This article will attempt to look at the wider context of 1919 and its meaning in historical chronology. The 1919 Land Settlement Act was an uncontroversial intervention in this important year but was embedded in the deeper history of the Highland land question, rather than the immediate moment of 1919, which was dominated by other concerns. The article will suggest that viewing 1919 as an end point is misleading, in both the history of the land question and in a wider sense. The act settled large numbers of people on the land but it did not provide a settlement of the land question in Scotland. The article will draw on extensive evidence from the newspaper press in the north of Scotland in 1919 to look at the wider issues that confronted readers and, thereby, attempt to place the Land Settlement Act in its wider context.
{"title":"Freshness, Freedom, and Peace?: Land Settlement in Scotland after the Great War","authors":"E. Cameron","doi":"10.3366/nor.2020.0219","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2020.0219","url":null,"abstract":"This article will attempt to look at the wider context of 1919 and its meaning in historical chronology. The 1919 Land Settlement Act was an uncontroversial intervention in this important year but was embedded in the deeper history of the Highland land question, rather than the immediate moment of 1919, which was dominated by other concerns. The article will suggest that viewing 1919 as an end point is misleading, in both the history of the land question and in a wider sense. The act settled large numbers of people on the land but it did not provide a settlement of the land question in Scotland. The article will draw on extensive evidence from the newspaper press in the north of Scotland in 1919 to look at the wider issues that confronted readers and, thereby, attempt to place the Land Settlement Act in its wider context.","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":"11 1","pages":"161-175"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42802077","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}
Syre in Strathnaver was one of a small number of land purchase schemes undertaken by the Congested Districts Board set up by the Conservative government. Following a protracted negotiation with the Duke of Sutherland with interventions by the local crofters and the Sutherland County Council, 23 settlers took up holdings in 1901. They experienced difficulties not only in paying for the sheepstock but also in repaying the purchase money and loans advanced for buildings. In a changed political climate the settlers petitioned to be rent-paying tenants under the crofting legislation which was eventually granted in 1912. Syre was considered an expensive failure as a land-purchase scheme although agriculturally it was a success. A change in the way Syre was regarded by politicians came during the First World War.
{"title":"The Resettlement of Syre, Sutherland by the Congested Districts Board","authors":"Malcolm Bangor-Jones","doi":"10.3366/nor.2020.0216","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2020.0216","url":null,"abstract":"Syre in Strathnaver was one of a small number of land purchase schemes undertaken by the Congested Districts Board set up by the Conservative government. Following a protracted negotiation with the Duke of Sutherland with interventions by the local crofters and the Sutherland County Council, 23 settlers took up holdings in 1901. They experienced difficulties not only in paying for the sheepstock but also in repaying the purchase money and loans advanced for buildings. In a changed political climate the settlers petitioned to be rent-paying tenants under the crofting legislation which was eventually granted in 1912. Syre was considered an expensive failure as a land-purchase scheme although agriculturally it was a success. A change in the way Syre was regarded by politicians came during the First World War.","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":"11 1","pages":"100-122"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47667161","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":"Highland Agency and Land Settlement Schemes","authors":"M. Gibbard, I. Robertson","doi":"10.3366/nor.2020.0215","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2020.0215","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":"11 1","pages":"97-99"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48213854","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 compares the Small Holdings Colonies Acts (1916 and 1918) for demobilized WWI soldiers in Britain upon which the Land Settlement (Scotland) Act of 1919 was established; and similar small holdings colonies for demobilized soldiers in Canada with a particular focus on provisions for the state to engage in compulsory acquisition of land for this purpose. My research shows in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, colonies and compulsory acquisition of land under the 1919 Act were part of a larger land reform movement (breaking up large estates) and represent progressive advances for traditional occupants – the crofters and tenant farmers – to have rights over their own lands. In Canada, on the other hand, domestic colonies for British soldiers served to displace indigenous peoples from their reserves already vastly diminished compared to traditional territories. The compulsory acquisition of land through surrenders from reserves compounded the problem. As such colonies in Canada had negative impacts on indigenous peoples as part of an ongoing settler colonization process. Thus I show that small holdings colonies particularly when combined with compulsory acquisition of land work in opposite directions normatively and materially in each country.
