Weak slavery link to Barrie’s weaver father

Sir, – I was interested to read that the National Trust for Scotland has been awarded £3.8 million from the Scottish Government to help them recover from the impact of Covid 19.

It is beyond belief however that J.M Barrie’s cottage in Kirriemuir is on a list the NTS has compiled of 18 properties it claims have a link to slavery.

The National Trust for Scotland website comments on the list as follows, “JM Barrie’s birthplace, Kirriemuir: Barrie’s father’s worked in the cloth weaving trade, which was linked to slavery”.

David Barrie was indeed a handloom weaver in the 1860s when J M Barrie was growing up.

Mechanisation had already largely replaced handloom weaving and dominated the jute trade. Handloom weaving continued for fine linen.

There is no doubt that jute cloth – burlap as the Americans call it – did feature as cheap clothing for the plantation fields hands.

However it was the gold rushes in the USA, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand that were the drivers of the Tayside textile trade. Add to this the huge amount of warfare in the 19th Century, the Royal Navy sailcloth demands and the worldwide railway booms and the proportion of cloth used in slave owning states is minimal. We also have to consider motive.

Did the Tayside jute and flax producers supply the markets in the USA with the express intention of prolonging slavery?

Did the slave owners use burlap to clothe their ill-fated workforce? Yes. Did David Barrie use some Industrial Revolution FedEx to spirit quality handloom woven linen directly to the southern states of the USA? No.

While it is commendable that the NTS is looking at the history of its properties, can I suggest that they adopt a more proportionate approach to it.

Reading the Little Minister by J M Barrie about the weaver riots in Kirriemuir might help the NTS realise what conditions were actually like for weavers and spinners in Scotland in the 1800s before it seeks to tarnish a noble occupation.

Ron J Scrimgeour. Past Deacon, Weaver Incorporation of Dundee.