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Governing the Highlands: The Place of Popular Protest in the Highlands of Scotland after 1918

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2008

Iain Robertson
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Extract

This paper seeks to explore the relationship between agencies of government and crofting tenantry in the Highlands of Scotland, as manifested in events of popular protest after 1914. These events seem to have received little attention when compared to disturbance of earlier periods, which have been extensively documented, and the period after 1918 in particular has been under represented in the literature. Furthermore the actions of agencies of government were significantly different in this later period. Where before the Great War government actions were wholly reactive, this paper will demonstrate that during the war and after, the Board of Agriculture made significant attempts to be proactive in the face of incipient protest. Yet, conflict, and the resultant acts of protest, continued to be a characteristic element of social relations in the Highlands in the post-war period. This paper seeks to show that whilst the actions of the land-working population were of central significance, this conflict was not solely between the tenantry and landowners or agencies of government but was also within those various groupings. Consequently, it is argued that protest attests to a complex nexus of conflict on both regional and national levels.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , April 1997 , pp. 109 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

1. Highland popular protest can be split into three distinct phases. Beginning in the 1740s, the first phase was essentially defensive in character and can be broadly described as attempts to resist the introduction of large scale, single-tenanted sheep farms. The principal form such resistance took was the refusal to accept eviction passively. This first phase was concentrated in the south and east Highlands and is generally accepted to have continued into the first half of the nineteenth century. The second phase is marked by the movement of protest north and west and is characterised by more assertive actions. These were principally a forced seizure of land (known more generally as ‘land raids’) previously cultivated by the land-working population and expropriated by their landlords under the drive for agricultural improvement. This second phase has become known as the Highland Land Wars and is generally accepted to have begun in 1882, although there are important precedents, and ended around the turn of the century. The third stage (less well known than the previous two) is broadly delimited by the inter-war years and characterised geographically by a further retreat of protest into the north and west heartland. Important contributions to this area of study include: Richards, E., ‘How tame were the Highlanders during the Clearances?’, Scottish Studies, XVII (1973), 33–50;Google ScholarJohn, P.Dunbabin, D., Rural Discontent in Nineteenth-Century Britain (London, 1974);Google ScholarHunter, James, The Making of the Crofting Community (Edinburgh, 1976);Google ScholarLogue, Kenneth, Popular Disturbances in Scotland 1780–1815 (London, 1979);Google ScholarGrigor, Iain F., Mightier than a Lord (Stornoway, Lewis, 1979);Google ScholarRichards, Eric, A History of the Highland Clearances, vol. 1 (London, 1982);Google ScholarCharles, W.Withers, J., Gaelic Scotland: The Transformation of a Culture Region (London, 1988);Google ScholarLeneman, Leah, Fit For Heroes? (Aberdeen, 1989);Google ScholarIain, M.MacPhail, M., The Crofters War (Stornoway, Lewis 1989);Google ScholarWithers, C W. J., ‘“Give us land and plenty of it”: the ideological basis to land and landscape in the Scottish Highlands’, Landscape History 2 (1990), 45–54;CrossRefGoogle ScholarCameron, E. A. ‘The political influence of Highland Landowners: a reassessment’, Northern Scotland, 14 (1994), 27–49;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDevine, Tom M., Clanship to Crofters War (Edinburgh, 1995);Google ScholarCameron, E.A. ‘Land raids in the Highlands, 1886 to 1925’, forthcoming.Google Scholar Of the foregoing only Cameron and Leneman have focused on the period after 1918 in any systematic way, whilst both Hunter and Withers attempt to integrate the events of the period into more general studies. Recent research has revealed, however, more incidents of protest and more detail of these incidents than has hitherto been recorded. See Robertson, I.J.M., ‘The historical geography of popular protest in Highland Scotland, 1914–c1939’ (unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Bristol, 1995).Google Scholar

