Go Listen to the Crofters - The Napier Commision & Crofting a Century Ago le A.D. Cameron

In March 1883, Sir William Harcourt, Gladstone's Home Secretary, announced to the House of Commons that he was setting up a Royal Commision "to inquire into the conditions of the crofters amd cottars in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland" and everything concerning them.

The powers it was given were equally wide - to call any witness, to see any document and to visit any place it wished in order to acquire the fullest information possible. To carry out this task properly, the Royal Commision would have to go about the Highlands and listen to the crofters.

By learning more about the Highland communities, the Government was determined to avoid the riots and faminw which had occured in Ireland. The Commision interviewed hundreds of people, asking 46,750 questions in dozens of locations throughout the Highlands and Islands, from St Kilda to Lerwick, Tobermory to Golspie. Of the 775 people questioned, many spoke only Gaelic, and special translations had to be organised. Yet the result of this staggering undertaking is not a dry, statistical account, bu an evocative treasure chest of information, depicting both the poverty and the joy of crofting life. 

Richly illustrated, this is the fullest and widest-ranging account of crofting and crofters ever put together. Full of contemporary pictures and marvellous anecdotes, it is invaluable for everyone who wants too learn more about Scotland's history.