Uproar Raids and rent strikes

that led to the Crofting Act.

THE Rev Donald MacCallum was a minister, remarkably of the Established Church, who became the most prominent clergyman in support of popular aspirations in the Highlands and Islands. He was a native of Craignish, in Argyll. MacCallum's real skill was in oratory; he excelled in blending the rhetoric of radical socialism with redolent biblical imagery. His parishes, too, always seemed to coincide with periods of local anti-landlord passion: Morvern, in Argyll; Waternish, on Skye (which included Glendale); Heylipool, on Tiree; and Lochs, in Lewis, which included that district called Park. He was invited to Waternish in 1884 by a group of radical crofters (who would have been Free Church to a man). Two years later his own Church censured him for `inciting class hatred'; he was even briefly jailed (though never charged) in Portree. `The land is our birthright,' MacCallum declared, ``even as the air, the light of the sun, and the water belong to us as our birthright.''

Park was scene to a new bout of resistance, inspired by events unfolding on Skye. Much of the Park area had been cleared earlier in the century, and taken over for sheep farming. Repeatedly Lochs men begged for crofts on it. The estate insisted that Park was unsuitable for crofting; this was ridiculous. Rather, it suited the estate much better as a sheep farm paying good rent. Many were still alive who remembered the fine living Park land had given its tenants. At the end of 1881 the lease of the Park farm was due to expire, and 32 Lochs fishermen petitioned Lady Matheson - who now managed Lewis; her husband had died - for the letting of the lands of Orinsay and Steimreway on such terms as she might see fit to grant. Further, they undertook to abide by all estate regulations.

There was no reply. they wrote to her chamberlain. There was still no answer. And they wrote yet a third time, in December 1882, expressing now the hope that they might not be led, reluctantly, to take such steps as others of their unfortunate countrymen had been forced to take. Now Her Ladyship waxed wroth. She sent back a chilly refusal; further, she made very plain her anger at the very cheek of the peasants in daring to ask.

Lady Matheson, that winter, was well aware of the lengths to which Highland people were now prepared to go. The year now ending had seen dramatic events in Skye, in two districts: Braes, and Glendale. As elsewhere, more and more of the sad land was seized for sporting use - deer park here, grouse moor there. As elsewhere, the Glendale folk were refused even the most basic measures to protect themselves against vermin - fences, dykes and so on. (Things were even worse on rabbit-ridden Raasay. By now the grazings were so stripped that Raasay people were going hungry. Mr Wood imported more rabbits.)

But, in January 1882, even the amenable people of Glendale were pushed too far. A notice was hammered up at the village store, ``for all the world as if it were an act of Parliament'', remarks Hunter. Dogs were now banned. all driftwood cast up on the shore was henceforth the exclusive property of the estate.

`Notice is hereby given that the shepherds and herds on these lands have instructions to give up the names of any persons found hereafter carrying away timber from the shore, that they may be dealt with according to law.'

Now, according to law, a landlord's rights cease at the hightide mark, as early Free Church congregations had demonstrated. and, in the treeless isles of the west, driftwood was their sole source of roofing for their houses. but the only law that now ran in these islands was the whim of a landlord, the grudges of a factor. and in their hands all civil and secular power was concentrated. This was no longer law; this was despotism, of a kind that bordered on vicious and irrational anarchy.

The first blows in this struggle fell in Braes. Braes is that land on the Trotternish peninsula, running south of Portree

At length this fellow's lease ran out, and the crofters conferred together and sent a polite proposal to Lord MacDonald's factor. Could they have this land back for their own use? They would pay a better rent. The factor, and Lord MacDonald himself, were most displeased. The men of Braes were told to mind their own business. On no account would this land be returned to their use.

Now, by the winter of 1881, new notions were abroad in the Highlands, and in Skye especially. Many of the young men were off fishing during summer, and did much of their fishing in fleets off the shores of Ireland. Naturally, they frequently landed in Ireland, and soon they brought word home of the exciting events in that country. A Land League had been formed. The Irish were demanding rights. They were organised in agitation against their landlord class. They had initiated rent strikes - and got away with it. They were denying services and labour to landlords in a new practice known as ``boycotting''. Already the Irish, and their rising clamour for home rule, were wringing concessions from the nervous Liberal administration of William Gladstone.

In November 1881 the crofters of Braes were due to pay their annual rent. But the monies did not come to the factor at Portree. Instead a dignified little deputation confronted the factor, Alexander MacDonald, and told him there would be no rent that year, nor any year, until the grazings of Ben Lee were restored to them. And they returned home to release their own sheep on the hill.

Lord MacDonald was shocked. Very shocked indeed. He promptly asked the sheriff officer to serve exemplary notices of eviction on 12 Braes crofters. The deputy sheriff officer complied, for he was, after all, that same Alexander Macdonald, factor of the MacDonald estates; and, in addition, held all the posts of power that mattered, and more besides - local agent for the Bank of Scotland, distributor of Postal Stamps, and so on.

