The quiet champion of crofting who stood up to the landlords

These are timely themes when “land reform” legislation is little more than a box-ticking exercise at Holyrood, devoid of inspiration or vision. If there is any interest in learning from the past in order to mould the future, then it comes heavily disguised.

Yet Uist alone offers plenty history to learn from and people to be inspired by for any politician remotely interested. One of them was Thomas Wilson, a name now largely forgotten, but a massively important figure in the battles of a century and more ago which have acute relevance for the Western Isles down to the present day.

His gravestone summarises his story: “In memory of Thomas Wilson, solicitor, formerly Lochmaddy, North Uist, and latterly Uig, Skye; sub-commissioner for the Board of Agriculture for Scotland, 1912-23; died 4th September, 1936, aged 81 years. A devoted worker for Land Settlement in the Highlands and Islands and a friend of the people”.

I first became aware of Thomas Wilson in days past when the opening of government files held in the Scottish Records Office at the start of each year was an event of significance. The “crofting files” had remained closed for up to 100 years and each release shed new light on the struggles which ensured the survival of crofting communities.

The name of Thomas Wilson seemed to crop up everywhere – Skye, Uist, Barra, Lewis … wherever there was a battle to be fought, Thomas Wilson was there, on the side of the people in the face of landlord might. The decades rolled by from 1880s into 1920s and still that name would be in the files, first as a lawyer and later as a public official. Always on the side of the people.

Years later, that memory was stirred when Joni Buchanan interviewed an elderly lady from Breanish, Dolly Afrin, who recalled how, after the First World War, the village was so overcrowded that her parents’ generation raided Carnish, which had been cleared in 1851. Her mother was afraid they would go to prison but then Wilson came along and put their minds at rest and assured them they would have the land.

“Bha iad, they were so very hard pushed agus às dèidh a’ chogaidh – a’ chiad chogadh, threabhaich iad Càirnis. Bha na màthraichean, bha iad cho troimh-a-chèile, ’eil fhios agad, le eagal dè bhathas a’ dol a dhèanamh riutha. An ann dhan phrìosan, na càite an deigheadh an cuir? Ach nuair a thàinig Wilson a bha seo, chuir e ar n-inntinn gu fois, agus thuirt e riutha nach leigeadh iad a leas a bhith a’ woraigeadh tuilleadh, gu robh e a’ shèirigeadh a-mach lotaichean Chàirnis dhaibh”.

So who was this Thomas Wilson? By that time, he had been a fearless force for good in the islands for 30 years – and had paid extraordinary personal prices along the way. In North Uist, he had been driven out of his home by a landlord. From the Butt to Barra, he had used his skill as a lawyer to fight the crofters’ cause. As a public official, he had steadfastly opposed the demands of Lord Leverhulme.

Thomas Wilson was a native of Wick who trained as a solicitor, worked for a few years in Edinburgh and moved to North Uist in 1882, aged 26, at the behest of his friend, Archie Chisholm, to join his legal partnership. Chisholm was a man of many parts – he was also the Procurator Fiscal in Lochmaddy for 32 years and is now better known for his photography which left a fantastic legacy of images from the Western Isles in this period.

Because of their sympathies for the crofters’ cause, Chisholm and Wilson soon attracted the hostility of the landlord, a particularly nasty piece of work named Sir John Campbell Orde, who had taken over the North Uist estate on the death of his father in 1878. Orde was a tyrant and made it his business to remove both men from their homes in Lochmaddy with a view to driving them out of the island altogether.

“In 1889”, the North British Daily Mail reported, “Sir John not only evicted Mr Wilson from his house but took the trouble to visit all the householders in Lochmaddy and ordered them not to give him shelter. The cause in that case was Mr Wilson’s refusal to carry out the eviction of an old man - who was afterwards evicted by Sir John and forced to leave the island.

“For years, Mr Wilson lived in the only hotel in the place but a change of tenancy occurred and Sir John Orde took the monstrous course of inserting a clause in the lease prohibiting Mr Wilson’s stay in the hotel. Mr Wilson next took refuge in the Free Church mission house where he got two years peace before his persecutor compelled the Free Church, under threat of forfeiture of feu, to order Mr Wilson out of its premises.

“So Mr Wilson has now to get a ship to live in whenever business requires his attendance in the Sheriff Court at that part of the Long Island”. Having described the similar treatment of Mr Chisholm, the North British Daily Mail called on the Government to intervene and “show they are not such miserable partisans as to hesitate to protect Crown and county officials from such shameful persecution, even though the persecutor is the soul of the little body of Toryism in the Long Island”.

