INTRODUCTION

THIS DIAGNOSIS OF THE neuroses and monomania generated by nineteenth- century estate management was given to a Royal Commission, appointed to inquire into the conditions of the small tenants in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, when it heard evidence in the remote crofting township of Bettyhill, Sutherland in late 1883. It was given by a local Free Church minister, and represents a strikingly moral and yet empathetic description of the profession. We might note that the minister does not target any individual factor, but instead outlines the fundamental fractures and tensions in the nature of the profession; although, given the personality of the long-standing factor for the Sutherland estates in the north of the county, John Crawford, the minister could perhaps not be blamed for including some personal criticism as well.

The management of landed estates in an era of high paternalism, the professionalisation of land management and – in direct tension with these broad factors – sustained attack on landed privilege represented far more than any simple economic or asset management. It was a cultural and moral exercise and as such often generated more heat than light; it was a contentious, tangled operation with a significant attrition rate. This is perhaps unsurprising when we consider the scale of the power held by later nineteenth-century estate managers. The focus of this chapter is the Sutherland estates, the largest landed estate in western Europe in this period. The factors employed by the ducal family were in charge of territories as large as many counties – even countries or colonies – and as such, an examination of their methods, strengths, weaknesses and responses in a period of enormous change and challenge is instructive.