Glenbuchat Heritage

70 'Bombay Jock' Memorial Aberdeen Union Street

Memorial to Bombay Jock

Where cabbies waited
Union Street Aberdeen 1874

From the Aberdeen Evening Express 1986


A favourite stance in Victorian times was in front of St Nicholas Church- yard, just round the corner from their present-day counterparts.

Hie imposing granite screen beyond the cabbies was erected in 1830 to a design by John Smith, as a memorial to John Forbes of Newe. (Bombay Jock)

John Forbes, a younger son of the house of Bellabeg. in Strathdon, made his fortune in India with a very successful business in Bombay.

In addition to buying back the family estate of Newe, which his cousin had previously bankrupted and sold, John Forbes was a benefactor to many charities and institutions. One of the major recipients was the lunatic asylum, as it was then known, to which Forbes bequeathed £10,000. The tall obelisk, placed in the grounds of the Royal Cornhill Hospital in 1883, was originally erected in St Nicholas Churchyard as part of the impressive Forbes memorial.