At the Co-op Egg Depot, Tiree
Photograph of two women taking their eggs to a co-operative depot at Cornaigmore in the 1920s.
Courtesy of Mrs Rachel Wylie
In his ‘Crofts and Farms in the Hebrides’ published in 1883, the 8th Duke of Argyll wrote that ‘the island is admirably suited to poultry, and there is annually a very large export of eggs, amounting …to not less than 50,000 dozen.’
The Agricultural Statistics for Tiree show that in 1885 there were two thousand hens and one thousand ducks on the island. Between the wars, crofters on Tiree kept around eight thousand hens and ducks. The numbers fell to six thousand in 1955 and a decade later there were fewer than three thousand.
This photograph, titled ‘At the Co-op Egg Depot, Tiree’, was taken in Cornaigmore the 1920s. The depot was at the croft in the background, which belonged to Archie MacLean (Èairdsidh Tuairneir). A number of co-operatives were formed on the island for the purpose of collecting eggs for onward shipment to Glasgow.
Laser print of a black and white photograph of two women with baskets of eggs in the 1920s.
`At the Co-op Egg Depot, Tiree.` (From Myra Lamont’s photograph album of the 1920s.)