‘Not a popular personage’: The Factor in Scottish Property Relations, c. 1870–1920

Abstract

This chapter begins with a detailed examination of the humiliation of a factor on the state-owned Kilmuir estate in north Skye in 1909. It then uses a range of evidence - poetry, journalism, estate papers, government records - to discuss the history and memory of this event. This episode is used as a basis for analysing the wider role of factors in Scottish property relations from 1850 to 1920. Different models of factorship are discussed, as are the varying roles of factors – local estate managers, lawyer consultants – and their subordinates, on the estate and beyond its marches. The chapter has a principal focus on the Scottish Highlands, where debates about the role of the factor were at their most intense, but also notes that property relations in urban Scotland were characterised by some of the same tensions between property owners, factors and tenants.