AS I wrote last week, the Highland Potato Famine of 1846-47 was nowhere near the scale of Ireland’s simultaneous Great Hunger or an Gorta Mór, certainly not in terms of deaths, but then again the population of the affected areas of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland at that time numbered less than 250,000, compared to more than eight million in Ireland.

I would contend however, that per head of population, the Highland Potato Famine caused as much misery, if not actual deaths, than an Gorta Mór. The effects on the Highands and several islands, such as Skye, were devastating in that people emigrated in their droves after potato and other crop failures, as we saw last week in 1836-37, which was the last major crop failure before the Famine of 1846-47.

I think it is significant that few Scots know or use the term Gaiseadh a’ bhuntàta which was mooted to me as a Scottish Gaelic alternative to the Highland Potato Famine of 1846-47. Consulting my tame Gaelic expert, Gaiseadh a’ bhuntàta is actually the Gaelic for potato blight, but for many historians and academics it has become synonymous with the Highland Potato Famine and I believe many people don’t know about the famine in Scotland because they have been conditioned to think that “Britain” dealt with the problem.

Strangely enough, several histories of Scotland downplay the importance of the famine and I believe this is because we still do not know exactly how many people died from hunger and disease in 1846-47 and afterwards.

Certainly, thousands died, and many more emigrated to escape poverty and hunger, but lowland Scotland, exiled Scots, the churches – particularly the Free Church of Scotland – and associations in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London all came to the relief of the hungry, diseased and destitute.

READ MORE: How the potato famine hit Scotland hard

For me, the famine is very much part of the Clearances. If you wish a dramatised account of the Clearances you could read John Prebble’s highly influential 1963 book The Highland Clearances.

I prefer Sir Tom Devine’s forensic books on the Clearances, both Highland and Lowland, and for the best account of the immediate effects of the famine you should read the recent Insurrection: Famine Winter by James Hunter, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of the Highlands and Islands and its first Director of the Centre for History. He has called the Famine “ a human tragedy unparalleled in modern Scottish history.”

Why the potato and why the Highlands? As we saw last week, potatoes had become the staple food of the Highlands and Islands by the 1830s. In Martin Martin’s legendary Description of the Western Islands, published in 1703, he described the diet of the people of Skye as “butter, cheese, milk, potatoes, colworts, brochan, that is oatmeal and water boiled”.

They were a relatively new crop, and in the Highlands and Islands they all but supplanted the existing grains – something that did not happen in lowland Scotland where, despite massive growth in potato cultivation, agriculture remained of the mixed arable type.

The humble spud was not always popular. When they were introduced into South Uist by the local landowners in 1743, the crofters refused to eat them – but they soon did.

That endearing publication The Northern Highlands in the 19th Century by James Barron tells of the run-up to the Famine: “In the second half of the eighteenth century, potatoes spread rapidly, and became a staple food in the Highlands and Lowlands. Dr James Robertson, in his survey of the county of Inverness in 1808, says that one-half of the inhabitants of Scotland lived mainly on potatoes during nine or 10 months of the year, and that the proportion was higher in the Highlands. In the next thirty years the growth of the plant had probably extended. Such an extraordinary dependence on a single product was certain some day to bring disaster.

“The Poor Law Act for Scotland was passed in 1845. It was of some assistance in the disastrous years that followed, but the calamity was far too severe to be dealt with by the new system.”

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THE 1846-47 potato famine did not just affect Ireland and Scotland but practically the whole of Northern Europe. It was caused by a rapidly-spreading fungus called Phytophthora infestans.

It was first spotted on Harris in June, 1846, where the potatoes stored in pits from the previous year were found to be inedible due to the fungus. This was not a total disaster, as the population were able to sustain themselves with fish, shellfish and sand eels.

It seemed to be a localised outbreak and though the Harris people were soon asking for assistance as their consumption of carbohydrate diminished, it appeared that the Outer Hebrides had escaped. Not so – by the autumn, potatoes were turning to mush in practically every field and croft across the Highlands and Islands. Now the clamour for aid grew as the already poor people were left with nothing to eat.

As winter approached, the situation was becoming desperate. Many crofting and farm-working families had to resort to taking out loans which would leave them in desperate straits for years afterwards, but what was the alternative – to see their families starve? And as always happens in such times, the price of grain-based food – mostly oatmeal – rose, putting it beyond the reach of many crofters across the Highlands and down into Argyll and the North East of Scotland. It was going to take a monumental effort to stop a disaster of Biblical proportions and the extraordinary thing is that people all around the Highlands and further south genuinely did rally round to combat the effects of famine.

