HISTORY

     The history of Knoydart is a sad story with a happy ending or perhaps "a happy continuation" would be more accurate. It was the ancient place of Clanranald. In 1745, when Prince Charles raised his standard, the MacDonalds of Clanranald were among the first to gather by his side at Glenfinnan. They suffered accordingly at Culloden and in its aftermath.
     One hundred years later in 1846 and 47, disaster visited the people of Knoydart once more. Potato blight and the failure of the annual herring migration to Loch Nevis, reduced the inhabitants to poverty and sickness. Most of them, in consequence, then fell into arrears with their rent which was dangerous position in those years of the Clearances. In 1851, with most of the inhabitants still in a wretched state, the place, like many other Highland areas, was cleared. Completely. The suffering of individual families and the quite incredible behaviour of Josephine MacDonald, widow of their clan chief, with the assistance of her factor, are well recorded. No exception was made. For example none was made for the MacDougald family who had two children with small pox in the distant Elgin hospital, or for pregnant women, or for widows with no family, or for children with absent parents. All who refused transportation to Canada on the Sillary which was anchored nearby, were evicted and thrown into the heather where many perished. Their homes were levelled and the debris burned to prevent re-construction. The factor's men returned many times to destroy what feable attempts had been made to construct temporary hovels. All this to improve the value of the estate prior to sale to a southern ironfounder.
     I won't go on. Other peoples have suffered similar and worse and for those Knoydart people who survived the eviction and transportation, there was a kind of compensation. In Canada and elsewhere, they eventually made a better life for themselves - sometimes at the expense of the native American people. It's a cruel world. It serves no purpose to nurse these grievances for so many years. But it does serve a purpose to remember. If we know and remember we can better understand the significance of more recent events.
     In 1948, seven ex-soldiers, home from the second world war, took matters into their own hands and attempted to solve the scandal of land shortage while square miles mouldered in disuse. Their action has passed into legend as "the Knoydart land grab". Like a episode from the the Wild West, they staked claims, planted fences and dug drains on the estate which was, at that time, owned by the notorious Lord Brocket, an acknowledged admirer of Adolf Hitler and Nazi sympathiser. The seven men believed that the then Labour Government which had swept to power after the war in a wave of optimism and a desire for change, would back their audacity. They were wrong. They were evicted by due process of imperious law.
     The wheel of fortune, however, continued to turn and has now come full circle. On Friday, 26th of March, 1999, after a bitter legal struggle and with the help of various trust funds and benefactors large and small, the land of Knoydart was purchased and reclaimed as their own, by the people of Knoydart. sources: "The Companion Guide to the Western Highlands of Scotland", by W.H.Murray (Collins 1968), "History of the Highland Clearances" A. MacKenzie (Melvin 1979, first pub 1883), "The Highland Clearances" by John Prebble (Penguin 1969) and my own memory of press reports at the time of the 1948 Knoydart land grab.

Copyright © Hugh Noble, Sept 1999