"The third portrait on the north wall of the Council Chambers, and the first to be remarked on entering the room, is that of Provost David Guthrie the Second.

"How well known were those shrewd, kindly features to Brechiners of a century ago; indeed, so prominent were the person and personality of the worthy Provost in the affairs of the community for several decades that he became something of an institution in the city. When he died in 1854 the citizens must have had feelings akin to those of the nation at large when Queen Victoria passed away.

"He had been Chief Magistrate for so long that the younger generation at least, who had known no other civic head, had the idea that Provost Guthrie would continue for ever. And the Councillors decided that they could do nothing better than see that the Provostship was carried on for yet another spell by a David Guthrie, and they elected his nephew, Colonel David Guthrie to the chair.

"David Guthrie the Second must certainly have given the impression that a Provost must be a large portly man with a commanding bearing. Provost David the II., at his heaviest, turned the scale at the almost unbelievable figure of 22 stones! There were giants in those days.

"Provost David must have been our heaviest as well as out longest-in-office Provost. He was a man of weight in more senses than one, a sound one of business, of strong character and with a wisely exercised influence over his contemporaries.

"Yet there was nothing awe-inspiring about the Provost. His rosy face was always beaming with good-nature; he was frank and free to all, and he took a special delight in children (though he had none of his own). The youngsters who frequented the Provost's shop (the general merchant's business founded by his father) at the Neuk could always depend on a ready welcome and something to themselves.

"What a delightful shop that must have been. One cannot help wishing that it could have been preserved for us as one of the pleasanter features of the old days. It faced the High Street with two little steps leading up to the door, and two little bow windows on either side of the entrance.

"In either window as likely as not a sleek black cat would be seen basking in whatever sunshine was agoing, or wandering about inside round the great yellow casks of North Port or the hanks of plough line. For the Provost's shop sold everything, as one would not have been long in guessing from the pot-pourri of odours which pervaded it.

"Most often the Provost himself was on duty and he was assisted by Nelly, a comely enough dame with a sharp tongue, and old John Milne, the tall, bent-backed porter who was a Seceder (like the Provost himself but considerably more lugubrious about it). The Provost we may add (although his wife was a sister of Rev. James Burns of the Cathedral) was for long an elder and a staunch supporter of the Burgher Kirk in Maison Dieu Lane where he had been taken as a boy by his mother.

"The following story illustrates one of the Provost's most likeable characteristics. He was walking one day past Unthank where there was a tinker camp. As he came along he discovered a tinker busily engaged in beating his wife. Immediately the Provost took off his jacket and threw it on to the ground. 'Lie ye there, Provost,' he said, 'till yer freend David Guthrie redd this quarrel.' And the tinker straightway felt the might of the Provost's arm.

"David Guthrie entered the Council in 1816, the year after his father became Provost. For the next year or two he sat as a merchant councillor; in 1820 he succeeded his brother John as treasurer; and in 1828 he took his brother's place on the magistrates bench as bailie. When Provost Speid retired in 1836 David Guthrie became Provost, and held office for the long period of 19 years. He was Provost when he died after a few days illness in May 1855.

"The two decades of Provost Guthrie's administration were marked by quite a number of interesting events in the city's history. The High Street and the Timmer Market were levelled and macadamised, causewayed streets disappeared one by one; the foundation stone of the Mechanics' Institute was laid in 1838.

"The following year the Council drew up important regulations authorising the introduction of water from the public fountains into private-dweliing houses. The privilege, we read, was largely taken advantage of, but in 1850 there was a great drought, and Lord Panmure was prevailed upon to grant the city water from the Burghill fountains.

"This was a long way from solving Brechin's water problem, but it was an improvement. Before the water was fairly introduced into Brechin the community lost a very good friend in the death of His Lordship in 1852.

"In 1840 the Council walked in procession to the parish church to hear the famous Dr Chalmers preach on church extension. Three years later came the Disruption. Railway building occupied much attention during these years; in 1847 the first train ran to Dubton.

"The next year the sprightly Defiance Coach with its redcoated, white hatted driver and guard and noble four horses drove through Brechin for the last time. It had been ousted by the railway.

"In the same year the "Brechin Advertiser" was founded by a nephew of the Provost, Mr David Burns. In 1848, too, stones were being daily carted through the street from Aldbar quarry en route for Arbroath where they were shipped to Germany to help to build Cologne Cathedral.

"The Provost and three of his colleagues were no doubt not a little thrilled to go to Dundee in September 1844 to present an address to the young Queen Victoria on her way with Prince Albert and the little Princess Royal to Balmoral. In 1851 Messrs Oswald, Guthrie & Co. (of which firm the Provost's brother was a partner), converted the spinning mill at the Inch into a paper mill, a lease of the mills having been granted by the Council.

"These were just a few of the matters in which the worthy Provost concerned himself. He gave himself unsparingly in the work of the town and in all that he did the influence of his own simple uprightness and piety were evident. No wonder when he died in 1855 the community felt that it had lost its father."