![Emblem of the Highland Land League (1880s)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Emblem_of_the_Highland_Land_League_%281880s%29.svg)
The first Highland Land League ( gd, Dionnasg an Fhearainn) emerged as a distinct political force in
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
during the 1880s, with its power base in the country's
Highlands and Islands
The Highlands and Islands is an area of Scotland broadly covering the Scottish Highlands, plus Orkney, Shetland and Outer Hebrides (Western Isles).
The Highlands and Islands are sometimes defined as the area to which the Crofters' Act of 1886 ...
. It was known also as the Highland Land Law Reform Association and the Crofters' Party. It was consciously modelled on the
Irish Land League.
The Highland Land League was successful in getting
Members of Parliament (MPs) elected in 1885 (in the
1885 general election). As a parliamentary force, it was dissipated by the
Crofters' Act of 1886 and by the way the
Liberal Party was seen to adopt Land League objectives. The Land League also used
direct action
Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...
protest tactics and the use of these tactics was to reappear in the early 20th century. The protests included
rent strike
A rent strike is a method of protest commonly employed against large landlords. In a rent strike, a group of tenants come together and agree to refuse to pay their rent ''en masse'' until a specific list of demands is met by the landlord. This can ...
s and land occupations (which came to be known as land raids) by
crofters
A croft is a fenced or enclosed area of land, usually small and arable, and usually, but not always, with a crofter's dwelling thereon. A crofter is one who has tenure and use of the land, typically as a tenant farmer, especially in rural area ...
,
cottars
The Cottars are a Canadian Celtic musical group from Cape Breton Island formed in 2000. The group's current members are Ciarán MacGillivray, Fiona MacGillivray, Bruce Timmins, and Claire Pettit.
History
The Cottars were founded in late 2000 wh ...
and
squatter
Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...
s. Perhaps the Land League's best known slogan was ''Is treasa tuath na tighearna''. This
Gaelic
Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ca ...
saying or proverb is usually translated as ''The people are mightier than a lord''.
Background
By the 1880s the common people or
peasant
A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...
ry of the Highlands and Islands had been cleared from large areas of their ancestral lands, the clearances (known as the
Highland Clearances
The Highland Clearances ( gd, Fuadaichean nan Gàidheal , the "eviction of the Gaels") were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860.
The first phase resulte ...
) having occurred during the decades following the
Battle of Culloden
The Battle of Culloden (; gd, Blàr Chùil Lodair) was the final confrontation of the Jacobite rising of 1745. On 16 April 1746, the Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stuart was decisively defeated by a British government force under Prince Wi ...
in 1746. Many emigrated to Canada, the US, as well as Australia and other British colonies. Many who did not emigrate were crammed into crofting townships on very small areas of land where they were very vulnerable to abuse and exploitation by their
landlord
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, land, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant (also a ''lessee'' or ''renter''). When a juristic person is in this position, the ...
s. Many lacked even crofts of their own and became cottars and squatters on the crofts of other people. Landlords turned most of the land over to use as sheep farms and hunting parks called
deer
Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...
forests. In addition, in the 1880s, the Highlands and Islands were recently ravaged by the
potato famine of the mid 19th century. The 1880s were also a time, however, of growing
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
and of government which was increasingly responsive to public opinion, particularly after the
electoral reform Act of 1884
In the United Kingdom under the premiership of William Gladstone, the Representation of the People Act 1884 (48 & 49 Vict. c. 3, also known informally as the Third Reform Act) and the Redistribution Act of the following year were laws which ...
. As many crofters in the
Scottish Highlands
The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Sco ...
newly qualified as £10 occupiers, the Act empowered Scottish Gaels to form the
Crofters' Party
The Crofters' Party was the parliamentary arm of the Highland Land League
The first Highland Land League ( gd, Dionnasg an Fhearainn) emerged as a distinct political force in Scotland during the 1880s, with its power base in the country's Highl ...
and Highland Land League.
In the early 1880s, in terms of gaining sympathetic public opinion, crofters were protesting very effectively, with rent strikes and land raids, about their lack of secure tenure of land and their severely reduced access to land. The government responded in 1883 with a commission of enquiry headed by
Francis Napier, and the
Napier Commission
The Napier Commission, officially the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Condition of Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands was a royal commission and public inquiry into the condition of crofters and cottars in the Highlands and I ...
published recommendations in 1884. Napier's report fell a long way short of addressing crofters' demands, and it stimulated a new wave of protests.
The Crofters' Party
The earlier protests had been largely confined to
Skye
The Isle of Skye, or simply Skye (; gd, An t-Eilean Sgitheanach or ; sco, Isle o Skye), is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated b ...
