William Thomson's 'The Little General and the Rousay Crofters' 1981

 

John Donald Publishers first edition - 1981

Reading and blogging on John Prebble's The Highland Clearances, brought vividly to mind a holiday when we stayed on the Orkney island of Rousay in the 1980s. In fact, we were so attracted to Orkney that we returned three more times, once to stay in the remote North Ronaldsay. On the two occasions Rousay was our base, we bed and breakfasted at the Old Manse at Sourin. Close by was the bird-infested and virtually derelict Free Church. 

The Free Church and Manse at Sourin

We learned that this had been the centre of nineteenth century crofters' opposition to the laird Frederick William Traill-Burroughs, whose island home was Trumland House (built 1873-6). To visit it we had to trespass - it was up for sale, a forlorn, deserted reminder of what had been. Burroughs had the reputation of being the worst of the Orkney lairds and change was particularly traumatic with crofters and cottars the victims of ruthless 'improvement', during the transition from a peasant economy to a more modern system of farming. When a Royal Commission visited Rousay to enquire into the situation there, its findings (added to information from other areas) led to the Crofters Act.

Frederick William Traill-Burroughs

The Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act of 1886 created legal definitions of crofting parish and crofter, granted security of land tenure to crofters and produced the first Crofters Commission, a land court which ruled on disputes between landlords and crofters. By granting the crofters security of tenure, the Act put an end to the Highland Clearances. Burroughs arrived at Rousay in July 1870 with his bride. He had already been laird for 23 years but he was almost unknown to the islanders since he had spent his time in the army. His tenants were soon to know him, nearly always in a negative way.

Whilst on Rousay, I purchased (one of the very last copies the author told me) of The Little General and the Rousay Crofters: Crisis and Conflict on an Orkney Estate (1981) by William P.L. Thomson, (1933-2016) Rector of Kirkwall Grammar School (1971-1991). Because it concentrated on a small island, on one major laird and his factors and on a small, if vociferous crofter opposition, it was more understandable than the wider canvas of John Prebble's book on the Clearances. Particularly memorable was the story of the Quandale and Westness Clearances. There a small group of crofters lived on more or less equality not overshadowed by the presence of big farms. The whole community was forcibly removed to make way for sheep. The House of Tafts stood at the centre of Quandale.

The remains of Tafts

This time it was not Burroughs, but his uncle George William Traill, who was responsible in the 1840s for the Quandale Clearance. Tafts was one of the earliest two-storied houses in Orkney. Increasingly engrossed in Thomson's book, I persuaded my wife to go over to Quandale to have a look at what might remain. There was no sign of human life - I can't recall if there were even any sheep! Tafts was a pitiful jumble of stones in a vast uninhabited landscape. It really brought home to us what 'Clearance' meant. The rest of the book was taken up with long, drawn-out disputes between Burroughs and his tenants. Just as there was a 'villain', there was a 'hero'. James Leonard (1835-1913) was a stonemason, weaver, Free Church precentor, Temperance lecturer and evicted crofter. He was also Burroughs' implacable opponent. He lived not far from the Sourin Manse and had worshipped in the nearby Free Church. Whilst it was hard to keep up with the various names in Prebble's vast canvas, Thomson's account, by its very nature, was more specific and, thus, 'human'.

I wrote to the author and had a charming reply, dated 3 October 1989. He said it was a model research 'package' - estate accounts, personal letters, memoirs, newspaper cuttings, and a really good story line. Well, I think he produced an excellent, well-researched story line himself. Just two years before this correspondence, in 1987, he published a full-length History of Orkney (The Mercat Press, Edinburgh). It was equally well researched and written. When he died in July 2016, he was rightly feted with the initials OBE; MA; M.Univ; Dip.Ed.; and FSA Scot.