This small property, in the Parish of Lochbroom, changed hands in 1879,
Mr. A. C. Pirie, paper manufacturer, Aberdeen, having purchased it for
£19,000 from Colonel Davidson, now of Tulloch. No sooner did it come
into Mr. Pirie’s possession than a notice, dated 2nd November, 1879, in
the following terms, was issued to all the tenants:--
“I am instructed by Mr. Pirie, proprietor of Leckmelm, to give you
notice that the present arrangements by which you hold the cottage,
byre, and other buildings, together with lands on that estate, will
cease from and after the term of Martinmas, 1880; and further, I am
instructed to intimate to you that at the said term of Martinmas, 1880,
Mr. Pirie purposes taking the whole arable and pasture lands, but that
he is desirous of making arrangements whereby you may continue tenant
of the cottage upon terms and conditions yet to be settled upon. I
have further to inform you that unless you and the other tenants at
once prevent your sheep and other stock from grazing or trespassing
upon the enclosures and hill, and other lands now in the occupation or
possession of the said Mr. Pirie, he will not, upon any conditions,
permit you to remain in the cottage you now occupy, after the said term
of Martinmas, 1880, but will clear all off the estate, and take down
the cottages.”
This notice affected twenty-three families, numbering above one hundred
souls. Sixteen tenants paid between them a rent of £96 10s.--ranging
from £3 to £12 each per annum. The stock allowed them was 72 head of
cattle, 8 horses, and 320 sheep. The arable portion of Leckmelm was
about the best tilled and the most productive land in possession of
any crofters in the parish. It could all be worked with the plough,
now a very uncommon thing in the Highlands; for almost invariably land
of that class is in the hands of the proprietors themselves, when not
let to sheep farmers or sportsmen. The intention of the new proprietor
was strictly carried out. At Martinmas, 1880, he took every inch of
land--arable and pastoral--into his own hands, and thus by one cruel
stroke, reduced a comfortable tenantry from comparative affluence
and independence to the position of mere cottars and day labourers,
absolutely dependent for subsistence on his own will and the likes or
dislikes of his subordinates, who may perhaps, for a short time, be in
a position to supply the remnant that will remain, in their altered
circumstances, with such common labour as trenching, draining, fencing,
carrying stones, lime and mortar, for the laird’s mansion-house and
outhouses. With the exception of one, all the tenants who remained
are still permitted to live in their old cottages, but they are not
permitted to keep a living thing about them--not even a hen. They are
existing in a state of abject dependence on Mr. Pirie’s will and that
of his servants; and in a constant state of terror that next they
will even be turned out of their cottages. As regards work and the
necessaries of life, they have been reduced to that of common navvies.
In place of milk, butter, and cheese in fair abundance, they have now
to be satisfied with sugar, treacle, or whatever else they can buy, to
their porridge and potatoes, and their supply of meat, grown and fed
hitherto by themselves, is gone for ever. Two, a man and his wife, if
not more, have since been provided for by the Parochial authorities,
and, no doubt, that will ultimately be the fate of many more of this
once thriving and contented people.
An agitation against Mr. Pirie’s conduct was raised at the time, and
the advantage which he had taken of his position was universally
condemned by the press (excepting the _Scotsman_, of course), and by
the general public voice of the country; but conscious of his strength,
and that the law, made by the landlords in their own interest, was
on his side, he relentlessly and persistently carried out his cruel
purpose to the bitter end, and evicted from their lands and hill
grazings every soul upon his property; but in the meantime allowed
them to remain in their cottages, with the exception of Donald Munro,
to whose case reference will be made hereafter, and two other persons
whose houses were pulled down and themselves evicted.
When the notices of removal were received, the Rev. John MacMillan,
Free Church minister of the parish, called public attention to Mr.
Pirie’s proceedings in the Northern newspapers, and soon the eye of
the whole country was directed to this modern evictor--a man, in
other respects, reputed considerate and even kind to those under him
in his business of paper manufacturing in Aberdeen. People, in their
simplicity, for years back, thought that evictions on such a large
scale, in the face of a more enlightened public opinion, had become
mere unpleasant recollections of a barbarous past; forgetting that
the same laws which permitted the clearances of Sutherland and other
portions of the Scottish Highlands during the first half of the present
century were still in force, ready to be applied by any tyrant who had
the courage, for personal ends, to outrage the more advanced and humane
public opinion of the present generation.
