Perceptions of the Rural Poor: Social Reform and Resistance in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland

Summary

This paper investigates the processes of rural social reform in the Scottish Highlands during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through a study of the Isle of Lewis, the most northerly of the Scottish Hebrides, the conflicting attitudes of tenants and those in a position of authority to tenant housing and living conditions are explored. While the desire for social reform drove landowners (and, later, local authorities) to try and improve the living conditions of the Lewis tenants, such improvements met with widespread resistance from the tenants themselves. Despite this, an examination of tenant housing and lifestyle throughout the period in question shows that tenants were adapting their houses and, at times, were engaging in conspicuous consumption. The contrasting cultural backgrounds of the tenants and those in authority led to differing views about notions of comfort, acceptable standards of living and the need for improvement.  

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Perspectives on the Rural and Urban Poor: Great Britain 1550-1950   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 363