Bomb threat

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Date:1861 - 1887 (c.)

Description:At the very beginning of the land reform campaign in the Scottish Highlands, also called the Crofters War, this note was dropped through the door of Stafford House, London, informing the servants that the house would be bombed within three weeks and advising them to leave the premises before then. The note identifies the Sutherland family as ‘evicting landlords’, a reference to the great Sutherland clearances of the early nineteenth century, the infamy generated from which the family were never able to rid themselves of. The Crofters War in the Scottish Highlands was by and large a non violent affair, especially compared to the contemporary Land War underway in Ireland; this bomb threat was never carried out, but was perhaps aimed at frightening the family into concessions by raising the spectre of violence.

These pages have been researched and written by Dr. Annie Tindley, Lecturer in History at Glasgow Caledonian University.