Hiya I'm Bruce Fummey. This is the second in my series of three videos on
the crofters' land wars on Skye. If you haven't seen
the first one, then click the white tab above
to go back to that. If you have already seen that then this
is the video for you. Now if you're interested in the people, places and
events in Scottish history, then you can click on the subscribe
button at the bottom right hand side of the screen
at anytime during this video, and also don't forget that you'll find additional
information, books, ways to support the channel in the
description below. In the meantime, let me tell you a story.
Last time we were in Macdonald land in Braes. Today we're in Macleod country.
This is Glendale. This has been part of Macleod Clan land since
ooh ... Originally Scandinavian settlers who came
were the Vikings. Over many years in Skye they'd fought with the Macdonalds.
They'd fought for this land, they'd bled for this land, they'd died for this land,
and yes, the Chief would lead them and he lived in the castle at the other side
of Loch Dunvegan, but the land was theirs. By the time the 19th century arrived, the
land no longer belonged to the children of those who had bled.
It was owned by the children of those who had led,
and so the people of Glendale and specifically Milovaig
further up the road paid rent, not to their chief,
but to the landlord. In 1852 the 25th Macleod of Macleod didn't even live
at Dunvegan Castle. He didn't even live on Skye,
he just owned lands here. At some point somebody had changed the rules, and he
was able to live comfortably in London and just sell the lands on
Skye for which your ancestors had fought and died.
He sold to one of his London neighbors as it happens.
This neighbour, John Macpherson Macleod had studied at English public school
and then went to India and made his fortune in Madras.
When he bought Glendale he was living near Hyde Park with a butler,
a footman, his wife, a cook, housemaid and ladies maid. Of course he
didn't come to Skye, oh no no, he had somebody else
run the estate for him. The esstate was managed by a guy called Donald Tormore
Macdonald. Tormore had several of his own farms from Nairnshire
all the way up to Skye here, and he seemed like just the man
to manage the land for this London investor.
Now when a London investor died, the Skye estates were left in trust to the
children of his nephew. The crofters paid rent to
the trust and they worked the land that their
ancestors had fought and died for. There had been blood, there had been
sweat, there would be tears. Since time
immemorial there had been eight crofts in the township
of Milovaig up the road, but not long before our story started
they'd been subdivided to accommodate people who had been cleared from land
nearby. You see the people were moved from pasture to pasture,
just like the sheep, and now seventeen crofts had to eke out in existence in
the same land in which eight had thrived. Oh and the best hill pasture
had been hived off to create a sheep run over the hill,
which was leased out to a doctor, Dr Martins,
honest, felt that the solution to the crofters lack of land, was that the people
here should move off to the Americas where there was plenty land.
They thought there was plenty of land right next to their crofts,
it was just that it was him that had it.
Now a gallery called the Kelpies. The good doctor's farm was called Waterstein.
Now if you're wondering where Waterstein is, it's in the area that you will drive
through on the way to Niche Point Lighthouse, which is just
over there and well worth a visit incidentally. So we have land owned by a
trust on behalf of distant children managed by
an incoming wealthy farmer and rented to an antagonistic landed doctor,
who thinks that the people that belong to the land should be sent
across an ocean. Trying to make a living out of half the land they had previously, the
crofters had no time for the land to lie fallow. Poorer crop yield, twice
the families cutting peat, so even more land reduced
and things were about to get worse.
Some of the crofters had to turn to the more dangerous work of fishing to make
ends meet. When winds were too strong to make the
shore of Milovaig itself, fishermen, for safety,
would moor their boats, here on the south side of the peninsula,
and walk over Waterstein farm to get home, and in fact a Tormore banned them from
mooring their boats on this side of the hill, forcing them to
brave the more dangerous waters. Next in a relatively barren
landscape, he banned them from collecting driftwood
on the shore. Then he banned these small-scale farmers from having working
dogs in case they bothered the doctor's sheep
here in Waterstein. Crofter's dogs were poisoned. One lady,
Mrs Ross was walking across the hill with a dog
and when the dog stopped to drink from a well the game keeper
shot it dead. In court the keeper was fined 10 shillings.
That led to threats of eviction and Tormore got an injunction
banning all the crofters from setting foot anywhere here in Waterstein.
Everything that could have been done to them, had been done to them.
You would think so, and then Tormore set up a shop. Now there were
already five or six tenant crofters running their own
little shops in the area, the competition if you will.
Tormore decided that those running shops should pay a higher rent.
He then decided that anyone using the shops
should also pay a higher rent. Crofters were already struggling to pay the rent
for half the land they had previously. There were double the people cutting
peat. Restrictions on them collecting
driftwood, more danger in supplementing their lifestyle with fishing,
now they couldn't sell what little surpluses
they might have, and they had to pay Tormor shop prices
or face higher rents. The crofters got together and decided on a rent strike.
What else could they do? It must have felt like
they were in a long dark tunnel with no way out, and then
they saw light at the end.