Macdonald sent a deputy, and two heavies from Portree, to serve these papers. They were met by the women of Braes, large and vocal and hostile. The three men soon quaked in the midst of this angry huddle of wives and mothers. the papers were torn from their hands and burned before their wide eyes.

Word of this was soon brought to Sheriff William Ivory, a Border Scot of good family, and if Donald Munro had beheld himself as a colonial governor, this Ivory - sheriff of Inverness - thought himself a veritable viceroy. To him the very empire was threatened by these insurrectionists. And, as viceroys through time have decided, he felt the situation called for a full-blown expeditionary force. Nothing would impress the natives like a good show of strength. So Sheriff Ivory began to organise a formidable army of policemen from Glasgow. Word of this came to Braes. The men readied themselves to fight, and posted sentinels along the road to Portree. The chief constable gave the sheriff a quiet word on tactics. Why take the risk of falling upon Braes in winter, when all the young men were at home? Why not wait until April, just within the legal time limit for serving a summons - and by which point the vigorous manhood of the district would have headed off for the Kintyre fishing fleets?

Ivory agreed that this was sensible. He continued to plan his expeditionary force, and declared that he himself would be at the head of it. In the end, on the morning of 19 April, 1882, he was actually at its tail, bumping up the road in a cosy carriage, behind sixty Glasgow policemen, wet and miserable under lashing heavy rain. They moved before dawn, and reached the southernmost village, Peinchorran, as the sun rose. The Braes folk were quite taken by surprise; their sentries had long since been stood down. The constables rapidly accomplished their mission. Half a dozen men were arrested and bundled on the north-going road to Portree. But southern Braes has two roads, looping. Above this shore road is a high road, and a hundred men and women of Balmeanach and Peinchorran were already out of bed and angrily rushing along it - in true Wild West fashion - to cut the invaders off at the pass.

At the narrow bridge over Allt nan Gobhlaig, furious women railed curses; the braver battered the Glasgow policemen with flails. The police fought back with truncheons. Had the young men of Braes been home, dead bodies would have lain in Braes that night. But they were not, and the police were determined. They made a grim baton charge, and broke clear. In the meantime, Sheriff Ivory, and his prisoners, had escaped in the confusion.

Then the policemen fell under the high road. There, months before, stones had been heaped in a makeshift munitions dump. Now the Braes people streamed about these piles. Jagged lumps of rock hailed down on the officers. More men were scurrying thither from the gorge of Allt nan Gobhlaig, and women too. The wretched policemen, with great difficulty, and much blood, somehow survived this assault. They fought their way to open ground in a desperate rush - had they stayed below this fusillade, they were surely dead men - and battled, hand-to-hand, with the men and women, finally breaking clear of the enraged people, and made for Portree as fast as they could. a local minister sallied forth to dissuade the Braes men from falling upon the town. Meanwhile, in sorry state, bruised, some badly injured, the policemen made the safety of Portree.

The nation was soon in uproar. But Skye seethed with rage too. No one in position of authority felt safe. Even the bench in Inverness grew nervous. When the prisoners of Braes went on trial, the authorities dared not risk a prison sen

Sheriff Ivory was quick, again, to call for armed action, for the arrest and exemplary treatment of ringleaders. But Ivory's credibility was fast thinning. Already, under pressure from Cameron of Lochiel, the Braes folk had been granted Ben Lee - if at a steep rent. A local, Gaelic-speaking official was despatched to Glendale, where he persuaded the leaders of the movement voluntarily to attend trial in Edinburgh. And they left on the McCallum Orme steamer, Dunara Castle; not on HMS Jackal: `a victory for tact and common sense'. Three men were given jail terms of three months, earning MacPherson the soubriquet of ``Glendale Martyr''. The dismay in that place was shortly offset by startling news from London.

The government of William Gladstone was, at heart, humane and wise. And the ministers were rapidly repairing a sublime ignorance of Highland affairs. The rule of law was in utter disrepute throughout the Highlands and Islands. Besides, public opinion was outraged. There were manifest injustices in need of correction. It was, therefore, in 1883 announced that a royal commission was to tour the Highlands and Islands and examine all crofting grievances.

The commission was headed by a Scotsman, Francis, Lord Napier, who had served as Governor-General of India. He was joined by Cameron of Lochiel. The Liberal MP for Inverness Burghs, Charles Fraser Mackintosh, also joined; the commission had been granted

in large part because of a memorial he and 20 other Scottish Liberal MPs had signed and laid before the Home Secretary. Sir Kenneth Mackenzie of Gairloch served - of the house of Osgood. There was the Professor of Celtic at the University of Edinburgh, Colonsay-born Donald Mackinnon. And there was Alexander Nicolson, Skye-born sheriff at Kirkcudbright, and a pioneer of climbing in Skye; Sgurr Alasdair, highest of the Cuillin, is named for him. The Gaelic speaker who had mediated in the Glendale conflict, Malcolm MacNeill, was appointed secretary to the royal commission. Napier was its only non-Highland member. Half their number spoke Gaelic. But Donald Mackinnon, to his credit, refused to serve until he was permitted to minute his protest that three landlords had been granted seats, which he (and many others) felt most inappropriate. There were no crofting representatives, after all.

