CROFTING

       Before the 1700s much of the clan-based Gaelic-speaking society of the Highlands and Islands practiced a system of communal occupancy of the land but not of ownership. Clan members enjoyed grazing and tilling rights in return for rendering military service and/or a share of their crops to their feudal senior or clan chiefs or his tacksmen who provided protection and arbitrated disputes. When the power of the chiefs was ended after the defeat of the Jacobite clans at Culloden, Lowland and English methods were adopted whereby many of the chiefs became landlords (or sold the formerly communal land to others) who required their tenants to pay the rents in cash.

      This new landlord-tenant relationship provided the often leaseless tenant with little protection at a time when population increases and improved farming methods invited the landowner to maximise his rental income. In many areas this resulted in a wholesale removal of tenants to marginal land-holdings called 'lots' or 'crofts'.

      These crofts were typically located on the coast where it was hoped that the poor crop yields due to the absence of fertile soil could be offset by other employment such as fishing and kelp gathering. However, in many cases this hope was not realised and resulted in great distress for the tenant who, lacking a lease, had no security of tenure and no recourse from the arbitrary eviction or the imposition of unreasonable rents. Even with a lease, the law did not require the landlord to compensate the tenant for any improvements he might have made during his occupancy.

      The situation became even worse due to the famine which resulted from the failure of the potato crop in 1846 and imposed a severe charitable burden on the Government. When the crofters began to resist the harsh treatment such as that which occurred on the Isle of Skye delicate consciences and alarmist susceptibilities alike grew concerned. This led to the establishment of the Napier Commission in 1883 by the liberal Gladstone government 'to inquire into the condition of crofters and cottars'.

      The Commission's detailed report ensured sympathetic legislation which, though it did not include the Commission's proposals, conceded the crofters' demands for fair rents fixed by tribunal, for security of tenure, and for compensation for improvements. This was the Crofters' Holdings Act of 1886, termed 'the Magna Carta of Gaeldom' which belatedly recognised the distinctive nature of land tenure in the Highlands and islands.

      Subsequent commissions and legislation have tried to update the system in line with the economic and demographic requirements. At present crofting as administered by the Crofters' Commission includes some 18,000 crofts averaging 4 acres (1.6 ha) of arable land with access to 30 ha common grazing. It is still confined to the seven crofting counties (now Highland Region, the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland, and Argyll), although two-thirds of crofting land is in the islands.

Adapted from The Collins Encyclopedia of Scotland, 1994.