Digitised copy of Letter from Malcolm McLaurine, chamberlain of Tiree, to the Duke of Argyll, 15 Apr 1803. McLaurine discusses: carrying out the plan of four mail lands; threat of emigration; crofts; joint occupation of the mail lands; obtaining compliance with the mail lands scheme; fishing; mills; encroachment of the Reef; barley and distilling; smuggling of gin brandy and tobacco. In a post script, McLaurine discusses tenants, mail lands, and quarrying tools.
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Digitised Copy letter from Captain Archibald Campbell, secretary to the Duke of Argyll, to Malcolm McLaurine, chamberlain of Tiree, 8 Apr 1803. Campbell discusses: plans surrounding the division of the island into four mail lands; emigration; selecting ‘quiet and industrious’ tenants for joint occupancy of the mail lands; mills; postponing building of the schoolhouses.
Digitised copy of Copy sketch of Tiree set, 22 Mar 1803. Contains a table showing the farms in Tiree to be divided into mail lands (a unit of land tenure), and contains some remarks on how receptive the tenants were to the proposed changes. The table also contains the number of mail lands and tenants for each farm, as well as the number of tenants to remain and to be removed.
Digitised copy of Letter from Malcolm McLaurine, Chamberlain of Tiree, to the 5th Duke of Argyll, 29 Mar 1802. In this letter, McLaurine discusses the removal of people from the island. Those selected for ‘Removings’ include: those found guilty of illegal distilling, two young millers at Cornaigmore who ‘paid no attention to the machinery, nor to their work’, and Malcolm McDonald (Caoles) for taking trees from Loch Sunart to sell in Coll. Those in fishing stations were under warning. McLaurine also discusses: the division of land into four mail lands; Major Maxwell and George Langland; the use of the Reef by cottars and the lack of ‘grass mail’ paid by them. McLaurine mentions the 5th Duke of Argyll’s instructions to remove ‘every 10th man, and those the most criminal’.
Digitised copy of Letter from Malcolm McLaurine, chamberlain of Tiree, to the Duke of Argyll, 10 Mar 1802. In this letter McLaurine discusses: timber claimed but not proved; sending a sample of wine from a cask lying in a barn; rents due; distilling; barley and coals; Clyde Packet; the island being cut off due to stormy weather; opening a weekly communication with the post office at Tobermory; the ground officer; methods to find a good school master; model of a wind miln [windmill]; poor enclosure on McLaurine’s farm.
Digitised copy of Letter from Malcolm McLaurine, chamberlain of Tiree, to the Duke of Argyll, 14 Jan 1802. In this letter McLaurine discusses: sending specimens of barley, pottery, clay and fossil sand; an analysis of sand by Dr Gardner; corresponding with Captain Campbell; writing to Greenock; difficulty in finding boys willing to go to Inveraray to learn to be Quarriers, and the reasons for their reluctance; illegal distilling of whisky; removals from the island, including the schoolmaster and the miller at Crossapol; the Bailie; the farm at Crossapol; replacing the ground officer, Angus Munn, with Neil McLean (previously a sergeant in Lord Lorne’s fencibles), and remarks on their characters; using wood cast ashore to repair the byre and stable at the Factor’s house; a model of the windmill; problems with sending post in the winter.
Digitised copy of Letter from Malcolm McLaurine, chamberlain of Tiree, to the Duke of Argyll, 15 Dec 1801. In this letter McLaurine expresses gratitude to the Duke of Argyll for giving him the farm at Balephuil and agreeing to build a house on it; the factor; the division of the farm at Crossapoll into crofts; instructing the people of Tiree in farming; enclosing and subdividing the farm at Balephuil; plans to develop a large garden and nursery; using the Volunteer Company to maintain the social order of the island and to supress smuggling and distilling; the Argyllshire Companies.
Digitised copy of List of inhabitants of Tiree, 1792. A tabulated form records the number of inhabitants per farm by: males; females; under 10 years; from 10 to 20 years; 20 to 50 years; 50 to 70 years; 70 to 80 years; 80 to 90 years; 90 to 100 years; above 100; total. The rest of the census records the names and ages of inhabitants in each occupied dwelling in the island.
Click to view a transcript of the tabulated form listing the number of inhabitants per farm.
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From the archives of the Dukes of Argyll at Inveraray Castle, made available through the Written in the Landscape project.
Digitised copy of Comprised estimate of the office houses built in Tiree by Donald Campbell, late factor, 1769. Contains an ‘estimate of the values of the office houses which were built, contiguous, to His Grace the Duke of Argyll’s house in Tiree’.
Digitised copy of Cash disbursed by James Turnbull, land surveyor, whilst going to the isle of Tiree, 1768-1769. Contains an itemised list of expenses for Turnbull’s journey from the Grassmarket in Edinburgh to Tiree, and his return journey.