2. See, for example MacCuish, D. J., ‘Crofting legislation since 1886’, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 103: 2, (1987);CrossRefGoogle ScholarLeneman, L., ‘Land settlement in Scotland after World War I’, The Agricultural History Review, 37: 1 (1989).Google Scholar But especially, Leneman, Leah, Fit For Heroes, (Aberdeen, 1989).Google Scholar

3. MacCuish, , ‘Crofting legislation’, p. 90;Google ScholarLeneman, , ‘Land settlement’, p. 53.Google Scholar

4. Hunter, , The Making, pp. 183–187.Google Scholar

5. Brown, J., ‘Scottish and English land legislation 1905–1911’, Scottish Historical Review, 67 (1968), 35;Google ScholarMacCuish, , ‘Crofting legislation’, p. 91.Google Scholar

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7. Land was perceived by the labouring population as the basis of society. Established patterns of inheritance and land management were legitimised and sustained by an appeal to customary rights; to the maintenance of kin-based hereditary tenures; to the remembered occupancy over generations. The crofting tenantry believed, therefore, that the land was theirs and that they had been wrongfully deprived of that land in the drive for agricultural improvement. Notions of customary rights, therefore, legitimised the use and occupancy of land and, over time, attempts to recover land.

8. Dewey, C., ‘Celtic agrarian legislation and the Celtic revival’, Past and Present 64 (1974), 31–40 and 64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Leneman, , Fit for Heroes, p. 20.Google Scholar

10. Marwick, Anthony, The Deluge (London, 1967), pp. 163–169.Google Scholar

11. The 1912 and 1919 Acts allowed prohibitively expensive compensation awards when establishing schemes in deer forests. See Leneman, , Fit for Heroes, pp. 5–19.Google Scholar

12. Precise identification of exact numbers has proved impossible. The relevant files were destroyed by the Department of Agriculture in the 1960s. For the same reason we can only speculate as to why more forests were not opened up in this way but one of the reasons was undoubtedly that given for why the Raasay forest was not made available to crofters on Rona: the cultivable land was too far from their crofts. Department of Agriculture for Scotland files (hereafter DAFS) 14113 Raasay, Board of Agriculture internal memo, November 1916. It is also interesting to note that similar agreements were considered for the Second World War albeit with less success in terms of forests opened up.

13. Scottish Record Office (hereafter SRO) AF83/336; AF67/143 T. Wilson to Board 7th November 1917; Board memo to Scottish Office, 5th March 1918.

14. DAFS 40928 Balmacaan, Copy letter sent by solicitor, 13th January 1922, report from sub-commissioner to Board of Agriculture, 24th March 1922, report from sub-commissioner, 12th September 1922, letter from estate solicitors, 9th January 1924.

15. DAFS 34315/1 Eileanreach, Report on Deer Forests, February 1920.

16. DAFS 11 150 Torridon, Report from sub-commissioner, 30th November 1914.

17. Hunter, , The Making, pp. 152 and 172;Google Scholar SRO AF67/124, Police Report, 30th October 1900.

18. DAFS 17725/1 Sconser, Letter from applicants, February 1912, Letter from curator bonis to Board, 25th June 1917.

19. DAFS 17725/1, Sconser, Sub-commissioner reports, March 1919 and August 1920, estate factor to Board, 2nd August 1923; DAFS 1611 Sconser, copy letter forwarded from M.P., 25th February 1939; DAFS 17725/2 Sconser, Board memo, July 1949.

20. DAFS 38609 Glencanisp, Board memo, 15th July 1937; DAFS 61110 Borve, sub-commissioner to Board, 1st November 1929, Board minute 28th November 1932.

21. SRO AF67/1 52 6th April 1918; AF67/157, 24th January 1921; AF83/751, 9th August 1921; AF83/752.

22. SRO AF83/795 Scaristaveg, D. Stewart to Board, 18th March 1926.

23. DAFS 8185/C/2 Balranald, Goular crofters to Board, 9th February 1923; SRO AF83/245, D. MacLean to Board; AF83/191, N. MacLean to Board, 28th February 1921; AF83/726, D. Matheson to Board, 16th May 1924.

