Alex Gunn Begins His Statement

Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Condition of Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands 1883 Part C

NORTHERN ENSIGN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1883

THE CROFTER COMMISSION

STATEMENTS PREPARED BY DELEGATES

A number of statements intended to be read by delegates before the Crofter Commission, but which there was no time to hear, were handed to us, and some of them are given below.

ESTATES OF LANGWELL AND DUNBEATH, CAITHNESS

STATEMENT BY MR ALEX GUNN, LANGSIDE, GLASGOW

I appear before Her Majesty's Royal Commission to give evidence in reference to the management of the estate of Langwell situated in the Parish of Latheron, and the west end of the county of Caithness, and better known as Berriedale. It stretches from the Ord of Caithness, eastwood along the sea coast about ten miles, and extends landward four or five miles. It is intersected by two rivers, the Berriedale and the Langwell.

These straths were once inhabited by a happy, industrious, and loyal people, but early in the beginning of the present century the mania of eviction seized the landlords, and those fertile straths were stripped of all their inhabitants, and were occupied by sheep in place of human beings. A few of those driven off were allowed to squat on bare hillsides along the sea coast, where they built themselves houses and cultivated small patches of ground, and where they eked out a miserable existence, but the greater number were driven off the estate altogether, to find shelter elsewhere.

Evicted family Outer Hebrides 1895

About 1830 there was another batch evicted from Auchencraig, the Cairn, and other places, and latterly in 1845 the half of the people of Badbea were evicted, so that from first to last there were ninety-seven families evicted, all in good circumstances and not one of them owing a single farthing of rent. An idea may be formed of the comfortable circumstances of these people when it is stated that the 13 families in Auchencraig and the 8 families in Ousdale sent 250 head of cattle to the sheilings in the summer season. 

A costume engraving of Rothesay and Caithness Fencibles, 

depicting Sir John Sinclair who found the battalion in 1794 

and who designed the uniform.

When Sir John Sinclair, who was proprietor before Mr Horne, raised a regiment of Volunteers or Fencibles, as they were then called, 60 men from Berriedale joined the regiment, and they were considered the pick of the regiment. My father who stood nearly six feet was one of them. My father and grandfather served their Queen and country, and the martial spirit is not extinct in the family yet, as one of my sons carries the colours in the Scottish Rifles, and is no disparagement to the family, as he stands 5 feet 9 inches, and weighs 16 stones. 

My father was evicted from Badbea, and also an uncle of mine, who had been bedridden for some years. He removed to the barn at the term, but he was only there a few weeks when two men appeared with graips and spades and 'tirred' the roof of the barn, leaving the sick man with nothing to cover him but the blue vault of heaven. He lay there for five days before he could be moved to Helmsdale - a distance of 8 miles - being the nearest place where he could get shelter.

To be Continued