The noble conduct of the Rev. Mr. MacMillan, in connection with those
evictions, deserves commemoration in a work in which the name of his
prototype in Sutherland, the Rev. Mr. Sage, shows to such advantage
during the infamous clearances in that county, already described
at length. At the urgent request of many friends of the Highland
crofters, resident in Inverness, Mr. MacMillan agreed to lay the case
of his evicted parishioners before the public. Early in December,
1880, he delivered an address in Inverness to one of the largest and
most enthusiastic meetings which has ever been held in that town, and
we cannot do better here than quote at considerable length from his
instructive, eloquent, and rousing appeal on that occasion. Though
his remarks do not seem to have influenced Mr. Pirie’s conduct, or to
have benefited his unfortunate subjects, the Inverness meeting was the
real beginning in earnest of the subsequent movement throughout the
Highlands in favour of Land Reform, and the curtailment of landlord
power over their unfortunate tenants. Mr. Pirie can thus claim to have
done our poorer countrymen no small amount of good, though probably,
quite contrary to his intentions, by his cruel and high-handed conduct
in dealing with the ancient tenants of Leckmelm. He has set the heather
on fire, and it is likely to continue burning until such proceedings
as those for which he is responsible at Leckmelm will be finally made
impossible in Scotland. Mr. MacMillan after informing his audience that
Mr. Pirie “is now in a fair way of reaching a notoriety which he little
dreamt of when he became owner of the Leckmelm estate,” proceeds to
tell how the harsh proceedings were gone about, and says:--
“As the public are aware, Mr. Pirie’s first step after becoming owner
of the estate, was to inform the tenantry, by the hands of Mr. Manners,
C.E., Inverness, that at Martinmas following they were to deliver
their arable land and stock, consisting of sheep and cattle, into
his hands, but that some of them, on conditions yet to be revealed,
and on showing entire submission to the new _régime_ of things, and,
withal, a good certificate of character from his factotum, William
Gould, might remain in their cottages to act as serfs or slaves on
his farm. On this conditional promise they were to live in the best
of hope, for the future and all at the mercy of the absolute master
of the situation, with a _summum jus_ at his back to enable him to
effect all the purposes of his heart. As a prologue to the drama which
was to follow, and to give a sample of what they might expect in the
sequel, two acts were presented, or properly speaking, one act in two
parts. These were to prepare them for what was to come, reminding us of
what we read somewhere in our youth, of a husband who on marrying his
fair spouse wished to teach her prompt obedience to all his commands,
whatever their character. His first lesson in this direction was one
assuredly calculated to strike terror into her tender breast. It was
the shooting on the spot of the horse which drew his carriage or
conveyance, on showing some slight restiveness. The second lesson was
of a similar nature; we can easily imagine that his object was gained.
Then, after coming home, he commanded his spouse to untie his boots and
shoes, and take them off, and to engage in the most servile acts. Of
course prompt obedience was given to all these commands and his end was
gained. His wife was obedient to him to the last degree. Of the wisdom
and propriety of such a procedure in a husband towards his lawful wife,
I shall not here and now wait to enquire, but one thing is plain to us
all; there was a species of earthly and carnal wisdom in it which was
entirely overshadowed by its cruelty.
“Now this illustrates exactly how Mr. Pirie acted towards the people
of Leckmelm. To strike terror into their hearts, first of all, two
houses were pulled down, I might say about the ears of their respective
occupants, without any warning whatever, except a verbal one of the
shortest kind. The first was a deaf pauper woman, about middle life,
living alone for years in a bothy of her own, altogether apart from the
other houses, beside a purling stream, where she had at all seasons
pure water to drink if her bread was at times somewhat scanty. After
this most cruel eviction no provision was made for the helpless woman,
but she was allowed to get shelter elsewhere or anywhere, as best
she could. If any of you ever go the way of Leckmelm you can see
a gamekeeper’s house, the gentry of our land, close to the side of
Iseabal Bheag’s bothy, and a dog kennel quite in its neighbourhood, or
as I said in one of my letters, adorning it. This then is act the first
of this drama. Act second comes next. Mrs. Campbell was a widow with
two children; after the decease of her husband she tried to support
herself and them by serving in gentlemen’s families as a servant.
