Rennie McOwan explores the indiscriminate eviction of crofters from the Highlands and Islands of Scotland known as
The Clearances |
The glens and moors of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland are dotted with the stone foundations of ruined houses, memorials to a vanished people. These now silent places mark one of the most infamous events in Scottish history, the 19th century Clearances when landlords and their often hated officials summarily evicted people from their homes, often setting the houses on fire so they could not return. Police and troops were called in to enforce these legal actions and to prevent or overcome resistance to eviction or rent rises.
NEW BREED OF LANDLORD
After the power of the clan chiefs was broken in the 18th century, a new breed of landlord emerged who had little sense of a hereditary duty towards their often demoralised tenants and who found that removing the people and their cattle and turning the land into large sheep-runs could bring in substantial profits. In time, the sheep farms were replaced by vast so-called sporting estates, virtually empty of people, where wealthy guests shot deer and grouse, a land pattern which endures until our own day.
In some areas, people were expelled from the best land in the glens and dumped on the seashore where they had to build new homes with makeshift tools among the heather and rocks and learn to be fishermen. Hunger sometimes threatened and there were instances where food had to be saved for the able-bodied young men. Elderly people became gaunt to the extent of children becoming hysterical at their appearance.
It must be said, in fairness, that some landowners did encourage emigration by consent and a pattern of voluntary emigration emerged from as early as the 17th century. The crofting way of life of the people was often hard and when potato blight struck in bad years, starvation often followed. But the majority of those ‘cleared’ did not want to leave and felt they had a satisfying lifestyle. Communities were ordered to board an emigrant ship on a particular day and whether they liked it or not most of them were soon en route to Canada, Australia, New Zealand or the United States. Some died on the voyage or shortly after landing.
Many of those who tried to stay at home found themselves destitute and homeless. One of the few bodies to give them help was the Catholic Church. The estate owners could not touch Church land and families, some sleeping under upturned boats on the shore, took refuge in Kirk yards and churches. Some priests accompanied the emigrants to their places of exile. The remnant who remained on the shores or in other corners as estate employees or tenants evolved a pattern of ‘small farming’, but even there the will of the landowner and the draconian powers of the land agents were paramount. People could be evicted for alleged insolence and rents could reach levels at which payment was impossible and eviction was inevitable.
PROTESTS
People were beaten up when they tried to prevent the arrest of rent-strike leaders and in time some communities marched on to the new shooting estates to reclaim their lost land. Valuable lessons were learned from the land struggles in Ireland on how to organise and protest, and information was brought back by fishermen who each season went to Kinsale, in Co Cork.
The effect of these tensions and injustices rumbled on into living memory and one of the most publicised modern incidents involved a group of crofters in 1948 who came to be known as the Seven Men of Knoydart and about whom a modern folk ballad was written. They were aided by their courageous parish priest, Fr Colin MacPherson, who was later to become Bishop of Argyll and the Isles where he ministered until he died in 1990.
Knoydart is a lonely peninsula in the West Highlands, a place of spectacular mountains and hill passes. No public roads exist and the visitor nowadays has to walk many miles to get there or take a boat from the busy fishing village of Mallaig. The population, plus visitors, is now around 200 people, but once it was 1,000 and their homes were scattered around the peninsula with the main community sited in the fertile bay of Inverie.
The land originally belonged to the Catholic Macdonnels of Glen Garry, but in time many people emigrated voluntarily or were cleared to make way for sheep. The estate was sold to a London ironmaster and most of the remaining 400 people were evicted by force, their crofting holdings destroyed and the people driven like cattle aboard a waiting transport ship supplied by the British government. Only a handful remained and clung on as crofters or estate workers. In 1948, local men sought land for crofting and were refused by the then Knoydart owner, Lord Brocket, who also stopped all other development on his estate and who barred the public from traversing his lands.
Fr MacPherson supported the men and worked out a long-term development plan for the area involving forestry, fishing and crofting, but Lord Brocket refused to cooperate. Eventually, six of the men, some of whom had fought in the Second World War, simply took the land. They marched in led by Father MacPherson and pegged out claims and began clearing the ground. The seventh man was in the Army, but was there in spirit. Lord Brocket brought in the police and then took legal action against the men in the Court of Session in Edinburgh, Fr MacPherson helped prepare their legal case and tried to persuade a supine Government to help the men. Scottish public opinion was outraged, but Lord Brocket won the court case. The men had to leave and the land raid failed, but unknown to the people in 1948 there was to be a later, happier chapter. Their action and Fr MacPherson’s leadership was to help inspire later land ownership changes.
Fr MacPherson continued to care for the remaining Knoydart residents and in 1969 he became Bishop of Argyll and the Isles. He always strove to improve the wellbeing of the people of the Highlands and Islands and became a member of the Government commission, the Highlands and Islands Development Board. It is a measure of the respect with which he was held that the Board cancelled a key meeting so they could all attend his Episcopal ordination.
CHANGE IN LAND-OWNERSHIP
The land-owning scene in Scotland has now vastly changed for the better. New legislation means that rural communities can set up trusts in areas where owners are willing to sell the land. This is a growing trend encouraged by the Scottish Government and land-owning communities have sprung up in the Highlands and islands. A modern memorial has been erected on Lewis to crofters there who marched onto a sporting estate to reclaim land. Other memorials have been erected on Skye commemorating 19th century crofters and their wives who fought the police trying to arrest protest activist leaders who had organised rent strikes or defended their grazing rights.
Modern people of Knoydart and their friends also set up a land-owning trust, the Knoydart Foundation, and received invaluable help from the conservation charity, the John Muir Trust to purchase much of the land. Lord Brocket’s estate in time was broken up, but remnants of the old times still lingered. A modern owner refused permission for a cairn to the Seven Men to be erected in his area of Knoydart, but in 1998 it was nevertheless erected there on public ground close to Inverie pier. Enlightened modern legislation means that the general public have the right to responsible access to the glens, hills, moors, fields and coasts of Scotland. The days when men like Lord Brocket could block all access have gone.
The Seven Men of Knoydart and Fr MacPherson thought they had failed. In fact, public opinion was inspired by them and in time land-ownership in Scotland was changed for the better. |
