Ways of seeing the Scottish Highlands: Marginality, authenticity and the curious case of the Hebridean blackhouse

Journal of Historical Geography

Volumn 25, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 517-533

  Lorimer, Hayden ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL IDENTITY; HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY; IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION; TWENTIETH CENTURY;

SCOTLAND(HIGHLAND); UNITED KINGDOM;

EID: 0033213273     PISSN: 03057488     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1006/jhge.1999.0165     Document Type: Article

References (117)

1. Daily Record (28 April 1938) 30.
2. E. A. Cameron, Embracing the past: the Highlands in nineteenth-century Scotland, in D. Broun, R. J. Finlay and M. Lynch (Eds), Image and Identity: The Making and Re-making of Scotland Through the Ages (Edinburgh 1998) 195-220.
3. J. R. Gold and M. M. Gold, Imagining Scotland: Tradition, Representation and Promotion in Scottish Tourism since 1750 (Aldershot 1995);
4. D. McCrone, A. Morris and R. Kiely, Scotland-the Brand: the Making of Scottish Heritage (Edinburgh 1995);
5. C. Withers, The historical creation of the Scottish Highlands, in I. Donnachie and C. Whatley (Eds), The Manufacture of Scottish History (Edinburgh 1988) 143-56.
6. Pioneering studies include M. Chapman, The Gaelic Vision in Scottish Culture (London 1978);
7. M. Hechter, Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development 1536-1966 (London 1975);
8. T. Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain (London 1977).
9. C. Craig, Out of History: Narrative Paradigms in Scottish and British History (Edinburgh 1996);
10. J. Hunter, On the Other Side of Sorrow: Nature and People in the Scottish Highlands (Edinburgh 1995);
11. C. McArthur, The dialectic of national identity: the Glasgow Empire Exhibition of 1938, in T. Bennett, C. Mercer and J. Woolacott (Eds), Popular Culture and Social Relations (Milton Keynes 1986) 117-34;
12. D. McCrone, Understanding Scotland: The Sociology of a Stateless Nation (London 1992);
13. C. Beveridge and R. Turnbull, The Eclipse of Scottish Culture (Edinburgh 1989);
14. C. Beveridge and R. Turnbull, Scotland After Enlightenment: Image and Tradition in Modern Scottish Culture (Edinburgh 1997).
15. R. Shields, Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity (London 1991) 31;
16. see also idem., A truant proximity: presence and absence in the space of modernity, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 10 (1992) 181-98.
17. C. Rojek and J. Urry (Eds), Touring Cultures: Transformations of Travel and Theory (London 1997).
18. S. Macdonald, A people's story: heritage, identity and authenticity, in C. Rojek and J. Urry (Eds), Touring Cultures: Transformations of Travel and Theory (London 1997) 155-75.
19. The phrase is borrowed from Craig,Touring Cultures: Transformations of Travel and Theory op. cit.
20. E. W. Said, Orientalism (London 1978);
21. E. W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (London 1993).
22. For a preliminary application of Said's thesis to Highland history, see Hunter Culture and Imperialism op. cit.
23. From a vast body of literature, see A. Alpin Macgregor, Behold the Hebrides! (London 1925);
24. A. Alpin Macgregor, Over the Sea to Skye (London 1926);
25. A. Alpin Macgregor, The Haunted Isles (London 1933);
26. M. E. M. Donaldson, Wanderings in the Highlands and Islands (Paisley 1920);
27. H. V. Morton, In Search of Scotland (London 1929);
28. H. V. Morton, In Scotland Again (London 1933).
29. Overviews of the travelling and tourist tradition can be found in T. C. Smout, Tours in the Scottish Highlands from the 18th to the 20th centuries, Northern Scotland 5 (1983) 99-122;
30. M. McArthur, Blasted heaths and hills of mist: the Highlands and Islands through travellers' tales, Scottish Affairs 3 (1993) 123-31;
31. J. R. Gold and M. M. Gold, Imagining Scotland: Tradition, Representation and Promotion in Scottish Tourism since 1750 (Aldershot 1995);
32. Withers, Imagining Scotland: Tradition, Representation and Promotion in Scottish Tourism since 1750 op. cit.
33. For a discussion of these contradictions, see J. Murray, Whistlers in the dark: the Heilan picture postcard, in M. Maclean and C. Carrell (Eds), As an Fearann-From the Land: A Century of Pictures in the Scottish Highlands (Stornoway 1986).
34. This particular conceptualization of place is expanded upon in E. Ardener, 'Remote places': some theoretical considerations, in R Jackson (Ed.) Anthropology at Home (London 1987) 38-54.