Although the crofters’ struggle was Wilson’s most prominent interest, his empathy extended to anything which advanced the wellbeing of his adopted islands. In 1892, we find him as the driving force behind establishing a “free library” in Sollas. At the opening ceremony, he described it as “a sign of great hope that in a crofting district of the lonely Western Isles, the spirit of enquiry and the longing for intellectual improvement should have been so strong”.

He was a campaigner for direct shipping links between island and mainland, as well as for the extension of the railway network to Kyle of Lochalsh and Mallaig in order to provide connections to markets, particularly for the fishing industry. Both of these projects were brought to fruition in the last decade of the 19th century.

Wilson’s duties extended across the islands – Harris down to Barra - which were then parts of Inverness-shire, as clerk to four parish councils and various boards. Through these roles, he was instrumental in raising housing standards and thereby improving the health of the people.

Thomas had become a widower in 1891 and ten years later married a nurse, Christina Paterson of Borve. Berneray. The couple moved to Harris, living in Obbe, but returned to Lochmaddy in 1911. Their son Harris was born in 1904 while Christina died in 1914.

In Harris, he was factor to the Earl of Dunmore in addition to his other duties and was closely involved in the remarkable story of Finsbay Lodge and the Glasgow-based Hebridean Sporting Association which built it. Indeed, Christina was its only female shareholder. Working with Dunmore, Wilson is credited with many improvements to the fishings in Harris.

Thomas Wilson’s transition in 1912 from island solicitor who also held local public offices to the status of “sub-commissioner” with the Board of Agriculture did nothing to diminish his zeal for reform in the crofters’ favour. On the contrary, it put him in a powerful position to ensure that justice was done in many cases where the demand for land had grown desperate.

In 1913, as land settlement measures stalled, it was reported that Thomas Wilson had been approached by a “representative deputation” to contest Inverness-shire at the next General Election “as an independent crofter candidate”. War intervened before he could give a definitive decision but it was still a remarkable testimony to a public official that he should be approached by “the crofters of Skye and the Outer Hebrides as one of their staunchest friends”.

After the war, many of Thomas Wilson’s duties seem to have been in Lewis and this soon brought him into direct conflict with Lord Leverhulme and his obsessional hostility towards crofting. All over the island, Wilson left his mark by using his influence in Edinburgh to support the break-up of farms in order to give more land to the impoverished crofters and cottars.

Unaccustomed to such opposition, Leverhulme did not forgive or forget. At his farewell dinner in Stornoway, after he had decided to abandon his island interests, Leverhulme was still talking about Thomas Wilson. He said: “May I go back at this moment to refer to a conversation I had with Mr Wilson in the autumn of 1918, my first year in Lewis.

“I saw him at the Castle and he showed me some plans the Government had been preparing for taking the farm of Gress and other farms adjoining on Broad Bay, and I at once took him into my confidence with regard to the development schemes I proposed …

“Mr Wilson was quite candid with me and quite courteous. He stated, in short, that whatever schemes I might have, the Scottish Office would take the farms for crofting. I told him I was quite confident if they knew my schemes, their policy would change. He was equally confident it would not… I was entirely wrong”.

The quiet sub-commissioner for the Board of Agriculture had consistently outplayed the great captain of industry in order to ensure that thousands of poor islanders had access to the land they had been promised and which they craved. Leverhulme’s name lives on in various memorials – but the man who ensured that the crofters prevailed is largely forgotten. Too often, that is how history is written.

When Thomas Wilson died in 1936, the Oban Times carried a tribute: “His passing will revive old memories among his many official and personal friends, who had a great admiration for his intellectual capacity and sterling qualities, and his death will be mourned not least by the crofters and smallholders whose interests and welfare were his chief concern and life-work.

“He was regarded at one time in some quarters as perhaps somewhat too advanced in his views on the land question but he was in truth a calm, deliberate and sagacious man … He was a hard fighter but bore no animosities.

“His official appointment gave Mr Wilson the opportunity of putting many of his ideas in connection with land settlement into practical effect, when the policy of land settlement in the Islands became the adopted policy of the State.

“His was the hand principally concerned with most of the new land settlements, of his own planning, in Barra, the Uists, Harris and Skye, before and after the war and previous to his retiral. He was of untiring energy and great industry in this land resettlement work.

“Thomas Wilson was not a man for personal recognition and advancement but his contribution in this work and the creation of the new settlements was ample compensation and a source of pride in his declining years, and this will be his lasting monument”.

A fine monument indeed – and one that deserves to be remembered. Without the battles that took place in that crucial period, there would be precious few crofting communities in the Western Isles today. The best tribute to Thomas Wilson and all who fought these good fights would be to recognise the value of what is still at stake.

Without that understanding, and the history which it entails, where is any commitment or vision for the future going to come from?