Whether she was all the time in Tulloch’s family I cannot say, but,
at all events, it was from that family she returned to Leckmelm, in
failing health, and on getting rather heavy for active service. Of
course her father had died since she had left, and the house in which
he lived and died, and in which in all likelihood he had reared his
family, and in which he was born and bred, was now tenantless. It was
empty, the land attached to it being in the hands of another person.
Here Widow Campbell turned aside for a while until something else
would in kind Providence turn up. But, behold, during her sojourn from
her native township, another king arose, who knew not Joseph, and the
inexorable edict had gone forth to raze her habitation to the ground.
Her house also was pulled down about her ears. This woman has since
gone to America, the asylum of many an evicted family from hearth
and home. Such tragedies as I have mentioned roused some of us to
remonstrate with the actors engaged in them, and to the best of our
ability to expose their conduct, and, furthermore, we have brought
them to the bar of public judgment to pass their verdict, which I hope
before all is over, will be one of condemnation and condign punishment.”
Having referred at some length to the worst classes of evictions
throughout the Highlands in the past, and already described in this
work, the reverend lecturer proceeded:--
“But there is another way, a more gentle, politic, and insinuating
way at work which depopulates our country quite as effectually as the
wholesale clearances of which we have been speaking and against which
we protest, and to which we must draw your attention for a little.
There are many proprietors who get the name of being good and kind
to their tenants, and who cannot be charged with evicting any of
them save for misbehaviour--a deserving cause at all times--who are
nevertheless inch by inch secretly and stealthily laying waste the
country and undermining the well-being of our people. I have some
of these gentlemen before my mind at this moment. When they took
possession of their estates all promised fair and well, but by-and-bye
the fatal blow was struck, to dispossess the people of their sheep.
Mark that _first move_ and resist it to the utmost. As long as tenants
have a hold of the hill pasture by sheep, and especially if it be what
we term a commonage or club farm, it is impossible to lay it waste in
part. But once you snap this tie asunder, you are henceforth at the
mercy of the owner to do with you as he pleases. This then is how the
business is transacted, and in the most business-like fashion too. To
be sure none are to be forcibly evicted from their holdings: that would
be highly impolitic, because it would bring public condemnation on
the sacred heads of the evictors, which some of them could in no way
confront, for they have a character and a name to sustain, and also
because they are more susceptible to the failings common to humanity.
They are moving, too, in the choicest circles of society. It would not
do that their names should be figuring in every newspaper in the land,
as cruel and oppressive landlords, or that the Rev. this and the Rev.
that should excommunicate them from society and stigmatise them as
tyrants and despots. But all are not so sensitive as this of name and
character, as we see abundantly demonstrated, because they have none
to lose. You might expose them upon a gibbet before the gaze of an
assembled universe and they would hardly blush, “they are harder than
the nether mill-stone.” But the more sensitive do their work, all the
same, after all, and it is done in this fashion. When a tenant dies,
or removes otherwise, the order goes forth that his croft or lot is
to be laid waste. It is not given to a neighbouring tenant, except in
some instances, nor to a stranger, to occupy it. In this inch-by-inch
clearance, the work of depopulation is effected in a few years, or
in a generation at most, quite as effectually as by the more glaring
and reprehensible method. This more secret and insinuating way of
depopulating our native land should be as stoutly resisted as the more
open and defiant one, the result it produces being the same.”
Describing the character of the Highlanders, as shown by their conduct
in our Highland regiments, and the impossibility of recruiting from
them in future, if harsh evictions are not stopped, the reverend
gentlemen continued:--
“Let me give you words more eloquent than mine on this point, which
will show the infatuation of our Government in allowing her bravest
soldiers to be driven to foreign lands and to be crushed and oppressed
by the tyrant’s rod. After having asked, What have these people done
against the State, when they were so remorselessly driven from their
native shores, year by year in batches of thousands? What class
have they wronged that they should suffer a penalty so dreadful?
