Hardback book ‘The Transformation of Rural Scotland: Social Change and the Agrarian Economy 1660-1815’ by T.M. Devine, 1994. Original archive material is used in this book to explore the social revolution when, in the 18th-century, the old peasant society of lowland Scotland was replaced by a new order of capitalist farmers and landless labourers. Covers a range of issues, including the seventeenth-century rural social structure, the eighteenth-century agrarian economy, landlordism and improvement, the evolution of the tenant farming class, and the dispossession of the cottar class. (Tiree mentioned on page 134.)
Ornate, cast iron tractor seat made by Blackstone & Company Ltd, Stamford, who made farm implements and engines between 1889 and 1937. Mounted on a wooden block by Alan Reid for An Iodhlann in 2008.
Book ‘Twentieth-Century Crofting Schemes on Tiree and Coll’ by Bob Chambers, 2016, with foreword by Prof. Donald Meek, Caoles. Shortly before and shortly after WWI, over 100 new crofts were created on Tiree and Coll, and almost 40 existing crofts were enlarged. The impact on the islands was enormous, wide-ranging and long-lasting, particularly on Tiree.
University assignment ‘The Isle of Tiree: One of a Kind’ written in 2013 by Leanne Piper, University of Guelph, Canada, who is descended from emmigrants John MacKinnon (1816-1896) and Grace Campbell (b.1811), Cornaigbeg. Includes information on geography, crofting history, geology, the kelp industry and architecture.
Academic paper ‘The creation of the crofting townships in Tiree’ by Eric Cregeen. Edited by Annie Tindley and published in the Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, Edinburgh University Press, 2015. Courtesty of EUP Blog www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/jshs.2015.0153
Cardboard box (‘spiced beef and tongue’) containing two lumps of hardened yellowish-brown wax found in Mannal House. Probably whale blubber, which would have had various domestic and croft uses, e.g. preservation of leather harness.
Bound undergraduate dissertation ‘A view of Tiree in 1965’ by FG Hay, Geography Honours, University of Glasgow, 1967. Based on a visit to the island in June-July 1965. Topics include geology, land managment, population and demographics, weather, townships, crofting, infratructure, communications and amenities.
