Description:During the early nineteenth century James Loch, the chief agent of the Leveson-Gower family attempted to improve the economy of the family’s highland estates in Sutherland from the bare subsistence farming that had characterised Highland societies for generations.
A policy of redistribution was introduced where inhabitants of the Sutherland estates were removed to coastal areas in order that the highlands could be put to more cost effective use through sheep farming. Loch intended to move tenants to the coast to provide them with access to work at fisheries or in the kelp industry and create a coastal economy. Many tenants also emigrated abroad to places such as Nova Scotia in Canada, particularly during periods of famine caused by crop failure.<br />
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It was this clearance of people from the land which defined the policy in the public mind and, under the name of the Highland Clearances, it caused, and continues to be surrounded with, much controversy. Accusations of violence and persecution against the highland tenants who were forced from their homes, and the failure to provide sufficient coastal industry to support removed tenants caused hardship and public outrage.
A number of letters and newspaper cuttings relating to the Highland Clearances, and James Loch’s annotated copy of his defence of the policy survive amongst the Sutherland Papers owned by Staffordshire Record Office. However, it is important to note that the records of the Sutherland Estate relating to the Clearances in the Scottish Highlands are deposited in the National Library of Scotland. Anybody interested in researching this subject in more detail would be advised to examine the archive held at the National Library of Scotland which provides a fuller context to the documents featured here.
Click on the images on the left to learn more about the Clearances in the Sutherland Papers at Staffordshire Record Office.
The image above shows the title page of James Loch's 'Account of the Improvements on the Estates of the Marquess of Stafford’, published in 1820<br />
<a href="http://www.search.sutherlandcollection.org.uk/engine/resource/exhibition/standard/default.asp?resource=1721" target="_blank">Click here to read an article by Annie Lynne McCausland on the Improvement Policy on the Sutherland estate</a>