NO ORDINARY COURT: 100 YEARS OF THE SCOTTISH LAND COURT. Ed The Scottish Land Court Edinburgh: Avizandum Publishing Limited (www.avizandum.com ), 2012. xiii + 203 pp. ISBN 9781904968511. £16.95.
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2013.0148 |
| Pages | 111-113 |
| Published date | 01 January 2013 |
| Author | Catherine Bury |
| Date | 01 January 2013 |
“The crowded agenda of today's Court may not leave much space for the commemoration of the Court's beginnings. But if its Chairman and members felt it appropriate to make some such gesture during the Court's centenary year in 2012, they might do worse than make a collective pilgrimage to the Skye district of Braes” (1).
On 28 April 2012, the Chairman, members and staff of The Scottish Land Court took up the suggestion of Professor James Hunter, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of the Highlands and Islands and did just that, with a visit to Skye. This was followed by the launch of
The clearances in the Highlands and Islands in the nineteenth century are well documented, but in Braes in Skye, the conflict became nationally newsworthy when crofters objected to being deprived of an area of hill grazing. An essential part of the crofters’ livelihoods, the grazings were intended by their landlord Lord Macdonald of Sleat to be used as a sheep farm. The following outbreaks of violence in 1881 and 1882 were representative of the widespread unrest in many townships of the Highlands and Islands. This led to the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry, which ultimately gave rise to the passing of the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886. The new legislation gave crofters security of tenure, and rights to bequeath their croft and to compensation for the improvements they had made. Originally the statutory regime was enforced by the Crofters Commission, but in 1912 it was replaced by the Scottish Land Court. Since then the Court has gradually extended its remit.
The first three chapters of
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