24. At Drimore, South Uist, those threatening a raid replied to the warning of the likely consequences, ‘come what may we will take possession and if we are put in prison our families will be provided for’, SRO AF67/161.

25. SRO AF 83/287 Bunessan, A R. Campbell to Board of Agriculture, 17th March 1917; SRO AF67/65, AF67/161.

26. Hunter, , The Making, pp. 100–106.Google Scholar

27. DAFS 11077 Ardachy, Argyll, Board memo, 16th December 1914; DAFS 2731/C/1, Arinagour, Coll November 1920; SRO AF67/157, 7th December 1920.

28. SRO AF83/388, 8th March 1920.

29. Hunter, , The Making, p. 215;Google Scholar DAFS 74141, Land Settlement Procedure, 28th January 1926. Moreover, crofting tenants sought to remind the government ‘that it was among small holders that Sailors and Soldiers were found at the time of war and not among the farmers.’ SRO AF83/595, 16th April 1924.

30. SRO AF83/609, 27th March 1917.

31. SRO AF83/730, Duncan Stewart to Board of Agriculture, 8th June 1922; AF83/731, Lord Lovat to Board of Agriculture, 17th June 1922.

32. SRO AF83/190, Skene, Edwards and Garson to Board, 8th January 1920.

33. Oral interview Mr and Mrs D. MacLean, South Uist 12/4/90; SRO AF83/769 Scaristaveg, James Mather to Board of Agriculture, 27th February 1928; DAFS 38453/1 Boreray Island, Sub-commissioner's report, February 1928.

34. SRO AF83/767, Hulme McGregor (solicitors) to Board, 3rd October 1922. The Secretary for Scotland and Lord Leverhulme's discussions have been covered in considerably more detail than has been summarised here. See, for example, Hunter, The Making; Leneman, Fit for Heroes; Nicolson, Nigel, Lord of the Isles (London, 1960).Google Scholar There remains, however, a considerable amount of material not yet fully covered. This can be found in various Scottish Record Office files such as AF67/331.

35. SRO AF67/149, Sir John Lamb to Board of Agriculture, 10th October 1921.

36. SRO AF83/767 Galson, Sir John Lamb to Board of Agriculture, 7th February 1923.

37. Land on Strathaird was seized by seven men from Elgol in December 1922. They were consequently placed at the bottom of the Board of Agriculture's list of eligible applicants and found guilty of breach of interdict. They were sentenced to six months imprisonment but national politics intervened. Facing parliamentary debate on the incident, the government reached an agreement with the opposition by which the raiders were to be offered land on Skye by the end of 1924 in return for opposition agreement not to press their case. The attitude of raiders faced with such a threat is evident at Melbost, Lewis: ‘It has been announced that the Secretary for Scotland has said that no raiders would benefit by raiding, but it is generally realised that it would be worth it, even to help others to benefit by it’, D.A.F.S. 5809/C/1, Kilbride; D.A.F.S. 61147/1 Melbost, Lewis, Sandwick crofters to Board, 26th May 1923; SRO AF67/153; AF67/151, 30th January 1923.

38. DAFS 14113/M Raasay, Applicants from Dry Harbour, Rona, to Board of Agriculture, 19th February 1920.

39. Leneman, Fit for Heroes, p. 20.Google Scholar

40. SRO AF83/769 Galson, C. MacDonald to Board of Agriculture, 20th November 1923.

41. Leneman, Fit for Heroes, p. 219.Google Scholar

42. SRO AF83/569, Berriedale, A. Macintosh to Board of Agriculture, 19th October 1919.

43. Gregory, Derek, ‘Contours of Crises’ in Baker, A. and Gregory, D. (eds.), Explorations in Historical Geography, (London, 1984), pp. 130–32.Google Scholar

44. Thompson, Edward P., The Making of the English Working Class (London, 1968) p. 8.Google Scholar