Highland Clearances in Shetland
The Highland clearances of the 19th century are infamous for the cruelty and inhumane treatment shown to tenant farmers, who were cast from their homes and land by their landlords, known as lairds. Blighting much of the Highlands and Islands, these callous forced evictions also reached Shetland.
Although less prevalent than in other areas, the toll the clearances took here was no less devastating. Communities across Shetland were ripped apart by landowners who cleared the tenant farmers off the land, replacing them with sheep – an easier source of income.
The clearances were a particularly dark period in Shetland’s history, a time of injustice, persecution and fear. Locally, we hear stories of houses being burnt to the ground, of babies being carried out in kishies (straw baskets) in the dark of a winter night and the destitute and homeless walking for miles, carrying their few possessions on their backs.
How did Shetland’s land come to be in the hands of outsiders?
Princess Margaret and King James III
In 1469, as part of a dowry for Princess Margaret of Denmark, Shetland had become part of Scotland (you’ll find more about this ‘Dowry’ in the guidebook) – and with that, came an influx of Scottish landowners, on the “grab for land”. Many of these people were unscrupulous and ruthless, seeing Shetland as a means to make money, with little regard for its inhabitants.
Landowning classes, who bought or were given land following annexation to Scotland, were keen to make profit from their newly acquired lands. They believed that farming sheep, particularly the hardy Blackface and Cheviot breeds, was the best way to secure a return in this inhospitable farming landscape. The greatest challenge to this approach was the system of land tenure, which dated back to Norse times.
The crofting system appeared outdated to the new owners and the runrig farming style, also known as rig-a-rendal, an ineffective system of land management. The runrig method divided land into small sections or strips with equal distribution between crofts, ensuring that each croft had the same share of the good – and bad – land for cultivation. For much of history, Shetlanders were engaged in a barter economy known as the truck system, where knitwear was exchanged for items such as tea and sugar – generally to the landlord to whom they paid their rent.
This system has been heavily criticised for locking Shetlanders into a state of poverty and what amounted to little more than a life of indentured servitude to the laird.
However, these “tenant” farmers had no security of tenure, even if their families had farmed the land for generations – they could be evicted from their homes with only 40 days’ notice.
to discover some of the places affected by the clearances, pick up a copy of our guidebook and visit the areas guide.
The first, and arguably most devastating clearance, took place in the 1820s on the small island of Fetlar, the smallest of Shetland’s three North Isles. At that time, the island supported almost 900 people. Following the eviction of tenant farmers by Sir Arthur Nicolson in the 1820s, Fetlar’s population never fully recovered. In 1841, following the first wave of clearances, the population dropped from close to 1,000 to 761, and by 1891, it had fallen further to 363. Today, only around 50 people live there. (See the Fetlar area guide in the guidebook for more.)
Weisdale Mill (Bonhoga)
The fertile Mainland valley of Weisdale was the site of a whole-scale clearance, with an entire community forcibly removed to make way for sheep. The valley was cleared in 1850, with some 318 people evicted from their homes. The laird, David Dakers Black, then built the grand house of Flemington (now Kergord House) and the Weisdale mill (now Bonhoga Gallery & Cafe) using stones from the ruined croft houses. Black was a Scot by birth, and held a large estate, also called Flemington, near Forfar on the Scottish mainland. The poignant novel Shadowed Valley, by John J Graham, is based on the clearances here. (See the West Mainland area guide in the guidebook for more.)
Eventually, in 1872 an investigation into the plight of Shetland’s tenant farmers was undertaken and Sheriff William Guthrie began hearings in the Queens Hotel as part of a Royal Commission into the truck system. The Minutes of the Truck Commission gives a detailed and grim description of how the people suffered during this time at the hands of the lairds. Despite this acknowledgement, it wasn’t until the introduction of the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act in 1886 that Shetlanders’ lives began to change for the better. This act of parliament began a new chapter of hope in Shetland, giving tenant farmers security of tenure for the first time. This meant that they could freely improve their crofts and homes without the worry that the landlord would raise the rent, take the profit, or remove them from their homes.
Shetland has continued to return a Liberal MP to parliament ever since the transformative Crofters Holdings Act was passed by William Gladstone’s Liberal government. The inhumane treatment of people left a long shadow, and remains an important part of Shetland's story, visible today in the ruins of crofters' homes, and traced in the lines on the family trees of those whose ancestors were forced to emigrate overseas.
