Lord Seaforth’s heir as proprietor of his Ross-shire estates was his eldest daughter Mary. In 1817 she married a Wigtonshire landowner J.A. Stewart. Joseph Mitchell of the Highlands Roads and Bridges Commission believed that ‘no two people were more anxious for the welfare of their tenants’, but heard some complain of their ‘folly and unkindness’. In Wester Ross they owned three properties – Kintail, the original homeland of the family, and two purchased in the 1820s, Kernsary and Torridon. Seeking to follow the approach of Eric Richards, this article will assess how far their policies reflected Mitchell’s comments in the period to 1837 (when they left for Ceylon for Stewart to become governor). This will be placed in the context of the economic and financial problems they faced. It will be argued that they adopted differentiated policies for the three properties, the reasons for which and the results will be analysed. It will be shown that differing forms of resistance were aroused. The article concludes that the Stewart Mackenzies were unable to find solutions for the problems they faced and made a muddled response, demonstrating a lack of business competence, but also of the degree of ruthlessness which would have been required to prosper in that environment.
{"title":"The Stewart Mackenzies and their Management of their Wester Ross Estates, 1817–1837","authors":"Finlay Mckichan","doi":"10.3366/nor.2023.0294","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2023.0294","url":null,"abstract":"Lord Seaforth’s heir as proprietor of his Ross-shire estates was his eldest daughter Mary. In 1817 she married a Wigtonshire landowner J.A. Stewart. Joseph Mitchell of the Highlands Roads and Bridges Commission believed that ‘no two people were more anxious for the welfare of their tenants’, but heard some complain of their ‘folly and unkindness’. In Wester Ross they owned three properties – Kintail, the original homeland of the family, and two purchased in the 1820s, Kernsary and Torridon. Seeking to follow the approach of Eric Richards, this article will assess how far their policies reflected Mitchell’s comments in the period to 1837 (when they left for Ceylon for Stewart to become governor). This will be placed in the context of the economic and financial problems they faced. It will be argued that they adopted differentiated policies for the three properties, the reasons for which and the results will be analysed. It will be shown that differing forms of resistance were aroused. The article concludes that the Stewart Mackenzies were unable to find solutions for the problems they faced and made a muddled response, demonstrating a lack of business competence, but also of the degree of ruthlessness which would have been required to prosper in that environment.","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":"19 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135614825","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores generic and specific aspects of Scottish emigration to Australia in the century and a half since 1830, beginning with the onset of free emigration and ending shortly after the termination of the £10 assisted passage programme. The overarching theme of continuity and change is harnessed to a number of sub-themes, including reasons for leaving and the process of adjustment to life in the Antipodes or back in Scotland. The motives, attitudes and experiences of individuals who settled or sojourned in Australia are scrutinized through the lens of personal testimony, both written and oral. In addressing broad issues of migration philosophy, process and practice over a long time-frame and in multiple locations the study deploys Eric Richards' methodology of evaluating the global through the local. While coverage relates to Scotland as a whole, tribute is paid to Eric's other influential area of scholarship by incorporating the experiences of a number of Highland emigrants into the analysis.
