Quite a nice day, with good sunny spells, but with distant showers looming on the southern horizon. One crossed Stornoway around 5pm, but it was only a sprinkling. Tomorrow morning will see some substantial showers crossing our area.
I have today completed the transcription of the Napier Report of 1883. This is a major document in the history of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and paved the way for a complete overhaul of legislation related to landownership, tenancy, usage &c. Although 129 years have passed, the Report remains relevant today. It is a large document, encompassing 46,600 questions, 5 tomes of 800 pages each which have been scanned by Lochaber College Mallaig (now the West Highland campus of the University of the Highlands and Islands) in 2007. I started this in March 2008, but did not properly commence the transcribing until the spring of 2010. I copied the text off PDF-files onto a Word document, cleaned up the mess and copied the results into a Blogger site. There are now 10 blogs, related to different areas of the Highlands and Islands. I have asked Lochaber College Mallaig to rescan one appendix for me. Hope they will oblige.
As you know I have been popping in and out of the details of Napier report. Tonight I was browsing again my eye especially caught details in the Tobermory Mull section when a certain Lachlan Kennedy was being interviewed...I think I may have told you my dear friends who live now in Elie in Fife had estate and land on Mull. Well what shoudl pop out at me but the Quinish Estate! that is hwere they were before the second world war. I am not sure how long they had Quinish House etc. but I do know it had to be sold and the Family were then settled in Penicuik Midlothian. But still had and have conection with Dervaig having a house called Torr...yes the same Torr as is mention in the report...all very facinating. And the sheep are still grazing on Torr hill and my friends every year have mutton from the self same sheep... I have stayed numerous times in Torr..(and in the actual village of Dervaig..with another friend who left Edinburgh to live there) ..it is amazing to read about places that are so "real" to one and find that so little has really changed Guido..
ReplyDeleteThank you for all the hard work that you have done.