. In 1884 protest action was much more widespread, many thousands of crofters became members of the Highland Land League and among
List of MPs elected in the 1885 United Kingdom general election there were Crofters' Party MPs elected by the
constituencies of
Argyllshire
Argyll (; archaically Argyle, in modern Gaelic, ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a historic county and registration county of western Scotland.
Argyll is of ancient origin, and corresponds to most of the part of the ancient kingdom of ...
(
Donald Horne Macfarlane),
Inverness-shire
Inverness-shire ( gd, Siorrachd Inbhir Nis) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Covering much of the Highlands and Outer Hebrides, it is Scotland's largest county, though one of the smallest in populatio ...
(
Charles Fraser-Mackintosh
Charles Fraser-Mackintosh ( gd, Teàrlach Friseal Mac An Tòisich; 1828 – 25 January 1901) was a Scottish lawyer, land developer, author, and independent Liberal and Crofters Party politician. He was a significant champion of the Scottish Gael ...
),
Ross and Cromarty
Ross and Cromarty ( gd, Ros agus Cromba), sometimes referred to as Ross-shire and Cromartyshire, is a variously defined area in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. There is a registration county and a lieutenancy area in current use, the latt ...
(
Roderick Macdonald) and
Caithness
Caithness ( gd, Gallaibh ; sco, Caitnes; non, Katanes) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland.
Caithness has a land boundary with the historic county of Sutherland to the west and is otherwise bounded by ...
(
Gavin Brown Clark
Dr Gavin Brown Clark (1846 – 5 July 1930) was the MP for Caithness from 1885 to 1900.
He was educated at the University of Glasgow, the University of Edinburgh and King's College London, graduating in medicine.
An active campaigner for social ...
). At
Wick Burghs
Wick Burghs, sometimes known as Northern Burghs, was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1832 to 1918. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post voting system.
A similar ...
John Macdonald Cameron
John Macdonald Cameron (8 April 1847 – 3 September 1912) was a Scottish chemist and Liberal Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1892.
Cameron was the only son of Lachlan Cameron of Saltburn Ross and his wife Christina M ...
was also allied with the Crofters Party. A year later Parliament created the Crofters Act.
The Act of 1886
The Act applied to croft tenure in an area which is now recognisable as a definition of the ''Highlands and Islands'': that of the ancient counties of
Argyll
Argyll (; archaically Argyle, in modern Gaelic, ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a historic county and registration county of western Scotland.
Argyll is of ancient origin, and corresponds to most of the part of the ancient kingdom of ...
,
Inverness-shire
Inverness-shire ( gd, Siorrachd Inbhir Nis) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Covering much of the Highlands and Outer Hebrides, it is Scotland's largest county, though one of the smallest in populatio ...
,
Ross and Cromarty
Ross and Cromarty ( gd, Ros agus Cromba), sometimes referred to as Ross-shire and Cromartyshire, is a variously defined area in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. There is a registration county and a lieutenancy area in current use, the latt ...
,
Sutherland
Sutherland ( gd, Cataibh) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in the Highlands of Scotland. Its county town is Dornoch. Sutherland borders Caithness and Moray Firth to the east, Ross-shire and Cromartyshire (later ...
,
Caithness
Caithness ( gd, Gallaibh ; sco, Caitnes; non, Katanes) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland.
Caithness has a land boundary with the historic county of Sutherland to the west and is otherwise bounded by ...
,
Orkney
Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...
and
Shetland
Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom.
The islands lie about to the no ...
. (The name is used now as a name for an electoral area of the
Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament ( gd, Pàrlamaid na h-Alba ; sco, Scots Pairlament) is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. Located in the Holyrood area of the capital city, Edinburgh, it is frequently referred to by the metonym Holyro ...
: please see
Highlands and Islands
The Highlands and Islands is an area of Scotland broadly covering the Scottish Highlands, plus Orkney, Shetland and Outer Hebrides (Western Isles).
The Highlands and Islands are sometimes defined as the area to which the Crofters' Act of 1886 ...
). The Act granted security of tenure of existing crofts and established the first
Crofters Commission
The Crofting Commission ( gd, Coimisean na Croitearachd) took the place of the Crofters Commission ( gd, Coimisean nan Croitearan) on 1 April 2012 as the statutory regulator for crofting in Scotland. Based in Inverness, it is an executive non-d ...
(The same name was given to a different body in 1955). The Crofters Commission had rent-fixing powers. Rents were generally reduced and 50% or more of outstanding arrears were cancelled. The Act failed however to address the issue of severely limited access to land, and crofters renewed their protest actions. At the same time there was a shift in the political climate:
William Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...
's Liberal government fell from power; the new
Conservative government was much less sympathetic to the plight of crofters and much more willing to use troops to quell protests. The Liberal Party appeared to adopt and champion Land League objectives and, as a distinct parliamentary force, the Land League fragmented during the 1890s. On the issue of access to land, therefore, little real progress was to be made until after the First World War.