35. R Gruffudd, 'Selling the countryside: representations of rural Britain', in J. R. Gold and S. V. Ward (Eds), Place Promotion: The Use of Publicity and Marketing to Sell Towns and Regions, 1850-1980 (Cambridge 1994).
36. See also R Jackson, Constructions of culture, representations of race: Edward Curtis's 'Way of Seeing', in K. Anderson, and F. Gale (Eds), Inventing Places: Studies in Cultural Geography (London 1992).
37. Z. Baumann, Modernity and Ambivalence (London 1991).
38. R. J. Prentice, Conserve and Provide: A Brief History of the National Trust for Scotland (Edinburgh 1971).
39. The organization's establishment and early history is detailed in R. Hurd, Scotland Under Trust (Edinburgh 1939);
40. I. Crawford, Held in Trust: The National Trust for Scotland (Edinburgh 1986);
41. G. S. Russell, The Formative Years, 1929-1939 (Edinburgh 1990);
42. J. Calder, Scotland in Trust: The National Trust for Scotland (Glasgow 1990).
43. Prentice, Scotland in Trust: the National Trust for Scotland op. cit.
44. National Trust for Scotland/Executive Committee Minutes, Vol. I (hereafter NTS/ECM, I), 18 November 1931.
45. NTS/ECM, II, 15 November 1933. See also NTS/ECM, IV, 16 December 1936.
46. NTS/ECM, I, 18 January 1933.
47. The 1884 Napier Report detailed blackhouses which, in their lowest form, were sordid hovels in which horses, cows and pigs occupied one end of the undivided tenement, while the human inhabitants, accompanied by pigs and poultry, were immersed in obscurity and dirt at the other. Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the condition of the Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands (London 1884) 84.
48. Further details on blackhouse structures and conditions can be found in J. P. Day, Public Administration in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (London 1918);
49. E. C. Curwen, The Hebrides: a cultural backwater, Antiquity 12 (1938) 261-89;
50. N. J. Gibson, The village in the outer isles of Scotland, Sociological Review 37 (1946) 247-70.
51. The steady work of the Board of Agriculture for Scotland (BOAS) had ensured that the number of blackhouses on government owned land had fallen markedly since the turn of the century. For example, at the Kilmuir estate on Skye between 1904 and 1929 the number of thatched houses dropped from 336 to 137, and the number of modern stone-built houses with slated roofs increased from 20 to 304. BOAS, 19th Annual Report (Edinburgh 1929) 32-3.
52. A range of native opinions on the future of the blackhouse voiced during the 1930s and 1940s are included in Editorial: No Reprieve for the Blackhouse, Stornoway Gazette and West Coast Advertiser (21 March 1952) 5.
53. Day, Stornoway Gazette and West Coast Advertiser op. cit.
54. NTS/ECM, I, 18 January 1933; NTS/Hebridean Cottage boxfile (hereafter NTS/HCB): K. C. Ferguson to E. D. Stevenson, no date.
55. I. F. Grant, Am Fasgadh: The Highland Folk Museum at Kingussie, Inverness-shire (Glasgow 1944);
56. I. F. Grant, 'Am Fasgadh: the Highland Folk Museum', in Country Life (Scottish Supplement) 84 (1938) x;
57. S. Gordon, The Immortal Isles (London 1926);
58. S. Gordon, Islands of the West (London 1933).
59. NTS/HCB: I. F. Grant to Sir lain Colquhoun, 28 January 1933; I. F. Grant to Capt. E. D. Stevenson 9 March 1933;
60. Hebridean Cottage Survey by I. F. Grant, no date. Recent work by Annie Coombes has shown how the emergence of anthropological and ethnographic thinking among British imperialists was linked to their desire to display and classify the material cultures of Africa. See A. E. Coombes, Re-inventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian England (London 1994).
61. M. E. M. Donaldson, Old Houses for New, Scots Magazine 9 (1928) 82-3.
62. NTS/HCB: Macrae to A. Russell, 29 November 1933.
63. NTS/HCB: Macrae to Russell, 16 November 1933; NTS/HCB, Macrae to Russell, 29 November 1933.
64. NTS/HCB, Macrae to Russell, 3 December 1933.
65. NTS/HCB, Macrae to Russell, 23 November 1933.
66. Macdonald has recently noted that the linkage of Gaelic and commercial enterprise is antithetical to the romanticism which has long been a principal lens for viewing the Highlands. See Macdonald, op. cit., 159.
67. NTS/HCB: Macrae to Russell, 3 December 1933.
68. NTS/HCB: Macrae to Russell, 28 November 1933.
69. NTS/HCB: Contract for the particulars of Black House, 14a Callanish, signed by John Smith, 23 October 1933.
