Information and notes about a collection of photographs of the MacPhail family of Clachan, during 1930-1980. Eleven are catalogued individually under 2019.33.1 – 2019.33.12. An additional nine photographs are held on An Iodhlann’s computer.
Black & white photograph of four (unidentified) men haymaking at Clachan in the 1930s.
Black & white photograph of Alec Hector MacPhail, Clachan, at the Tiree Association Sports Day on The Reef in 1931. Alec Hector was the brother of Captain Lachlan MacPhail (1889-1961).
Black & white photograph of L-R: Katie MacPhail, Harry Stanley, May MacPhail (teacher on Tiree), and Alec Hector MacPhail (May’s husband), at Clachan in the 1930s. Katie was the wife of Captain Lachlan MacPhail (1889-1961), and Alec Hector his brother.
Black & white photograph of Katie MacPhail at Clachan in the 1930s. Katie was the wife of Captain Lachlan MacPhail (1889-1961).
Collection of 9 modern prints of photographs of members of the MacLean family of Whitehouse, Cornaigbeg, 1900-1970. Alexander MacLean, Donald MacLean, Archibald MacLean, Thomas MacLean, Eliza MacLean, Chrissie MacLean, Margaret MacLean.
Three detailed diaries of Neil MacPhail, Registrar at Kirkapol during 1897-1924. The diaries cover the periods 1897-1900, 1911-1926, 1920-1923. Entries include the weather, maintenance around the croft, sowing, harvests, cattle breeding, deaths, purchases and payments. Neil was awarded an MBE in 1979 for his services as a Registrar.
Coloured photograph of ‘Ploughing at Balevullin, Tiree’’, 1941-43, taken by archaeologist George Holleyman FSA when he was stationed at RAF Tiree during WWII. Scanned from one of his hand-coloured glass lantern slides now held at An Iodhlann (see 2017.54.4).
Tiree Memories calendar 2016, produced by Alec Walker, Edinburgh. Photographs include Hughina MacKinnon (nee MacFadyen; Hughina Eachainn Bhuidhe), 1981; Willie MacPhee and Mary T MacPhee on a motorbike in Scarinish the 1960s; MacArthur’s Store in Scarinish, 1937; a calf being led off the ferry in 1981; Am Baile Ur, Balephuil, 1955; Brown’s Store in Balemartine, 1980; Tiree Aerodrome from the air 1942; groups of crofters at the Agricultural Show at Whitehouse, 2002; Lord of the Isles ferry at the linkspan pier in 1991; sheep shearing at Parkhouse in 1980; Balemartine School children 1947; puffer ‘Anzac’ at Caoles, 1950s; Mary Stewart sailing past Coll in 1930s.
Emailed information from the Archivist at Argyll Estates’ archives at Inveraray to Iain Knapman, Balephuil, regarding material relevant to the history of land settlement on Tiree. Includes printouts of the two attachments mentioned below.
“There is minimal published research on the history of the land settlement of Tiree. I understand that TM Devine in his ‘The Great Highland Famine: Hunger, Emigration and the Scottish Highlands in the 19th Century’ (Edinburgh, 2004) refers to there being 329 crofts on Tiree by 1802 and that by 1806 four fifths of Tiree was worked by crofters, but I do not know where these figures come from.
Prior to the establishment of crofts, the land was worked by communal farming settlements of multiple tenant farmers, cottars and servants – the baile. Certainly the 5th Duke of Argyll was keen to improve his lands, and the surveys of the lands and of the people who worked the lands that he commissioned towards the end of the 18th century were intended to inform agricultural improvements and the selection of the best workers to carry them out.
Apart from references in the Instructions that you have read, we hold additional correspondence within the bundle series (see attached list for possibly relevant bundles) and there is also a portfolio of specifically Tiree related material, ref. PV65, which Eric Cregeen listed briefly and which I assume informed his publication of the Instructions. I attach a copy of this list as well.”
