The Story Behind McCaig's Tower: Philanthropist, Eccentric or Both?

Any walking tour of Oban sooner or later arrives at the same question. What on earth was John Stuart McCaig thinking?

Perched high above the bay, McCaig's Tower is Oban's most recognisable landmark. Visitors are often told it was built to provide employment for local stonemasons during the winter months.

That is certainly part of the story.

But if all he wanted was a jobs programme, he could have built a road. Or a pier. Or a row of houses.

Instead, he built what looks suspiciously like a Roman monument looming over an unsuspecting Scottish fishing town.

Which suggests there may have been a little more going on.

Tower or Folly?

Before we go any further, visitors often ask me two questions. First: why is it called a tower? And second: what's a folly? Let's start with the easy one.

A folly is an architectural term for a building that exists primarily because somebody thought it would look magnificent. Folly doesn't necessarily mean foolish. It simply means an ornamental structure that isn't strictly necessary. Britain is full of follies, from fake castles to mock ruins and extravagant towers built by wealthy landowners with imagination and spare cash.

Which, depending on your perspective, describes McCaig's project rather well.

The "tower" part is a little trickier.

Technically speaking, McCaig's Tower isn't really a tower at all. Most towers are taller than they are wide. McCaig's monument is essentially a giant circular wall wrapped around a hilltop. Yet locals have called it McCaig's Tower for well over a century and many still do. In fact, some Oban folk bristle at the term "McCaig's Folly", feeling it unfairly dismisses a landmark that has become one of the town's defining symbols.

Personally, I tend to use both. After all, if a giant unfinished granite monument overlooking the bay isn't at least a little bit of a folly, we're setting the bar very high indeed.

Meet the Man Behind the Monument

Born on the island of Lismore in 1823, John Stuart McCaig was hardly an ordinary Victorian businessman. By the time he began work on the tower, he had become one of Oban's most influential figures. He was variously a banker, businessman, pier owner, gasworks director, civic leader and, for a time, Provost of Oban.

But perhaps the most intriguing thing about him is that no one seems entirely certain how he made his first fortune. Ask around Oban long enough and you'll hear all sorts of theories.

Some insist he discovered buried treasure. Others whisper that smuggling may have played a role. The more sensible explanation is that he was a shrewd businessman who invested wisely and diversified his interests at exactly the right time.

Personally, I know which version makes the better story! Whatever the truth, McCaig undoubtedly prospered. By the 1890s he was wealthy enough to think on a scale most people never could. Shortly before work gathered pace on the monument, he sold his interest in Oban Pier and Harbour for the handsome sum of £16,500. Unlike many dreamers, he actually had the means to turn his ideas into stone.

And he certainly had ideas.

A plaque above the entrance tells us that the monument was erected by:

"John Stuart McCaig, Art Critic and Philosophical Essayist and Banker, Oban."

I've always found that wording fascinating.

Most people would probably have led with "banker". McCaig chose to put it last.

The trouble is that while his banking career is easy enough to document, finding evidence of the philosophical essays is rather more challenging. Modern researchers have noted the same mystery. For a man who chose "philosophical essayist" as one of the defining descriptions of his life, he left remarkably little trace of these writings behind.

Perhaps he simply enjoyed thinking big thoughts.

He certainly enjoyed big projects.

Oban's Most Ambitious Building Project

In the 1890s, McCaig set his sights on Battery Hill, a spot overlooking the town and bay previously used to house artillery during the Napoleonic wars. He cleared away the rusting cannons and got to work.

Planning permissions were granted, granite began arriving from Bonawe and the enormous circular wall slowly started climbing above the bay. By 1897, visitors were already describing a "mighty structure" rising over Oban. One account confidently predicted that when complete, the town would possess a building "absolutely unique in the United Kingdom."

It is difficult not to admire the confidence.

Today, we're often told the tower was intended as a philanthropic project to keep local stonemasons employed during the quieter months of the year. That certainly appears to have been one of McCaig's motivations. Yet that explanation always leaves me with another question. If employment was the only goal, why build something so spectacular?

