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Clearances - Emigration
Emigration


The clearances were only one contributing factor to the mass wave of emigration occurring at this time. The collapse of the kelp industry, extreme poverty , the potato famine all made a new life abroad seem desirable.

From all the crowded districts movement to the colonies went forward.

In 1838, following an extensive voluntary emigration from Lochaber during the previous two years, 1200 persons now prepared to emigrate to Australia under the Colonial Act, which provided for free or assisted passages. In the same year a ship with 280 emigrants from the counties of Ross and Inverness sailed from Cromarty, and had a sad experience, as the vessel was leaky and the food insufficient. Evictions were occurring at this time in the island of Harris and there were riots at Durness, in Sutherland, caused by evictions which the local tacksmen attempted to carry out.

In 1840 Sir Robert Inglis called attention in the House of Commons to the sad circumstances of the Highland people, asserting that many of them had taken a pledge to confine themselves to one meal a day. The editor of the "Courier" said he had never heard of such a pledge, and at the moment there was no unusual crisis, but thousands lived constantly on the verge of destitution, "dependent solely on the potato crop."

The Inverness Town Council declared that an organised system of emigration was imperiously called for. In August 1840 it is recorded that three vessels, represented by one firm of agents, had in course of the season carried away 463 persons from the North Coast, and that 248 were from Caithness.

Over 500 persons went away from Uig and Tobermory in 1840. The parish minister of Croick, in Ross-shire, accompanied a band of emigrants from that district and from Assynt to Nova Scotia. In the spring of 1841 a ship with 190 emigrants, most of them from the parish of Reay, sailed from Scrabster.



Distressed Districts
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Cholera Notice
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Inverness Advertiser 26 July 1853

Statistics of Emigration - Since the conclusion of the war, 38 years ago, there have left this country 3,463,292 emigrants, of whom 1,791,446 - more than one half - have emigrated in the six years commencing with 1846.

In 1852 the emigration to Australia was 87,881, of which 54,527
was spontaneous and 34,354 was by the Government.

In the same year Mr. Henry Baillie, member for Inverness-shire, obtained a Committee of Inquiry from the House of Commons. He also pleaded for a grant of money, but this was refused. Mr. Baillie said that "owing to the depression of the kelp trade, many of the Highland estates were ruined, and the tenants and occupants deprived of the means of living."

The Committee, when it reported, found that an excess of population existed on the Western coasts of the counties of Argyll, Inverness, and Ross, and in the islands;

..."and this excess of population, who are for the most part, for a period of every year, in a state of destitution, was variously calculated at from 45,000 to 80,000 souls."

The Committee was further informed:

"...that the famine and destitution in the years 1836 and 1837 was so extensive that many thousands would have died of starvation had it not been for the assistance which they received from the Government and the public;

... that the sum of £70,000 was collected and distributed at that period in the shape of food and clothing, and all the witnesses were of opinion that this district of the country was liable to similar visitations in succeeding years."

The remedy proposed by the Committee was emigration, assisted and regulated by the Government.