{"title":"Epistolary Exploits and Audible Adventures: Using Personal Testimony to Plot Patterns and Policies in Scottish-Australian Migration","authors":"Marjory Harper","doi":"10.3366/nor.2023.0295","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2023.0295","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores generic and specific aspects of Scottish emigration to Australia in the century and a half since 1830, beginning with the onset of free emigration and ending shortly after the termination of the £10 assisted passage programme. The overarching theme of continuity and change is harnessed to a number of sub-themes, including reasons for leaving and the process of adjustment to life in the Antipodes or back in Scotland. The motives, attitudes and experiences of individuals who settled or sojourned in Australia are scrutinized through the lens of personal testimony, both written and oral. In addressing broad issues of migration philosophy, process and practice over a long time-frame and in multiple locations the study deploys Eric Richards' methodology of evaluating the global through the local. While coverage relates to Scotland as a whole, tribute is paid to Eric's other influential area of scholarship by incorporating the experiences of a number of Highland emigrants into the analysis.","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135614826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article focuses on the introduction of crofting tenure in the Annexed Estates (1752–1784). In 1763, the Board of Commissioners in charge of managing the estates on behalf of the British Crown launched its most ambitious ‘improvement’ scheme. Parcels of three acres, usually detached from principal farms, were turned into new settlements for disbanded soldiers and sailors from the Seven Years War. The scheme, this article argues, was one of the earliest crofting schemes ever implemented in the Scottish Highlands. The plan hoped to put the Highlands' natural and human resources to the service of the state by ensuring that the Crown could tap into a future recruiting pool and that the Board would benefit from a cheap workforce to reclaim unproductive grounds and develop the linen manufacture in the estates. The settlements were also a way to solve ‘improvement’s contradictions via spatial planning by preventing depopulation caused by the creation of contiguous farmsteads. The failure of the experiment ultimately highlighted the entrenched contractions of ‘improvement’ ideology and led to the emergence of an alternative geography of ‘improvement’ by the turn of the century.
{"title":"‘Most useful labor in time of peace’: Early Crofting Schemes in the Annexed Estates, 1763–1784","authors":"Juliette Desportes","doi":"10.3366/nor.2023.0293","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2023.0293","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on the introduction of crofting tenure in the Annexed Estates (1752–1784). In 1763, the Board of Commissioners in charge of managing the estates on behalf of the British Crown launched its most ambitious ‘improvement’ scheme. Parcels of three acres, usually detached from principal farms, were turned into new settlements for disbanded soldiers and sailors from the Seven Years War. The scheme, this article argues, was one of the earliest crofting schemes ever implemented in the Scottish Highlands. The plan hoped to put the Highlands' natural and human resources to the service of the state by ensuring that the Crown could tap into a future recruiting pool and that the Board would benefit from a cheap workforce to reclaim unproductive grounds and develop the linen manufacture in the estates. The settlements were also a way to solve ‘improvement’s contradictions via spatial planning by preventing depopulation caused by the creation of contiguous farmsteads. The failure of the experiment ultimately highlighted the entrenched contractions of ‘improvement’ ideology and led to the emergence of an alternative geography of ‘improvement’ by the turn of the century.","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":"18 4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135614827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Work and Legacy of Eric Richards","authors":"Annie Tindley","doi":"10.3366/nor.2023.0291","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2023.0291","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":"18 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135614828","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Building on Eric Richards’ ideas about Scottish Highlanders as an ‘imperial people’, this article is about how diasporic movement and connection created significant bonds between Easter Ross and New Zealand in the twentieth century and beyond. It focuses on a microstudy of the village of Fearn, famed as the birthplace of Peter Fraser, who was Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1940 to 1949. Peter Fraser returned to the Scottish Highlands many times during the 1930s and 1940s, and these visits reveal the diasporic links between different parts of empire and ask questions about our understanding of enduring imperial legacies and memories. I argue that Peter Fraser’s return visits to Fearn can be interpreted as a form of ‘homecoming’, which tell us much about Fraser himself and how his own sense of identity continued to be shaped by a connection to the place of his birth. However, this article focuses less on Fraser and more on the effect his return visits to Fearn had on the village and its communities. Fraser and Fearn become, then, a case study of the diasporic ties of belonging between Scotland and New Zealand and how a shared belief in empire, especially during World War Two, connected folk in the Highlands with diasporic Scots, such as Fraser, on the other side of the world. Peter Fraser’s return visits to Fearn nurtured this sense of imperial connection and the way in which Fraser’s Highland homecomings are remembered in the region demonstrate the ongoing legacies of empire that continue to shape Scotland to this day.