Why extraordinary? Well only 100 years before, the government in London had instigated ethnic cleansing of Highlanders and their culture after the Battle of Culloden, but the deeds of Highland warriors on imperialist battlefields and ships – plus the promotion of the “noble Highlander” romanticism –had changed many southern views, though there may have been a strong current of self-preservation as the lowlands and England did not want another invasion by northern Scots.

It all started at the capital of the Highlands in late 1846. Barron records: “Reports poured in from all quarters. Prompt measures were taken in the district to afford relief. The Provost of Inverness called a public meeting, which appointed a committee to co-operate with the Town Council and the county proprietors. The latter met in the various northern counties to subscribe a guarantee fund.”

In the opinion of the contemporary historian Spencer Walpole, the Westminster Government had been overwhelmed by the extent of the calamity in Ireland, and did little for the Highlands, except to provide vessels and means of administration, and latterly to advance loans to proprietors under the Drainage Act.

The government could hardly say they knew nothing about it – Queen Victoria herself mentioned the plight of both Ireland and the Highlands in her speech at the opening of Parliament in January 1847.

HANSARD records that Sir Robert Inglis, the noted antisemite opponent of Benjamin Disraeli, gave a reply to the Queen’s speech in which he “thanked hon. Members on both sides for that generous cheer, which acknowledged that he was not describing too strongly the sufferings and patience of their countrymen, the people of Scotland.”

He went on: “It was true that the people of Scotland had not banded themselves in, or enjoyed the advantage of, ‘United Scotchmen’ meetings, or of being represented by such deputations as had come from Ireland; for they had been patient under their misery.”

Interestingly, Inglis noted: “Although all Scotland suffered from the disease, its worst consequences fell on the Western Highlands and Islands, where poverty was greatest, where there was little compensation from the cultivation of other crops, and none from the existence of manufacturing industries … he could appeal to the representatives of Scotland for the truth of the fact which he asserted, that the inhabitants of the West Highlands and Islands had suffered almost as much as those of Ireland, and had borne it with a Christian patience which did honour to their profession of religion.”

Religion alone does not feed you, but the Free Church of Scotland – established only four years before at the Great Disruption – took up the cause and became the leading organiser of aid to the Highlands.

It was genuine Christianity that drove their activities, and private charities also sprang up, including the Relief for the Destitute Inhabitants of the Highlands, while some landowners rose to the challenge presented by the devastation visited up their tenants. Walpole wrote: “The lairds of Western Scotland showed the Irish landlords an example which the latter might have followed with advantage.”

Sir James Matheson, owner of Lewis, guaranteed a supply of corn for the colossal sum in those days of £40,000. Clan chief Macleod of Macleod and Lord Macdonald just about bankrupted themselves by their efforts on the Isle of Skye. The family of the Duke of Sutherland – the Clearance “mannie” himself – guaranteed food for their remaining crofters.

Barron records: “A meeting was called in Edinburgh in December, and another in Glasgow in January 1847 to raise subscriptions, and astonishing sums of money were raised from people at home and abroad. A central board was formed and divided into two sections, each taking charge of the relief of a certain portion of the country, and each having its own secretary and treasurer.”

In London, the great and the good set up the British Relief Association for the Relief of Distress in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland.

In 1847 the Association decided to apportion one-sixth of its funds to provide assistance in Scotland and to look after Scottish needs the Earl of Dalhousie and Arthur Kinnaird were recruited to the committee, their remit being to work with agencies already established in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

There was a curious phenomenon in that winter of 1846-47, namely what James Hunter has called ‘insurrection’. People in coastal villages in particular had to stand by and watch cargoes of grain being shipped out, usually to southern areas where they fetched bigger prices, while they and their neighbours were starving.

In several areas there were clashes with soldiers sent to ensure these exports could go ahead. In Wick, some 104 infantrymen commanded by a Captain Evans Gordon confronted a mob estimated at 2000 by the Inverness Courier. The locals were determined to prevent a small ship carrying grain from leaving the harbour, and some 150 boats blocked the exit. Under a hail of stones, Gordon ordered a bayonet charge and then had his men fire warning shots that hit a man and a woman, The violent uprising ended then, but the soldiers had to quick march to Thurso to stop another incident.

No wonder, then, that so many people left for other lands. Next week: emigration.