But the Napier Commission was still manned by men of substance and ability, men determined to pursue truth and press for justice. They convened for their first hearing at Braes, in May 1883. Over the months that followed, through all manner of conditions and difficulties - they even suffered shipwreck, off Stornoway - Napier and his colleagues travelled the length and breadth of the Highlands. Skye, the Outer Isles, Orkney, Shetland, western Sutherland, and Ross and Inverness-shire and Argyll. They went to the North Highlands and the East Highlands and to such remote islets as St Kilda and Foula. Their work was accomplished in simple fashion. In each district they intimated a public meeting, and all who wished to attend were free to come and make complaint or bear witness. An interpreter was always on hand for those who preferred to speak - or could only speak - in Gaelic.

The volumes of evidence gathered by the commission still make fascinating reading. Many tales of exploitation and woe are recorded in them. Much of the detail of daily life of the time is minuted for posterity. The fear of landlords and their agents is manifest; at Braes, and in other districts, some refused to utter a word until a factor present had been bound by the chair to undertake no mischief would befall them for speaking their minds. It is tempting to plunder these records for detailed accounts of the Clearances, but this must be done with caution. The mass evictions were long over, the tales had been apt to improve in the telling, and few of those who spoke of them to Napier and his colleagues had actually witnessed such events with their own eyes.

Within a year the Napier Commission had concluded its business, and presented its compiled report to parliament, disclosing ``a state of misery, of wrongdoing, and of patient longsuffering, without parallel in the history of our country''. The report was published on 28 April 1884, with five volumes of gathered evidence. The royal commission called for regulated crofting townships, their bounds recorded and fenced, their roads half paid by the landlord. Full free access was to be granted each tenant to the gathering and use of peats, thatch, heather and seaware. If a sheriff were persuaded, in due process, that a township was overcrowded, he could compel the landlord to enlarge its bounds. If it seemed more fitting to create new townships, government grants should be made available for this purpose. Most of all, a crofter must be granted compensation for all permanent improvements, should he relinquish (or be evicted from) his tenancy.

The Napier Commission did not, however, believe in security of tenure, save for crofters on large holdings, paying over #6 annually in rent and holding a 30-year lease. On this issue along the members of the commission were sharply divided. Fraser Mackintosh wanted this rent capped at #4. Sir Kenneth Mackenzie sought the abolition of common grazings. Cameron of Lochiel thought the landlord should have greater powers to reform the bounds of crofts and townships.

Great disappointment was felt in the Highlands and

In the meanwhile huge rent strikes began, coinciding (conveniently) with a worldwide slump in the price of beef. There were more land raids, in Skye and in the Uists. Unrest grew quite serious in the Kilmuir parish, north of Portre

The marines left Skye in the summer of 1885. The later general election of that year saw the ousting of three local members and the return of three triumphant Highland Land League MPs to Westminster. Fraser Mackintosh quickly cast in his lot with their cause. Irish home rule was now the issue of the day; the Liberal Party was badly divided on the issue, in parliament and beyond, and the government needed all the Commons support it could muster. The new Highland members were happy to grant it - if their demands were met. Legislation was quickly drafted, using the Irish Land Act as a model.

On 25 June 1886 parliament passed the Crofters Holding Act, popularly known as the Crofting Act. It went beyond the hopes of Napier. All crofters paying less than #30 rent a year were granted the same benefits: security of tenure, the right to bequeath the tenancy to a family heir, compensation for all improvements were the tenancy relinquished, and a new public body - the Crofters' Commission - with the power to fix fair rents. Into the hands of that body were invested all powers of management over all crofting estates. There would be no more doublings or triplings of rent, no more wholesale evictions or contrived emigrations. A crofter's house was even free of rates. And it could not be seized for debt. Nothing was wrought for cottars, nor others with no crofts of their own. Nor - yet - was land empty, but for sheep and deer, recrofted and repeopled. But it made existing crofters secure, at last, in what they held, and at fair, fixed rents.

When the commission was formed it soon uncovered further injustices. Reductions were made in croft rents throughout the Highlands, at an average of 50%. Arrears were written off, up to 70%. The Crofting Act is still on the statute book, and may be heavily criticised. Security of tenure, as Napier foresaw, can be a mixed blessing, encouraging complacency, making it most difficult for newcomers to gain crofts, engendering lazy and damaging land use. But it made crofting safe, and the Act has done much to keep a fair population in most districts of the Highlands.

Extracted from Highlanders - A History of the Gaels to be published by Hodder & Stoughton at #20 on Thursday.

Tomorrow: A forgotten Highland tragedy - and how certain twentieth century writers have traduced the good name of the Highlander