off hunting rats in the church.

There's more. Bondeson compared pictures from the time and thought the dogs looked quite different. The first, he said, was an old and rather ugly mongrel who died in 1867. He was supposedly replaced by a pure-bred Skye terrier, who lived another five years and is the one who looks like the statue.

Notice the year: 1867, the same as the collar. It's a coincidence that makes you think, but let's be clear. This is a hypothesis based on pictures and newspapers, set out in a book we haven't been able to read, and the museum sticks with the vigil. Even Bondeson doesn't paint Bobby as a sad dog, by the way: he calls him "a happy little dog".

A city that chose to believe

What is documented is how quickly people took him to their hearts. According to Historic Environment Scotland, Bobby became a cult soon after he died, and his memorials are still places of pilgrimage: the fountain of 1873, a stone placed by American dog lovers over John Grey's grave, and a memorial put up in 1981 by the Dog Aid Society of Scotland at the entrance to the kirkyard. More than a century after his death, he was still being honoured. Not bad for a dog whose licence someone once had to pay for.

And then there's the nose. People rub it for luck, so much that it shines, and the museum asks, ever so politely, for it to be left alone so the statue survives for future generations.

Did Bobby spend fourteen years beside a grave? On the evidence we have, it can't be proved or ruled out. What's clear is that Edinburgh made him a symbol almost as soon as he died, and has been going to see him ever since.

Fact or legend.

• Fact: in 1867 Bobby was caught without a licence and the Lord Provost covered the cost of his collar, which survives in the Museum of Edinburgh.
• Fact: the fountain dates from 1873, and its inscription mentions 1858 and 1872.
• Tradition: the fourteen-year vigil and the master's name, John Gray.
• Fiction: the master as an old hill shepherd, invented in a 1912 novel.
• Hypothesis: that there were two dogs and a clever campaign to bring in customers. Unproven.
• Today's custom: rubbing his nose for luck, even though the museum asks people not to.

Where to hear it

Podtour tells Bobby's story on the route "Ghosts, Witches and Legends of the Old Town", where every legend is told as a legend, with its date of birth. The stop "The Greyfriars Bobby statue" is heard beside the fountain, and the next one, "One dog or two?", inside the kirkyard, near his grave.

And if it's your first walk in Edinburgh, the free route is "The Royal Mile, from the Castle to St Giles".

Further reading

• Historic Environment Scotland, listed building LB27899, "Greyfriars Bobby Fountain". https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/LB27899
• Culture Edinburgh (Museum of Edinburgh), "Discover cherished objects of Greyfriars Bobby". https://cultureedinburgh.com/museums/curatorsinsights/iconic-greyfriars-bobby-objects
• Reuters via NBC News, "Historian: Greyfriars Bobby was a scam to lure tourists", 2011 (interview with Jan Bondeson). https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna44023814
• Eleanor Atkinson, Greyfriars Bobby, New York, 1912. https://archive.org/details/cu31924014522282
• Dictionary of National Biography, "Chambers, William (1800–1883)" (Wikisource). https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Chambers,_William_(1800-1883)