Description:This letter from the Scourie factor McIver to the Commissioner Sir Arnold Kemball illustrates very effectively the challenges faced by the Sutherland estate factors, and indeed other factors in the Highlands, in the wake of the Crofters War. McIver had very dogmatic attitudes as to the social place of the Highland crofters and was horrified by their agitating for rights to the land he did not believe they deserved. McIver always felt he was working in the best interests of the ducal family, to which he was very loyal, by keeping crofters in their place and allowing as little land as possible to be transferred to them. He regarded crofting as a poor way to use land and forcefully put his views to his superiors, pointing to changing social attitudes and the need for ‘discipline’ among the crofting population; emigration was his solution to the overcrowded land-starved position of many of the crofters in his management.
These pages have been researched and written by Dr. Annie Tindley, Lecturer in History at Glasgow Caledonian University.