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Sir Henry Smith gave his opinion of McWilliam in this short passage:
"James MacWilliam was born at Cairnie, Aberdeenshire - a true Aberdonian: honest, upright, and of exceptionally good education. He had a soul above the County Constabulary; travelled up to London and took the shilling when Daniel Whittle Harvey was Commissioner; remained during the twenty-seven years that Sir James Fraser ruled at the Old Jewry; and finally served me to the day of my retirement. MacWilliam had a thorough knowledge of the criminal law, in addition to his high character; and, notwithstanding the Meiklejohn-Druscovitch scandal at Scotland Yard, which shook the confidence of the public in plain-clothes officers to its very foundation, both my predecessor and I always trusted him implicitly."
[Sir Henry Smith, From Constable to Commissioner, pp. 130, 130 (1910)]
Daniel Whittle Harvey was Commissioner until his death in 1863.
"James MacWilliam was born at Cairnie, Aberdeenshire - a true Aberdonian: honest, upright, and of exceptionally good education. He had a soul above the County Constabulary; travelled up to London and took the shilling when Daniel Whittle Harvey was Commissioner; remained during the twenty-seven years that Sir James Fraser ruled at the Old Jewry; and finally served me to the day of my retirement. MacWilliam had a thorough knowledge of the criminal law, in addition to his high character; and, notwithstanding the Meiklejohn-Druscovitch scandal at Scotland Yard, which shook the confidence of the public in plain-clothes officers to its very foundation, both my predecessor and I always trusted him implicitly."
[Sir Henry Smith, From Constable to Commissioner, pp. 130, 130 (1910)]
Daniel Whittle Harvey was Commissioner until his death in 1863.
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