this writer[14] gives the answer:--‘They have done no wrong. Yearly
they have sent forth their thousands from their glens to follow the
battle flag of Britain wherever it flew. It was a Highland _rearlorn_
hope that followed the broken wreck of Cumberland’s army after the
disastrous day at Fontenoy, when more British soldiers lay dead upon
the field than fell at Waterloo itself. It was another Highland
regiment that scaled the rock-face over the St. Lawrence, and first
formed a line in the September dawn on the level sward of Abraham. It
was a Highland line that broke the power of the Maharatta hordes and
gave Wellington his maiden victory at Assaye. Thirty-four battalions
marched from these glens to fight in America, Germany, and India ere
the 18th century had run its course; and yet, while abroad over the
earth, Highlanders were the first in assault and the last in retreat,
their lowly homes in far away glens were being dragged down, and the
wail of women and the cry of children went out on the same breeze that
bore too upon its wings the scent of heather, the freshness of gorse
blossom, and the myriad sweets that made the lowly life of Scotland’s
peasantry blest with health and happiness. These are crimes done in
the dark hours of strife, and amid the blaze of man’s passions, that
sometimes make the blood run cold as we read them; but they are not
so terrible in their red-handed vengeance as the cold malignity of a
civilized law, which permits a brave and noble race to disappear by the
operation of its legalised injustice. To convert the Highland glens
into vast wastes untenanted by human beings; to drive forth to distant
and inhospitable shores men whose forefathers had held their own among
these hills, despite Roman legion, Saxon archer, or Norman chivalry,
men whose sons died freely for England’s honour through those wide
dominions their bravery had won for her. Such was the work of laws
formed in a cruel mockery of name by the Commons of England. Thus it
was, that about the year 1808 the stream of Highland soldiery, which
had been gradually ebbing, gave symptoms of running completely dry.
Recruits for Highland regiments could not be obtained for the simple
reason that the Highlands had been depopulated. Six regiments which
from the date of their foundation had worn the kilt and bonnet were
ordered to lay aside their distinctive uniform and henceforth became
merged into the ordinary line corps. From the mainland the work of
destruction passed rapidly to the isles. These remote resting-places
of the Celt were quickly cleared, during the first ten years of the
great war, Skye had given 4000 of its sons to the army. It has been
computed that 1600 Skyemen stood in the ranks at Waterloo. To-day in
Skye, far as the eye can reach, nothing but a bare brown waste is to be
seen, where still the mounds and ruined gables rise over the melancholy
landscapes, sole vestiges of a soldier race for ever passed away.’”
[14] Major W. S. Butler in _MacMillan’s Magazine_ for May, 1878.
In January, 1882, news had reached Inverness that Murdo Munro, one
of the most comfortable tenants on the Leckmelm property, had been
turned out, with his wife and young family, in the snow; whereupon
the writer started to enquire into the facts, and spent a whole day
among the people. What he had seen proved to be as bad as any of the
evictions of the past, except that it applied in this instance only to
one family. Murdo Munro was too independent for the local managers,
and to some extent led the people in their opposition to Mr. Pirie’s
proceedings: he was first persecuted and afterwards evicted in the most
cruel fashion. Other reasons were afterwards given for the manner in
which this poor man and his family were treated, but it has been shown
conclusively, in a report published at the time, that these reasons
were an after-thought.[15] From this report we shall quote a few
extracts:--
[15] See pamphlet published at the time entitled _Report on the
Leckmelm Evictions, by Alexander Mackenzie, F.S.A., Scot., Editor of
the “Celtic Magazine,” and Dean of Guild of Inverness_.
“So long as the laws of the land permit men like Mr. Pirie to drive
from the soil, without compensation, the men who, by their labour and
money, made their properties what they are, it must be admitted that
he is acting within his legal rights, however much we may deplore the
manner in which he has chosen to exercise them. We have to deal more
with the system which allows him to act thus, than with the special
reasons which he considers sufficient to justify his proceedings; and
if his conduct in Leckmelm will, as I trust it may, hasten on a change
in our land legislation, the hardships endured by the luckless people
who had the misfortune to come under his unfeeling yoke and his ideas
of moral right and wrong, will be more than counterbalanced by the
benefits which will ultimately accrue to the people at large. This is
why I, and I believe the public, take such an interest in this question
of the evictions at Leckmelm.
“I have made the most careful and complete inquiry possible among Mr.
