A ROW has broken out over an exhibition in the Isle of Arran Heritage Museum with a prominent Scottish tourism operator describing the content of panels on the Highland Clearances as misleading.
Catriona Stevenson, principal tour guide of Clyde Coast Tourism, visited the Museum while on holiday with her family and was offended by panels about the Highland Clearances and how they affected Arran, said to be part of the Agrarian Revolution.
One panel states: “As capitalism developed in the 18th century, generation of profit from the land became more crucial. This led to the need for agricultural reform and changes in land management.”
A second panel, says the Clearances, which affected Arran, were “a consequence of this revolution”.
The exhibition has been in place for a decade following the success of the original temporary exhibition, which dealt primarily with the ship Caledonia sailing to New Brunswick in 1829, an event commemorated in a Clearance Memorial at Lamlash on Arran.
That monument states it was “erected on behalf of Arran clearance descendents (sic) across North America to their brave forefathers who departed from their beloved island home to Canada during the clearance years 1829 to 1840.
“Here at Lamlash on April 25th 1829 part of the clearance (86 souls) when embarking on the brig Caledonia (196 ton) the Rev.A.Mackay preached from The Mound (opposite) formed by the departing his text ‘Casting all your care upon him: for he careth for you’ 1st Peter ch.5 v.7. “The Caledonia arrived at Quebec City June 25th 1829. The group was the first of more than 300 Arran colonists of Megantic County, Province of Quebec. The largest group, more than 400, had as their destination the seaport town of Dalhousie, New Brunswick to be pioneer settlers of the Restigouche-Bay Chaleur District. ‘Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is highland.’ The Clearances on Arran transformed the island. It had previously had a Gaelic-speaking crofting culture which was gradually eroded as families moved away, mainly to Glasgow and Canada.
In 1829, smallholding farmers were offered 50 per cent of their fare and a grant of 200 acres of land in Canada by the then Duke of Hamilton, owner of estates full of small farms on Arran – he converted 27 such smallholdings into one large sheep farm, and in all around 700 people left the island.
Stevenson’s complaint is that the exhibition’s comments about the Clearances are misleading: “Talking about ‘the need for agricultural reform’ and that somehow this was a ‘revolution’ is crazy.
“Whether the Duke of Hamilton paid 50 per cent of their fare or not, it was not by their own volition. It was nothing less than ethnic cleansing and a better use of words or education on the subject is required.”
The museum replied to her complaint as follows: “The inevitable reduction in the population to make way for sheep was not carried out using the physical force employed in many places elsewhere; there was an element of choice.”
That annoyed Stevenson further: “The Clearances relied on the insecurity of tenure of most tenants under the Scottish legal system. There was no equivalent of the English system of copyhold, which provided a heritable tenancy for many English counterparts of the Scots who were cleared from their farms. Giving someone a choice of ‘get off my land’, isn’t really a choice.”
Stevenson told the National: “Isn’t it funny how these museums and country estates alter the facts to suit them now and how the ‘historians’ go along with it so as to not get on their wrong side.
“Many of the families responsible for the Clearances are still in residence at these estates now and although I cannot blame them personally, an element of remorse for how they became so rich off the suffering of others is vital.”
Tom MacLeod, manager of the museum, told The National that staff were shocked by the complaint as it was the first they had received in the ten years that the Clearances exhibition has been installed.
He defended the exhibition’s contents which are based on the preserved written accounts of those who were cleared from Arran in the period 1829 to 1841.
MacLeod added: “We have had many exclamations of thanks from the descendants of people who were cleared from Arran and elsewhere.”
The manager arranged for the content of the panels to be reviewed by the Museum Committee but yesterday MacLeod told The National: “The committee has decided that we are not going to change anything on the display.”
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