Land, family and economic life in two nineteenth-century Tiree townships

This talk will examine the history of two neighbouring townships on the island of Tiree during the nineteenth century: Balinoe and Balemartine. Covering the period of the rise and fall of the kelp economy, the potato famine, mass migration and the ‘Crofters’ War’, it provides a detailed history of these crofting communities and how landholding and economic life was shaped by wider economic forces, family choices and the policies of the landlord, the Duke of Argyll. We will look at the controversial issue of rent rises and access to land for the community of ‘cottars’ and how the experience of particular families shaped their actions in struggles over the land in the 1880s. The talk will also consider some of the challenges and pitfalls in using the records in the Argyll papers to reconstruct a history of the land in Tiree.

Katharina Pruente

‘Ita est Patricius Miller notarius publicus’: the earls of Argyll and their notaries in the sixteenth century

Kirsty McFarlane

A Search for Campbell Connections on Coll

For nearly 150 years from the 1670’s, the House of Argyll had a strong ownership presence on the isle of Coll and the Campbell name continued until 1949 with the death of the last of the local lairds, Colin Buchanan-Campbell.  As landowners of both ends of the island at Cornaig and Caolas, plus of a number of other holdings scattered within the MacLean of Coll estate, the Campbells must have exerted some influence over the life of the island and of their properties in particular.  And yet, it is almost impossible, in the amateur view of the presenter, to discover what investment or management took place under their direction during this time.

Juli Anderson

Dear Duke, yours in haste, H. Campbell:  the making of a genealogist extraordinaire. An examination of the genealogical techniques and methods employed by Captain Herbert Campbell in his development of the ‘Campbell Pedigrees’ through an examination of his thirty-year correspondence with Niall D. Campbell, 10th Duke of Argyll.

John Moore

‘Cataloguing the estate plans of Scotland: a project to list and record the pre-Ordnance Survey paper landscape’.

Maps provide an immediate and comprehensible picture of past landscapes. For many local historians in a variety of disciplines, estate plans provide greater detail of place-names, ownership, locations and, on occasion, tenants’ names. However, despite the greater availability of digital images on several websites, the researcher is faced with a confused, variable and somewhat fragmented record of what has survived. This project sprang from a perceived need to update the standard Dictionary of Land Surveyors and Local Mapmakers when I realised that any revision needed to be based on what has survived. It soon became apparent that there is a far greater complexity and extent of surviving plans than has been accepted. This presentation will describe the project, provide details of what the listing aims to achieve and notes several of the problems faced in producing such a list.