Some resources were put into development of the communications infrastructure of the Highlands and Islands (roads, railways, and harbours) and, in the early years of the 20th century the
Congested Districts Board was able to push through the establishment of new crofting townships on Skye and in the
Strathnaver area of Sutherland. The Congested Districts Board was created in 1897 and can be seen as a precursor to the
Highlands and Islands Development Board
Highland is a broad term for areas of higher elevation, such as a mountain range or mountainous plateau.
Highland, Highlands, or The Highlands, may also refer to:
Places Albania
* Dukagjin Highlands
Armenia
* Armenian Highlands
Australia
*Sou ...
, which is known now as
Highland and Islands Enterprise (HIE).
A new Liberal government, elected in 1906 (in the
1906 general election), abolished the
Congested Districts Board and created the
Board of Agriculture for Scotland
The Scottish Office was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom from 1885 until 1999, exercising a wide range of government functions in relation to Scotland under the control of the Secretary of State for Scotland. Following the e ...
. The new board's principal task was supposed to be that of pressing forward with
land reform
Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...
in the Highlands and Islands. It was largely ineffective. By 1913 crofters were again staging land raids.
Second League in 1909
Meanwhile, in Glasgow, in 1909, a second Highland Land League was formed as a
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...
. This organisation was a broadly left-wing group that sought the ''restoration of deer forests to public ownership'', ''abolition of plural farms'' and the ''nationalisation of the land''. Also they resolved to ''resolutely defend crofters facing eviction by their landlords'' and they ''supported
home rule
Home rule is government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part (administrative division) of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governance wit ...
for Scotland''.
During the First World War (1914 to 1918) politicians made lavish promises about reform which would follow the war, and of course many crofters died in the war itself. After the war the words of politicians did not translate into immediate action, but crofters returning from the war were in no mood to accept government inaction. Land raids began again. To set this Scottish Highland political radicalism in context, the 1916
Easter Rising
The Easter Rising ( ga, Éirí Amach na Cásca), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the a ...
was recent history in Ireland, as were the
Liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
February Revolution
The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...
and the
Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
in Russia, not to mention the socialist
Kiel mutiny, which helped end the First World War and bring about the
German Revolution
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
. With these other events in mind, the Highland Land League, although radical, were positively gentle in their politics compared to radicals in other countries around the same time.
In August 1918 the new Land League had affiliated with the
Labour Party, with four candidates for the
1918 general election being joint League-Labour. By the 1920s they had fully merged with Labour, under the promise of autonomy for Scotland were Labour to gain power in the forthcoming years, which however remained unfulfilled, presumably at least partly because although Labour succeeded in forming a government, they failed to gain a majority in the House of Commons.
Subsequent history
Land League members were then key to the formation of the
Scottish National Party
The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...
in 1934. When faced with new land raids the government responded by giving the Board of Agriculture the money and powers to do something like what had been promised. The Board's work was assisted by a downturn in the profitability of sheep farming and, by the late 1920s, perhaps of arable land and of hill pasture had been given over to establishing new crofts. Most of the new crofts were in the
Hebrides
The Hebrides (; gd, Innse Gall, ; non, Suðreyjar, "southern isles") are an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner and Outer Hebrid ...
, the area where Gaelic best survives into the present day. There at least it became possible to claim that the effects of the clearances had been largely reversed. Crofters benefited also in parts of Caithness, Sutherland, Shetland, and various other localities.
Crofting is still a distinct lifestyle today, and the
Scottish Crofting Federation continues to represent crofters.
SCF website
/ref>
Further reading
* Ian Bradley, "'Having and Holding': The Highland Land War of the 1880s," ''History Today,'' Dec 1987, Vol. 37#12 pp 23–28
* Ewen A. Cameron, "Communication or Separation? Reactions to Irish Land Agitation and Legislation in the Highlands of Scotland, c. 1870-1910," ''English Historical Review, ''June 2005, Vol. 120 Issue 487, pp 633–666,
*Andrew G. Newby, '
The Life and Times of Edward McHugh (1853 - 1915): Land Reformer, Trade Unionist, and Labour Activist
'
*Andrew G. Newby, '
Ireland Radicalism and the Scottish Highlands, 1870-1912
''
*Mairtin O'Caithain,
'
*John D. Wood,
'
Notes
{{Defunct political parties in Scotland
Defunct political parties in Scotland
Highland Clearances
Political parties established in 1909
Politics of Highland (council area)
19th century in Scotland
20th century in Scotland
1885 establishments in Scotland
1909 in Scotland
Highlands and Islands of Scotland
Crofting
Land reform in Scotland
Squatting in the United Kingdom
Georgist parties