70. NTS/HCB: Macrae to Russell, 3 December 1933.
71. NTS/HCB: Macrae to Russell, 5 December 1935.
72. NTS/HCB: Russell to A. Williamson, undated.
73. H. Sutherland, Hebridean Journey (London 1939) 214.
74. NTS/HCB: L. B. Russ to Sir lain Colquhoun, 1 October 1938.
75. A. Borthwick, The empire in a park, Scottish Field (March 1938) 16-7.
76. Clachan will be the real Mackay, Daily Record (28 April 1938) 19.
77. A 'Scottish village' had already appeared at London's Imperial International Exhibition in 1909, while a Clachan was among the key attractions at Glasgow's exhibition's in 1901 and 1911.The profits from the last of these ventures funded the endowment of the Chair of Scottish History at the University of Glasgow. R Kinchin and J. Kinchin, Glasgow's Great Exhibitions, 1888, 1901, 1911, 1938, 1988 (Glasgow 1989).
78. Empire Exhibition, Scotland 1938: Official Guide (Glasgow 1938) 121.
79. In the interests of realism, one observer had suggested that a herd of Highland cattle be allowed to wander the site. See Glasgow Herald (28 December 1937) 12.
80. Glasgow Herald 193712 Ibid.
81. C. Sinclair, The clachan rediscovered, Scottish Field (March 1938) 18-9.
82. C. Sinclair, The clachan rediscovered, Scottish Field 1938 18-9.Ibid.
83. See also Illustrated London News 192 (7 May 1938) 785;
84. Countess of Elgin and Kincardine, Woman at Bellahouston, Scottish Field (May 1938) 26-7.
85. Scottish Field (May 1938) 57.
86. Empire Exhibition, 122.
87. The Clachan's immediate popularity with visitors led William Russell, the resident postmaster, to announce his intention to stage a similar spectacle at the World Fair due to be held in New York the following year. See, An Clachan: the Highland village in the heart of Glasgow, Scottish Field (September 1938) 25.
88. A. Grant, A gael in the clachan: inward eye sees the real thing, Daily Record (28 April 1938), 25.
89. Scottish Field (June 1938) 23.
90. Scottish Youth Hostelling and Cycling News (17 May 1937) 18.
91. Empire Exhibition, 122.
92. See also G. F. Maine (Ed.) Scotland's Welcome, 1938 (Glasgow 1938) 36.
93. A. Stevens, Visual sensations: representing Scotland's geographies in the Empire Exhibition, Glasgow 1938, Scotlands 3 (1996) 3-17.
94. McArthur, Scotlands op cit.
95. J. Mackenzie, Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880-1960 (Manchester 1984) 112.
96. See also S. V. Ward, Time and place: key themes in place promotion in the USA, Canada and Britain since 1870, in J. R. Gold, and S. V. Ward (Eds) Place Promotion: The Use of Publicity and Marketing to Sell Towns and Regions (Chichester 1994) 53-74.
97. Empire Exhibition, 121.
98. Sinclair, Empire Exhibition op. cit.
99. Scots Independent (May 1939) 8.
100. Glasgow Herald (16 July 1938) 4.
101. N. Gunn, The Highland clachan, Scottish Field (March 1938) 16-7.
102. A. MacEwan (Ed.), The Highlands and the Highlanders: The Past and Future of a Race (Glasgow 1938) iii.
103. See also Glasgow Herald (18 May 1938) 8.
104. Mackenzie, Glasgow Herald op. cit.;
105. P. Greenhalgh, Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World's Fairs, 1851-1939 (Manchester 1988);
106. G. Kearns and C. Philo, Culture, history, capital: a critical introduction to the selling of places, in G. Kearns and C. Philo (Eds) Selling Places: The City as Cultural Capital, Past and Present (Oxford 1993).
107. Visitors to the exhibition had to pay an additional fee for entry into the Clachan.
108. McArthur, op. cit., \22-4.
109. Daily Record (IK April 1938) 12.
110. Empire Exhibition, 121.
111. The deliberations of government over this thorny issue are covered in R. H. Campbell, The Scottish Office and the Special Areas in the 1930s, The Historical Journal 22 (1979) 167-183.
112. The findings of the Hilleary Report are discussed within the broader political context of government intervention in the Highlands in J. Hunter, The Claim of Crofting (Edinburgh 1991).
113. See also A. Cooke, I. Donnachie, A. Macsween and C. A. Whatley (Eds) Modern Scottish History, 1707 to the Present: Volume 5-Major Documents (East Linton 1998) 197-8.
114. NTS HCB: Report on the Hebridean Blackhouse, Callanish by Sergeant E. R. Drummond and I. Mclean, 21 October 1950.
115. The complete lack of local support was confirmed in: Report on the Hebridean Blackhouse, Callanish by Robert Hurd, 6 December 1950.
116. Report on the Hebridean Blackhouse 1950 Ibid.
117. Blackhouse bought for the nation, The Scotsman (3 September 1998) 3.