A pamphlet sent to crofters, 1856

Karen Buchanan, the curator of Gairloch Museum, shares a document from the time of the Highland Clearances

John was an agricultural reformer and set up a model farm on an island

A southsouth-east view of the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Richmond,c1840

During the mid19th century, the people of the Highlands and Hebrides suffered from famine and rounds of clearances.

On the Gairloch Estate, however, local landlord Dr John Mackenzie worked to implement agricultural reforms for the benefit of his tenants. Gairloch Museum holds a copy of a pamphlet that Dr John sent to his tenants and reveals more about his changes, as curator Karen Buchanan explains.

Can You Describe The Pamphlet?

This small pamphlet is a parting message from an estate factor to his tenants, with whom he has had a somewhat difficult relationship over the past 15 years. Dr John Mackenzie was a member of the Mackenzie of Gairloch family; his father was the 4th Baronet Sir Hector Mackenzie. John took on the role of trustee and factor of the Gairloch Estate following the untimely death of his brother Francis in 1843. For the following 13 years, he worked hard to introduce agricultural reform, which improved both the land and the lot of his tenants.

When his nephew came of age in 1856 John handed over the reins. He also wrote this ‘letter’ to his tenants outlining how much better off they were than before he had taken over the running of the estate. The pamphlet is only four sides long, but its length is doubled because it is written bilingually in English and Gaelic. At the time many of the tenants on the Gairloch Estate would have had little or no English.

John was an agricultural reformer and set up a model farm on an island in Loch Ewe. He encouraged his tenants to adopt new farming practices, such as rotating their crops and growing turnips to feed animals in the winter, but they were suspicious of change and his efforts drew mixed reviews at home and abroad.

Why Did You Choose It As Your Gem?

Although the pamphlet is unassuming in appearance, it documents dramatic changes that occurred on a remote estate in the north-west Highlands during a period of socioeconomic turbulence.

Its language also conveys the relationship between the Mackenzie of Gairloch landlords and their tenants. The tone is one of benign paternalism and exasperation with the reluctance of the tenantry to appreciate their good fortune and move with the times. Not only do the crofters have a comfortable home, an abundance of fuel (peat) and food for most of the year from the land and the sea, they also have free education and a preached gospel at their landlord’s grace, as John emphasises.

On other estates at the time, landowners were removing families from their land to create sheep farms in what became known at the Highland Clearances. However, the Mackenzies of Gairloch believed that both landlords and tenants could benefit from agricultural reform without emigration or eviction. Before 1846, areas of agricultural land on the estate were held by groups of tenants who took turns

to farm different sections using the runrig system. In the 1840s, the Mackenzies of Gairloch began reorganising their estate. John was instrumental in creating new crofting townships, and making more land available for growing crops and grazing animals. Tenants were given an individual croft of between two and five acres, just large enough to support a family.

In his pamphlet, John contrasts the management of the estate with that of others in the Highlands, impressing on his tenants their good fortune that their landlord is sufficiently interested in the land to act as his own factor. John also encourages the crofters to be industrious and count their blessings, so that their new, young landlord – his nephew Francis – will find his “natural and happy home among his Gairloch tenantry”.

John’s determination that the land could support the people and his attempt to persuade them to improve their treatment of it are a welcome antidote to the story of the Highland Clearances. He demonstrates his pride in the progress that has been made over the past 15 years. For the first time, Gairloch was accessible by roads, financed by the Gairloch Estate in conjunction with the destitution-relief boards. A pound of meal for a day’s work kept families whose potato crop had failed from starving. At the same time, women were trained to improve their spinning and knitting skills. A lucrative home industry emerged that provided additional financial support for the tenants, with stockings sold as far afield as Edinburgh and London.

What Other Documents Are In Your Collection?

Rental records of estates such as Gairloch, Letterewe and Gruinard provide a family history resource for a sizeable diaspora throughout the UK and in North America, Australia and New Zealand. Other records reflect rural and coastal industries such as crofting and fishing, as well as textiles including the famous Gairloch Pattern knitting. Personal papers include those of local teacher Kay Matheson, one of four Scottish students who liberated the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1950.

We have also created a database with details of local people who served in the First World War: gairlochmuseum. org/ww1database.