Nice people

[Chookie]

His name was George Granville Leveson-Gower, Marquess of Stafford, he was probably the richest man in Britain, he became, in 1832, the 1st Duke of Sutherland. Her name was Elizabeth Gordon, (Countess of Sutherland and Lady Stafford - later Duchess Sutherland). She was very financially set in her own right, owning 2/3 of the lands of Sutherland and parts of Caithness. Both usually lived in London, rarely visited the Sutherland estate and neither of them spoke Gaelic. They were directly responsible for some of the most unsavoury and inhuman acts Scottish history.

The 19th Century was known as”the age of improvement” - a time when all the landlords looked at their estates to see how they might be made more productive and financially rewarding.

This noble duo employed a man who became a byword for brutality andinhumanity while carrying out his instructions. That man was Patrick Sellar. He and his compatriot, James Loch were ruthless but efficient busnessmen. Patrick Sellar bore perhaps the most hated name in this woeful tale. Sellar wrote of Lord and Lady Stafford:



"Lord and Lady Stafford were pleased humanely to order the new arrangement of this country. That the interior should be possessed by Cheviot sheperds, and the people brought down to the coast and placed in lots of less than three acres, sufficient for the maintenance of an industrious family, pinched enough to cause them to turn their attention to the fishing. [of herring] A most benevolent action, to put these barbarous Highlanders into a position where they could better associate together, apply themselves to industry, educate their children, and advance in civilisation."

In 1807, the Most Noble Marquess began evicting his Scottish Highland tenants beginning with a trifling ninety families: men, women and children. This can be seen as a learning experience.

In 1813, Lady Stafford (Countess Sutherland), Elizabeth Gordon -- the 'Great Lady of Sutherland' -- wrote to an English friend:

"I hope to be in Scotland this summer (she was in England) but at present I am uneasy about a sort of mutiny that has broken out in one part of Sutherland,....The people who are refractory on this occassion are part of the Clan Gunn, so oftened mentioned by Robert Gordon [who was instrumental in having the Gunn lands taken away and moving them to other areas of Scotland], who live by distilling whisky and are unwilling to quit that occupation for a life of industry of a different sort which was proposed to them."

The trouble occurred in March 1813, when an agent went to Kildonan taking notes and asking questions. He returned early. He claimed he had been attacked by a mob of men and women and feared for his life.

In 1814 during the clearance of Strathnaver, Patrick Sellar ensured his place in history. His methods - on the order of his employers - were reminiscent of the 'Butcher' Cumberland. Tenants were ordered out of their homes which were then set ablaze. If anyone was slow getting out or went back for possessions, the fire was started with them inside. All possessions, including furniture were burnt.

Women, children, old men and animals stood in huddled, frightened groups whilst the savage work went on. To make the land more suitable for the Sheep, the burned homes were levelled so the Cheviots could browse with ease. This also made it impossible for the tenant to rebuild or take refuge in the remains of their homes. The land was to be devoid of all human habitation as not to intrude upon the grazing sheep.

The evicted lost all their possessions, their clothes and cooking utensils, not to mention their dignity and sometimes their lives. Now they had no place to go, and nobody thought (or cared) to provide them with one. They were, as was said at the time, "driven out like dogs."



Some examples:-

In one incident, a woman of perhaps more than ninety years old, was to old and weak to be moved from her home. The neighbours pleaded for Patrick Sellar, the agent, to show mercy for the old woman. Sellar responded,

"Damn her, the old witch. She has lived too long. Let her burn."

Her house was put to the torch, even the sheets on her bed were set ablaze. Local clansmen and clanswomen tried to rescue her by taking her burned body to a nearby barn, but she died five days later in agony, as surely murdered as anybody could be.

One of those burned out of Grummore was ninety year old William MacKay. He remembered the Jacobite days and had already been evicted once. His wife, Janet, died as a result. When he was evicted again from Grummore he went to the churchyard and stood over her grave and said "Well, Janet, the Countess will never flit (evict) you again." He turned and walked, alone, to Wick where he died alone and unmourned.

A man named Robert MacKay, whose family was sick with fever, carried his daughters on his back for 25 miles, "first by carrying one and laying her down in the open air, and, returning did the same with the other till he reached the seashore."

Also of Clan MacKay, another elderly man crawled away from the Burnings, and into a ruin of a mill unseen. His dog kept rats away from him and he survived for a few days by licking the dust of meal from the floor. MacLeod added, "To the best of my recollection he died there."



An elderly woman, who was partially paralysed and in absolute pain if moved or if she tried to walk, was ordered out of her home by Lord Stafford's agent (Sellar). She could only sit in a motionless chair. Sellar told the neighbours she must immediately be removed by her friends or the constables (Lowland shepherds) would be ordered to do it. Her family lifted her from the chair, and four boys of the township cried as they carried her out in a blanket. As she was taken towards the coast,

"...her cries never ceased till within a few miles of her destination, when she fell silent."

The eyewitness stories told of these evictions are blood-curdling. One man tried to save some bits of wood and was caught in the act. The wood was burned so that he would have nothing to cook or keep warm by. Many starved and froze to death where their homes had been. Some died of exposure, disease and fatigue. Starvation was rampant.



The Trial

Surprisingly, given the atmosphere, Patrick Sellar was tried for manslaughter when some elderly tenants were killed whilst being evicted. It was astonishing that he was tried at all because the political climate of the time was one of terror at any activity of the lower classes on the political scene. The French Revolution had raised spectres of bloody rebellion and dispossession.

Liberty was a dangerous word. It was not a word used much in the Highlands, where the people were so remote that they were sheltered from 'dangerous European heresies'. But it had infected England and Lowland Scotland, especially Scotland, where a body of freedom-lovers had previously formed a Society of Friends of the People, whose leader was sentenced to transportation.

And so it was astonishing that Sellar was indicted at all. He was, after all, the agent of the respectable people of Britain, the landlords. Even so, the trial was delayed for nearly a year. The forty witnesses against him had been interviewed by a sheriff-Substitute McKid, but only 15 were called to give evidence. There were nine witnesses on Sellar's behalf, all of them his own men.

The Judge, in summing up to the Jury, lent heavily on the low character of the chief prosecution witness, a tinker, William Chisholm, who had seen his mother-in-law die during the evictions. The middle-class jury brought back a Not Guilty verdict in just 15 minutes. The Jury had been bought; bribed by the rich and powerful Lord and Lady Sutherland, although this could not be proven at the time. The Sheriff-Substitute was driven from office, and even sued by Sellar, and simply disappeared. Sellar was a free man.

No compensation was paid in respect of homes destroyed, far less the personal possessions destroyed. Lord Stafford could have easily cleared his estates in a far more humane way, for his possessions were vast. Perhaps they could have been given the time to resettle on the coasts, although that land might have been useless, at least it would have been an attempt. No attempt appears to have ever been made, one wasn't needed for these savage 'Highland barbarians'.

The fact is that, even though Patrick Sellar was brought to trial, even though it was a both a travesty and a miscarriage of justice, he was not the prime mover. His employers should have been in the dock with him. They should also – all of them- been found guilty – not of manslaughter, but of murder.

[RedGlitter]

Wow. What a sickening event. Heinous and disgusting but also interesting. I enjoy learning about historical stuff like this. Thank you Chookie, for posting it.