On the 15th of May 1882, Dr Martin was giving
up his lease, yes! The crofters made an offer to take over
Waterstein for the same rent as Dr Martin had been paying. Better
grazing, enough resources for all the people and
the trustees would have the same income as before. It's the perfect solution,
indeed at a public meeting, Factor Tormore promised to put the proposal
to the trustees, telling them that there were no competing offers, so they were
sure to be accepted. It took a bit of waiting
but finally the crofters had the lease to the
Waterstein Farm had been awarded to the Factor Tormore.
The dirty swine! Not only had Tormore reneged on his promise, but the Christian minded
trustees, rather than grant land to crofters in desperate need of it,
granted the lease to Tormore, who had no family or mouths to feed,
just profit to be accumulated.
This monument is on the road to Glendale in Milovaig
you'll pass it if you visit. When Tormore drove some sheep up from his Nairnshire
property. To stop the farm the crofters of Glendale
blocked the way and wouldn't let sheep onto the land.
They threw his sheep off the land, and he threw his toys
out of the pram. He gave up the lease and his role as Factor and he went off to
farm his other properties. Now the sensible
thing to do, the conciliatory thing to do, the humane
thing to do, was to allow the crofters of Milovaig to pay the increased rent
they so willingly offered for the added land they desperately
needed. You know that's not what they did, they brought in a replacement Factor
from Perthshire. A man with no gaelic, was appointed as
the go-between for the english-speaking trustees, and the gaelic speaking
crofters. Instead of renting the farm, they bought Tormore sheep, and
employed shepherds to staff the sheep run,
and the crafters continued in hunger. But they refused to pay rent and they
defied or ignored the Court Orders that arrived in connection with Waterstein
Farm. The Lord Lieutenant of Invernesshire and
the Sheriff of Inverness, William Ivory, do you remember that name?
They decided that there was only one solution and they wrote to Scotland's
top legal officer at Westminster. Gunboats. Send Marines, send Police and
send gunboats to terrorize the Skye crofters
into obedience. Now even to Victorian ears that sounded
a bit extreme.
As a more measured response they sent in extra Police and recruited
more for the future, and they didn't want to repeat the fiasco of the Battle of the
Braes. That was terrible. If you haven't already seen my video on
the Battle of the Braes, then it's the first in this sequence of three
and it's worth a watch. There should be a link in the white tab
above there. Anyway the authorities decided
that they were going to be more careful this time, and on Tuesday the 16th of
January, 6 "experienced" policemen headed for this
house. I don't really know why experienced was
in quotation marks, but it was in quotation marks in the book The Glendale
Martyrs, and I kind of wanted to be authentic eh? They
were to stay at this white house over my shoulder it's called Hamara Lodge,
but before they reach the lodge, they were turned back by 400 crofters.
Okay back to the drawing board. The next day, a messenger-at-arms was sent to deliver
summonses to five of the crofters, requiring them
to appear in Court in Edinburgh and he got his backside kicked from the
Glendale Bridge all the way back off the Glendale Estate.
Hmm, that didn't work. Gunboats it is then maybe just one gunboat, in fact a
semi-retired gunboat. Instead of Marines send a negotiator oh
make sure he speaks gaelic. How often are crofters on Skye the
subject of questions to the Prime Minister of the London Parliament?
The answer is in the 1880s, all the time!
On the 9th of February 1883 HMS Jackal dropped anchor here
in Loch Pooltiel. There was a meeting in the church where an official told the people
of Glendale, that they had to give up John Macpherson,
Malcolm Mathieson, Donald Macleod and John Morrison. They
would be taken back in HMS Jackal to Court in Edinburgh. They had to
take all their stock off the Waterstein Farm,
and they had to write a letter promising to obey all the conditions and provide
security relating to Waterstein. The grievances
would be heard in Edinburgh and that way we can avoid the need to send troops.
Left with little choice, the crofters said no. We won't send the letters that you're
looking for, three of the four men will travel to
Edinburgh but not on your boat, on their own steam
voluntarily, but John Morrison's no coming. What?
Why is that? Because he's currently away on duty with Royal Navy yah spanner.
He's not on your boat is he? You can read the long story in the book
The Glendale Martyrs. I'll leave a link in the description below. The short
version is that three men travelled to Edinburgh and they were found in
Contempt of Court for failing to comply with Court Orders,
and they were sentenced to two months in prison. At the trial they didn't get to
make the representations of their grievances
as they had been promised, but during the two months in prison, a Royal Commission
was set up, and it was set up to look at the issue
of land tenure and conditions of crofters in the Highlands, even
the Prime Minister, Gladstone, knew that something had to be done to redress the
power balance in island land tenure and that shipping people off to Manitoba was
no solution at all. As soon as he was
released from prison in Edinburgh, the spokesman John Macpherson traveled back
here to Skye and arrived here in Milovaig to appear
as the first witness at the Napier Commission.
When he climbed onto the steamer to take him south
two months earlier, John Macpherson announced to the tearful crowd
"if i was going to jail for a sheep or a lamb you might be very sorry,
but as it is you ought to be very glad for we go to uphold
a good cause. We go to defend the widow and the fatherless and comfort
the needs of hearth and home".
Is it always wrong to break the law in protest?
The war wasn't over, but they'd won another battle.
I wonder what happens in episode three? If you like this please
give it a thumbs up and share it.Tha mi an dochas bum bith lath math leibh.
Tiorridh an drasda.