{"title":"Fraser in Fearn: Migration, Diaspora, and the Ghosts of Empire in the Return Visits of Peter Fraser (New Zealand Prime Minister) to the Highlands, 1935–1949","authors":"Jim MacPherson","doi":"10.3366/nor.2023.0296","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2023.0296","url":null,"abstract":"Building on Eric Richards’ ideas about Scottish Highlanders as an ‘imperial people’, this article is about how diasporic movement and connection created significant bonds between Easter Ross and New Zealand in the twentieth century and beyond. It focuses on a microstudy of the village of Fearn, famed as the birthplace of Peter Fraser, who was Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1940 to 1949. Peter Fraser returned to the Scottish Highlands many times during the 1930s and 1940s, and these visits reveal the diasporic links between different parts of empire and ask questions about our understanding of enduring imperial legacies and memories. I argue that Peter Fraser’s return visits to Fearn can be interpreted as a form of ‘homecoming’, which tell us much about Fraser himself and how his own sense of identity continued to be shaped by a connection to the place of his birth. However, this article focuses less on Fraser and more on the effect his return visits to Fearn had on the village and its communities. Fraser and Fearn become, then, a case study of the diasporic ties of belonging between Scotland and New Zealand and how a shared belief in empire, especially during World War Two, connected folk in the Highlands with diasporic Scots, such as Fraser, on the other side of the world. Peter Fraser’s return visits to Fearn nurtured this sense of imperial connection and the way in which Fraser’s Highland homecomings are remembered in the region demonstrate the ongoing legacies of empire that continue to shape Scotland to this day.","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135614829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Eric Richards: An Appreciation","authors":"John M. MacKenzie","doi":"10.3366/nor.2023.0292","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2023.0292","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":"17 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135614831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Women, Riots and the Pre-Industrial Economy","authors":"Eric Richards","doi":"10.3366/nor.2023.0297","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2023.0297","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":"17 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135614832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dundee poet and disabled hillwalker Sydney Scroggie is less well-known today than Nan Shepherd, Aberdeen’s spiritually and environmentally aware Scottish poet and mountaineer. Thanks both to Robert Macfarlane and Samantha Walton, there has been a recent revival in Shepherd studies, and this article, the first to consider Scroggie’s life and his writings, seeks to introduce Scroggie and his works to this conversation. While research into Shepherd has challenged traditional ideas of hillwalking as the sport of the lonely male mountaineer, Scroggie challenges any preconceived notions that hillwalking is an essentially abled activity. A nature writer, Scroggie’s writing presents an ecosystem of the senses where the physical and the metaphysical interact. By considering his environmental and metaphysical thought, this article presents Scroggie as a figure hitherto unfairly neglected by studies of both Scottish and British environmental thought, as well as Scottish literature. In similar ways to Shepherd and Frank Fraser Darling, Scroggie viewed humans and environment as intimately connected, and the Cairngorms as a landscape that should be respected and protected.
{"title":"Bog, Bothy, Zen: Introducing Sydney Scroggie's Environmental and Metaphysical Thought","authors":"Sarah Leith","doi":"10.3366/nor.2023.0283","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2023.0283","url":null,"abstract":"Dundee poet and disabled hillwalker Sydney Scroggie is less well-known today than Nan Shepherd, Aberdeen’s spiritually and environmentally aware Scottish poet and mountaineer. Thanks both to Robert Macfarlane and Samantha Walton, there has been a recent revival in Shepherd studies, and this article, the first to consider Scroggie’s life and his writings, seeks to introduce Scroggie and his works to this conversation. While research into Shepherd has challenged traditional ideas of hillwalking as the sport of the lonely male mountaineer, Scroggie challenges any preconceived notions that hillwalking is an essentially abled activity. A nature writer, Scroggie’s writing presents an ecosystem of the senses where the physical and the metaphysical interact. By considering his environmental and metaphysical thought, this article presents Scroggie as a figure hitherto unfairly neglected by studies of both Scottish and British environmental thought, as well as Scottish literature. In similar ways to Shepherd and Frank Fraser Darling, Scroggie viewed humans and environment as intimately connected, and the Cairngorms as a landscape that should be respected and protected.","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46467194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：