Battle for crofting rights still echoes in the Highlands

It was on April 19, 1882, that the actual battle, sometimes referred to as the last battle in Britain, took place on the Isle of Skye. It was fought between dozens of crofters and their families from an area known as Braes overlooking the Sound of Raasay against a force of more than 50 policemen, the vast majority of them imported from the City of Glasgow Police.

It was the culmination of a long-running dispute. In common with other landowners, Lord MacDonald of Sleat wanted his land rights fully implemented so he could get more income from sheep rather than tenants. In particular he refused to let crofting tenants graze their sheep on Ben Lee west of Peinchorran, one of three townships in Braes. In return the crofters refused to pay their rent until such times as the grazing rights were restored.

His Lordship obtained eviction notices. On April 7, 1882, a sheriff’s officer left Portree to serve the eviction notices, but at Braes his papers were seized and some were burned. That was a serious criminal offence in those days and Sheriff William Ivory at Inverness was determined to uphold the law and make an example, with five men named as ringleaders of the Skye crofters. The five men were Alexander Finlayson, his son Malcolm Finlayson, father-of-eight Peter Macdonald, and Donald and James Nicolson.

Sheriff Ivory decided to take no chances when he went to Skye to enforce the evictions, and summoned help from the country’s largest police force in Glasgow.

Looking into the whole issue of crofters’ grievances, Alexander Gow, a special correspondent of the Dundee Advertiser, had gone to Portree a few days before the battle and was able to attach himself to the official party that would try to enforce the evictions. Gow’s reporting was later verified by witnesses and is therefore impeccable

On the night of April 17, Gow followed behind two Sheriffs, two Fiscals, 47 officers from Glasgow police and members of the local constabulary as they began their march to Braes. They made slow progress but were in place for their raid at 6am on April 19.

The Dundee Advertiser carried his exclusive report on what happened: “The authorities proceeded at once to perform their disagreeable task, and in the course of twenty minutes the five suspected persons were apprehended. A scene utterly indescribable followed. The women, with the most violent gestures and imprecations, declared that the police should be attacked.

“Stones began to be thrown, and so serious an aspect did matters assume that the police drew their batons and charged. This was the signal for a general attack. Huge boulders darkened the horizon as they sped from the hands of infuriated men and women. Large sticks and flails were brandished and brought down with crushing force upon the police – the poor prisoners coming in for their share of the blows.”

The battle raged on, with the crofters charging and the police counter-charging. Eventually the authorities and their police officers gained some ground.

Gow reported: “The crofters seemed to have become more infuriated by the loss of their position, and rushing along the shoulder of the hill prepared to attack once more. This was the final struggle. In other attacks the police used truncheons freely. But at this point they retaliated with both truncheons and stones. The consequences were very serious indeed. Scores of bloody faces could be seen on the slope of the hill.

“One woman, named Mary Nicolson, was fearfully cut in the head, and fainted on the road. When she was found, blood was pouring down her neck and ears. Another woman, Mrs. Finlayson, was badly gashed on the cheek with some missile. Mrs. Nicolson, whose husband, James Nicolson, was one of the prisoners, had her head badly laid open, but whether with a truncheon or stone is not known. Another woman, well advanced in years, was hustled in the scrimmage on the hill, and, losing her balance, rolled down a considerable distance, her example being followed by a stout policeman, the two ultimately coming into violent collision. The poor old person was badly bruised, and turned sick and faint.

“Of the men a considerable number sustained severe bruises, but so far as I could ascertain none of them were disabled. About a dozen of the police were injured more or less seriously. One of the Glasgow men had his nose-almost cut through with a stone, and was terribly gashed about the brow.”

Remarkably no one was killed, and the police made it to Portree with the five arrested men. The authorities were appalled that women had led the attacks, but it was the men they wanted to jail. Across the Highlands and islands, and throughout Scotland, there was great sympathy for the Braes Five, and councillors and merchants in Inverness even stood bail for them.

Only two were actually convicted of any offence and their fines were immediately paid by supporters so they could all return to Braes as heroes. The crofters continued their actions, and in May they drove their sheep on to the disputed land. Civil unrest spread across Skye to Glendale and there was soon general agitation in the north of Scotland for land reform.

In 1883, the Liberal Government of Prime Minister William Gladstone set up the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Condition of Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands.

The Commission heard evidence about the plight of the crofters and the publicity given to their grievances inspired the Crofters’ Holdings (Scotland) Act of 1886, the law which gave crofters security of tenure and set up the Crofters Commission.

A cairn at the site commemorates the battle. In Gaelic and English it states the battle was “fought by the people of Braes on behalf of the crofters of Gaeldom.” It was a battle that, eventually, they won.