Why not a public hall?

Why not housing?

Why not another harbour improvement?

Instead, McCaig commissioned an enormous ring of granite arches overlooking the town like a Scottish version of the Colosseum. With a circumference of 200 metres, it boasts two tiers of arches - a lower tier of 44 lancets, and an upper tier of 50 lancets.

Victorians rarely did things by halves.

What Was Supposed To Go Inside?

Here's where the story becomes surprisingly muddled.

Many modern accounts state that McCaig planned an art gallery, museum and central tower within the structure. Those ideas certainly became associated with the monument over time, and various proposals have been suggested across the decades. However, when you start digging into the evidence, things become less clear.

The interior was never even properly levelled before work stopped. Detailed building plans for some of the features commonly described today are surprisingly elusive. What we do know with confidence comes from McCaig's will. And there he was specific about one thing.

The statues.

McCaig wanted statues of himself, his parents and his siblings placed within the monument. There were to be competitions for Scottish sculptors. Family likenesses were to be recreated. Future generations would gaze upon a granite family dynasty overlooking Oban Bay.

You can almost imagine the solicitor reading the instructions for the first time and slowly removing his spectacles.

"This may become complicated."

And complicated it became.

Enter Catherine McCaig

After John Stuart McCaig died in 1902, his surviving sister Catherine challenged the will. John had no children, in fact, none of his eight siblings did either.

The courts ultimately sided with her, bringing the grand plans to an abrupt halt. In one of the great legal put-downs of Scottish history, the judges described her brother as an "eccentric testator."

In fact, they said it was one of the country's:

"objects of no utility, private or public, objects which benefit nobody, and which have no other purpose or use than that of perpetuating at great cost, and in an absurd manner, the idiosyncrasies of an eccentric testator."

As legal descriptions go, that is difficult to improve upon. "Eccentric testator" sounds less like a Victorian banker and more like someone who keeps peacocks in the drawing room and insists on being addressed as Emperor of Argyll.

Yet I've always felt that reducing John Stuart McCaig to either a local hero or an eccentric misses the point. He was probably both.

The evidence suggests he genuinely wanted to provide employment. The evidence also suggests he rather liked the idea of leaving a colossal monument on a hill complete with statues of himself and his family. Those things are not mutually exclusive.

Who Spent the Money Better?

Which brings us to my favourite question in the entire story.

Who spent the money better?

Had John Stuart McCaig's plans gone ahead, Oban might have ended up with a completed family monument, perhaps even one enclosed and developed into something resembling the grand vision later generations imagined.

Instead, Catherine's challenge redirected the family's legacy in a different direction.

Funds that might have gone towards completing the monument ultimately found their way into education and charitable work. Through the McCaig Trust, generations of students, Gaelic learners and cultural organisations have benefitted from scholarships, bursaries and grants.

So who was right? The brother who wanted a monument? Or the sister whose legacy supported education and Gaelic culture?

Thankfully, Oban did not have to choose.

More than a century later, Catherine's educational legacy continues, while John Stuart McCaig's giant granite monument still draws visitors up the hill every single day.

The Monument That Was Never Finished

Ironically, McCaig's Tower may be more interesting because it was never completed.

Over the years there have been occasional discussions about doing more with the interior. Ideas have included cultural and arts spaces, but the practical challenges of construction on Battery Hill, high projected costs and the reality that people had come to value the site exactly as it was meant those plans never came to fruition.

Instead, the monument evolved into something rather lovely.

Not a museum.

Not a family shrine.

Not an arts centre.

Just a public garden with one of the finest views on the west coast of Scotland. And perhaps that's fitting. A completed monument might eventually have become part of the scenery. Instead, every visitor arrives with questions.

Why was it built? Why was it never finished? Was John Stuart McCaig a philanthropist, a visionary, an eccentric... or all three?

More than a century later, we're still debating the answer. And perhaps that's the greatest monument he could have left behind.

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