{"title":"Demobilised Soldiers, Small Holdings Colonies and the Compulsory Acquisition of Land after World War One: Scotland and Canada","authors":"B. Arneil","doi":"10.3366/nor.2020.0220","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2020.0220","url":null,"abstract":"This article compares the Small Holdings Colonies Acts (1916 and 1918) for demobilized WWI soldiers in Britain upon which the Land Settlement (Scotland) Act of 1919 was established; and similar small holdings colonies for demobilized soldiers in Canada with a particular focus on provisions for the state to engage in compulsory acquisition of land for this purpose. My research shows in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, colonies and compulsory acquisition of land under the 1919 Act were part of a larger land reform movement (breaking up large estates) and represent progressive advances for traditional occupants – the crofters and tenant farmers – to have rights over their own lands. In Canada, on the other hand, domestic colonies for British soldiers served to displace indigenous peoples from their reserves already vastly diminished compared to traditional territories. The compulsory acquisition of land through surrenders from reserves compounded the problem. As such colonies in Canada had negative impacts on indigenous peoples as part of an ongoing settler colonization process. Thus I show that small holdings colonies particularly when combined with compulsory acquisition of land work in opposite directions normatively and materially in each country.","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":"11 1","pages":"176-187"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42231306","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":"Trevor Royle, Facing the Bear: Scotland and the Cold War","authors":"S. Alberti","doi":"10.3366/nor.2020.0222","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2020.0222","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":"11 1","pages":"204-206"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42553570","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":"Ronald Lyndsay Crawford, The Chair of Verity: Political Preaching and Pulpit Censure in Eighteenth-century Scotland","authors":"Valerie Wallace","doi":"10.3366/nor.2020.0227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2020.0227","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":"11 1","pages":"216-218"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42564416","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":"Miles Kerr-Peterson, A Protestant Lord in James VI's Scotland: George Keith, Fifth Earl Marischal (1554–1623)","authors":"T. Brochard","doi":"10.3366/nor.2020.0223","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2020.0223","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44762911","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":"Malcolm M. Combe, Jayne Glass and Annie Tindley (eds), Land Reform in Scotland: History, Law and Policy","authors":"Ben L. Thomas","doi":"10.3366/nor.2020.0226","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2020.0226","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":"11 1","pages":"214-216"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41616972","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}
The focus of this paper is the memorial structure, An Sùileachan, at Uig on the Island of Lewis which was designed by Will Maclean and Marian Leven and built by stonemasons Ian Smith and James Crawford in 2013. The memorial, dedicated to the Land Raiders of Reef, is the fourth in a series of memorial sculptures to commemorate the struggles of the people against landlord control in different communities on the Island of Lewis. The title for this paper ‘Mutations from Below’ is used by Michel Foucault in his radical re-interpretation of classification systems, The Order of Things. Much of Foucault's writing is concerned with power relations, the way that power is exercised over people's freedom. The democratic thrust of Foucault's writings is paralleled in the determination of the artists, Maclean and Leven, to give a voice to the unrepresented voices of the people of Reef at the time of the Land Raid in 1913 and more generally to the voices of the people in their opposition to their treatment at the hands of landowners and their factors during the Clearances. In successive stages of the essay, the insights of different cultural theorists – Martin Heidegger, Gianni Vattimo, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Jacques Rancière – help to ground the argument in philosophical exegesis. Finally, the paper seeks to determine the nature and extent of the connection between the political and the aesthetic within the memorial sculptural form as exemplified at An Sùileachan.
{"title":"‘Mutations from Below’: The Land Raiders of Reef and An Sùileachan (2013) by Will Maclean and Marian Leven","authors":"Lindsay Blair","doi":"10.3366/nor.2020.0218","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/nor.2020.0218","url":null,"abstract":"The focus of this paper is the memorial structure, An Sùileachan, at Uig on the Island of Lewis which was designed by Will Maclean and Marian Leven and built by stonemasons Ian Smith and James Crawford in 2013. The memorial, dedicated to the Land Raiders of Reef, is the fourth in a series of memorial sculptures to commemorate the struggles of the people against landlord control in different communities on the Island of Lewis. The title for this paper ‘Mutations from Below’ is used by Michel Foucault in his radical re-interpretation of classification systems, The Order of Things. Much of Foucault's writing is concerned with power relations, the way that power is exercised over people's freedom. The democratic thrust of Foucault's writings is paralleled in the determination of the artists, Maclean and Leven, to give a voice to the unrepresented voices of the people of Reef at the time of the Land Raid in 1913 and more generally to the voices of the people in their opposition to their treatment at the hands of landowners and their factors during the Clearances. In successive stages of the essay, the insights of different cultural theorists – Martin Heidegger, Gianni Vattimo, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Jacques Rancière – help to ground the argument in philosophical exegesis. Finally, the paper seeks to determine the nature and extent of the connection between the political and the aesthetic within the memorial sculptural form as exemplified at An Sùileachan.","PeriodicalId":40928,"journal":{"name":"Northern Scotland","volume":"11 1","pages":"139-160"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45786030","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}