Digitised copy of a Report from Heylipol Public School for the winter months, February 1883. The report was written for the Duke of Argyll by J McFarlane and is divided into observations on ‘attendance’, ‘progress’, ‘general’ and ‘state of the island’ and contains remarks on: attendance for December 1882 to February 1883; the affect of weather on attendance; subjects taught and standards; appointment of compulsory officers; comments on parents and their attitudes to education; and teachers. McFarlane also discusses unrest in the island (the ‘wild & extravagant ideas that originally started in Ireland’ and the ‘circulation of pernicious & revolutionary literature’) and refers to a petition signed by crofters in the west end. He recounts a conversation with a man named Donald, a crofter in Balevullin, and also refers to the consequences of inadequate farming techniques.
Digitised copy of a letter from John G Campbell to the Duke of Argyll, 8 May 1865. Campbell sends a report on the state of Tiree schools; the increasing number of scholars in Kirkapol; the need for a stand for children’s plaids and shawls in wet weather; bringing the school under government inspection; attendance at Balephuil; remarks on the teacher at Balephuil; remarks on Mr McCowan at Balevullin; declining attendance at Free Church schools; presentation of prizes by Mr Geekie; aversion to emigration and comments on the reasons for this.
Attached is a table entitled ‘Schools in the Island of Tiree Examined March 1865’ containing data for Kirkapol, Heylipol, Balevullin, Balephuil, and Cornaig. Contains figures for: the number attending; number present at examination; number on the roll studying reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, geography, Latin, Greek, geometry and mathematics, algebra, book-keeping.
From the archives of the Dukes of Argyll at Inveraray Castle, made available through the Written in the Landscape project.
Digitised copy of a letter from John G Campbell to the Duke of Argyll, dated 17 September 1864. Campbell discusses school prizes offered by the Duke, and the winners of the prizes; details of the examination held at Moss Church, attended by Mr Geekie, Dr Buchanan and Mr John McLean (Cornaig); problems with teachers, including those at Sandaig and Heylipol, and the difficulty in getting new teachers; the need to improve the school house at Heylipol; lack of schooling provision in the west end of the island; closure of the assembly school in Balevullin; difficulties with the Crois teacher (‘a mere boy & a teacher only in name’) and the lack of schooling over the winter in that part of the island; the achievements of John McLean (Cornaig) at College in Glasgow.
From the archives of the Dukes of Argyll at Inveraray Castle, made available through the Written in the Landscape project.
Transcript of a Police Report submitted to Tobermory Procurator Fiscal by John MacDougall (Constable) charging Archibald MacLean and four others with Breach of Peace and Malicious Mischief in December 1877. Archibald MacLean (son of Donald MacLean, Balinoe), George Campbell (son of John Campbell, Balinoe), Colin MacArthur (son of Isabella Campbell or MacArthur, Balinoe), John Campbell (son of Alexander Campbell, Balinoe), Roderick MacKinnon (son of Christina MacDonald, Balemartine) are accused of vandalising the garden and house of the schoolteacher, John MacFarlane, in Heylipol.
Statements are provided by Donald Paterson (son of Alexander Paterson, Balinoe), Niel Campbell (apprentice joiner and nephew of Archibald MacFadyen, Barrapol) and Mary MacFarlane (daughter of John MacFarlane, Heylipol).
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 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 Description of farms in Tiree. Contains observations made by ‘the minister McColl’ to the Duke of Argyll upon ‘the situation of improvements in Tiry in consequence of a conversation with his Grace in August 1786’. There is no transcript for this item.
Click to view a record for this item on Inveraray’s online catalogue.
From the archives of the Dukes of Argyll at Inveraray Castle, made available through the Written in the Landscape project.
Digitised copy of Instructions for the chamberlain of Tiree, 1762. These instructions were sent from the Duke of Argyll and include: cutting peats, making drains, work at the Duke’s house in Tiree, payment of rents, the tack of the two ends of Coll, obtaining an additional salary for a schoolmaster from the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, land repairs. There is no transcript for this item.
Click to view a record for this item on Inveraray’s online catalogue.
From the archives of the Dukes of Argyll at Inveraray Castle, made available through the Written in the Landscape project.
