In 1840 30,000 Highlanders were forced to move to Glasgow. None of them could speak English, none of them had ever seen a city before and none of them had ever performed any kind of work other than tending their own patch of land and their few cows and chickens. They were forced literally overnight from a life of subsistence farming to one of working indoors in mills and factories or working on the railroad, in the coal mines or in the many ship yards on the River Clyde.

In 1780 Glasgow's population had been 42,000 but by 1871 it had soared to 477,700. The slums in which they were forced to live were dreadful with no running water, no drainage or sewers and with rubbish littering the narrow spaces between the tenement buildings. In these conditions diseases like cholera, typhus and smallpox were rife and many of those who had not died in the bubble of their own highland homes soon died of disease and neglect in the rat-infested Glasgow slums.

Others were Cleared from their Highland homes to seaside fishing villages where they to had to give up the only way of life they knew and learn overnight how to fish in order to survive. The newspaper from this period are full of stories of drownings and boats going missing. Many of the fishing villages failed to support this huge influx of people and those who did not starve to death were eventually forced to join their fellow Gaels on the Coffin ships to North America and Australia.

The "Scotsman" newspaper reported on 11th March 1820 a riot which had taken place at Culrain in Ross-shire:

"On notice being given to these poor creatures to remove, they remonstrated, and stated unequivocally, that as they neither had money to transport them to America, nor the prospect of another situation to retire to, they neither could nor would remove, and that if force was to be used they would rather die on the spot that gave them birth than elsewhere."

Note that the Press only ever reported instances of disorder, they did not report the thousands of other evictions where the people simply gave in to the wishes of the factor or clan chieftain. It seems odd to us today that anyone should capitulate so easily to a gang of often drunk men who were about to tear down and destroy their home and possessions and place them in a state of total loss and destitution. But so strong was the tradition of hospitality amongst these gentle people that it was not unknown for the family about to be turned out and have their house destroyed to offer the Clearance gangs refreshment before they started their work.

Written and published by the Highland Clearances Memorial Fund

Back to Highland Clearances Memorial Fund Series Main Page

Part One: Background
Part Two: Highland Portrait
Part Three: Bonnie Prince Charlie
Part Four: The Clearances
Part Five: The Improvements
Part Six: The Sutherland Estate
Part Seven: The People and the Church
Part Eight: US Slave-Owners
Part Nine: Queen Victoria and Red Deer
Part Ten: 1840-1880 Eyewitness Accounts
Part Eleven: Famine!
Part Twelve: Famine Immigration
Part Thirteen: Forced Eviction to the Cities
Part Fourteen: Changing Ways
Part Fifteen: Things Change Yet Remain The Same
Appendix A: Highland Clearances, Dates & Places
Appendix B: Bibliography