Pirie’s servants, the tenants, and the people of Ullapool. Mr. Pirie’s
local manager, after I had informed him of my object, and put him on
his guard as to the use which I might make of his answers, informed
me that he never had any fault to find with Munro, that he always
found him quite civil, and that he had nothing to say against him.
The tenants, without exception, spoke of him as a good neighbour. The
people of Ullapool, without exception, so far as I could discover,
after enquiries from the leading men in every section of the community,
speak well of him, and condemn Mr. Pirie. Munro is universally spoken
of as one of the best and most industrious workmen in the whole parish,
and, by his industry and sobriety, he has been able to save a little
money in Leckmelm, where he was able to keep a fairly good stock on
his small farm, and worked steadily with a horse and cart. The stock
handed over by him to Mr. Pirie consisted of 1 bull, 2 cows, 1 stirk,
1 Highland pony, and about 40 sheep, which represented a considerable
saving. Several of the other tenants had a similar stock, and some of
them had even more, all of which they had to dispense with under the
new arrangements, and consequently lost the annual income in money and
produce available therefrom. We all know that the sum received for
this stock cannot last long, and cannot be advantageously invested in
anything else. The people must now live on their small capital, instead
of what it produced, so long as it lasts, after which they are sure to
be helpless, and many of them become chargeable to the parish.
“The system of petty tyranny which prevails at Leckmelm is scarcely
credible. Contractors have been told not to employ Munro. For this
I have the authority of some of the contractors themselves. Local
employers of labour were requested not to employ any longer people
who had gone to look on among the crowd, while Munro’s family, goods,
and furniture, were being turned out. Letters were received by others
complaining of the same thing from higher quarters, and threatening
ulterior consequences. Of all this I have the most complete evidence,
but in the interests of those involved, I shall mention no names,
except in Court, where I challenge Mr. Pirie and his subordinates to
the proof if they deny it.
* * * * *
“The extract in the action of removal was signed only on the 24th of
January last in Dingwall. On the following day the charge is dated,
and two days after, on the 27th of January, the eviction is complete.
When I visited the scene on Friday morning, I found a substantially
built cottage, and a stable at the end of it, unroofed to within three
feet of the top on either side, and the whole surroundings a perfect
scene of desolation; the thatch, and part of the furniture, including
portions of broken bedsteads, tubs, basins, teapots, and various other
articles, strewn outside. The cross-beams, couples, and cabars were
still there, a portion of the latter brought from Mr. Pirie’s manager,
and paid for within the last three years. The Sheriff officers had
placed a padlock on the door, but I made my way to the inside of the
house through one of the windows from which the frame and glass had
been removed. I found that the house, before the partitions had been
removed, consisted of two good-sized rooms and a closet, with fireplace
and chimney in each gable, the crook still hanging in one of them, the
officer having apparently been unable to remove it after a considerable
amount of wrenching. The kitchen window, containing eight panes of
glass, was still whole, but the closet window, with four panes, had
been smashed; while the one in the “ben” end of the house had been
removed. The cottage, as crofters’ houses go, must have been fairly
comfortable. Indeed, the cottages in Leckmelm are altogether superior
to the usual run of crofters’ houses on the West Coast, and the tenants
are allowed to have been the most comfortable in all respects in the
parish, before the land was taken from them. They are certainly not
the poor, miserable creatures, badly housed, which Mr. Pirie and his
friends led the public to believe within the last two years.
“The barn in which the wife and infant had to remain all night had the
upper part of both gables blown out by the recent storm, and the door
was scarcely any protection from the weather. The potatoes, which had
been thrown out in showers of snow, were still there, gathered and a
little earth put over them by the friendly neighbours.
“The mother and children wept piteously during the eviction, and many
of the neighbours, afraid to succour or shelter them, were visibly
affected to tears; and the whole scene was such that, if Mr. Pirie
could have seen it, I feel sure that he would never consent to be held
responsible for another. His humanity would soon drive his stern ideas
of legal right out of his head, and we would hear no more of evictions
at Leckmelm.”
Those of the tenants who are still at Leckmelm are permitted to remain
in their cottages as half-yearly tenants on payment of 12s. per annum,
but liable to be removed at any moment that their absolute lord may
take it into his head to evict them; or, what is much more precarious,
when they may give the slightest offence to any of his meanest
subordinates.