The Orkney News
The Rousay Clearances
This is part three of a 3 part series looking at Rousay - The Rousay Clearances
by Fiona Grahame
The abandoned Skaill farm with covered excavation
“ALTHOUGH I may have to leave the land, I am prepared to speak the truth, and will not be cowed by landlordism. I consider as Burns says – ‘a man’s a man for a’ that’”
The words of James Leonard, crofter and mason of Digro, Rousay, as he gave evidence to the Napier Commission in 1883. The commission was charged with inquiring into the condition of the crofters and cottars in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. It had come to Orkney to take evidence from those who worked the land about what had happened and was still happening in their communities. Nearly the whole of the island of Rousay by this time was owned by retired ‘hero’ of Lucknow and the Indian Mutiny, General Frederick William Traill-Burroughs, the Little General. Born in India and having served in the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders, Frederick inherited lands in Rousay when a distant uncle, George William Traill, suddenly died. Frederick, who had never been to Rousay, was only 16 when the lands became his and changed his name to ‘Traill-Burroughs’.