The first lecture in the Field Club programme was given to a sizeable, interested audience by Mr David Dick of Dundee, a BA (Hons) graduate in English Literature and History (University of North London), and post-graduate researcher at University College, London and University of St Andrews. Some few years ago he researched the history of Corrour Estate and jointly published with Lisbet Koerner 'Corrour, A History of a Sporting Estate'. As a result of this research he became aware the Estate in Lochaber had been part of the Gordon Estates until sold in the 1830s. From a large map the extent of the Gordon Estates was identified extending from Lochaber, through Inverness-shire, Elgin, Banff and Aberdeenshire.
In 1827 when the 4th Duke of Gordon died, the Gordon Estates had accrued a debt of £500,000 and remarkably the family estate was able to survive although at a much reduced size, and was more or less solvent within ten years of his death.
Mr Dick traced the steps taken by Alexander, the 4th Duke to tackle the Estate's debt by setting up a trust to administer the Estate after his death including provision for payment of £6,000 per annum to be paid to his heir, the Marquis of Huntly (later the 5th Duke of Gordon) to curb the excesses of his extravagant eldest son. The Duke's illegitimate son, Colonel Gordon was a further drain on the Estate - over a ten year period 1809-19 he was paid £15,770 over three times his allowance for the period, we were told. In order to pay off debts and ensure the survival of the Estate a new Trust was created in 1815 giving the Trustees wider powers to manage the Estate until solvent. The Trust came into operation on the Duke's death in 1827 when the debt stood at £465,695 but bonds and legacies increased it to £502,775. The list of creditors, mainly from Aberdeenshire, contained 350 entries ranging from £100 to £30,000, some debts 30 years old, many were small creditors, probably traders or tradesmen, even the 'Poor of the Parish of Drumblade' were listed for the 1826 allowance of £200. The Trustees now in control persuaded the Royal Bank of Scotland to lend £450,000 to liquidate most of the debt, at 4% per annum (£16,000 per annum), to be repaid from landsales, and any surpluses generated from economies.
The Duke, concerned about the eventual succession to the Estate as his son did not have an heir, arranged for it to pass through his daughter, Charlotte, Duchess of Richmond.
The estate passed to Charlotte's son, the Duke of Richmond on the death of the 5th Duke of Gordon.
From 1827, our speaker continued, the Trustees set about selling off parts between 1831-32- £98,000 of the debt was repaid in his way. The Trustees appointed a surveyor, and the Lordship of Lochaber was divided into lots for sale; Lot 1, the Mamore farms, were sold to Cameron of Locheil, Lot 2, farms north of River Spean, went to the Earl of Aboyne (this later became part of Lord Abinger's Inverlochy Estate, Lot 3, and part Lot 4 were sold to John Walker of Dumfriesshire - this stretched from Glen Spean to the border of Perthshire, near Rannoch station. Corrour Estate is a large part of this area; Lot 4 north of the Spean was sold to Andrew Belford; A total of 122,691 acres were sold in Lochaber for £128,600. Another large sale around this time was the Estate of Durris in Aberdeenshire which raised £110,000 and land in Badenoch sold for £98,000. Other sales reduced the debt to £122,059 at the death of the 5th Duke in 1835. This outstanding sum was larger than it should have been as the Trustees partly failed in one of the Trust objectives (to curb the 5th Duke's extravagance) as he had persuaded them to buy Newtongarry from him at £40,000 and he was allowed to draw the 4% interest earned on the
Records, we were told, show sales of £434,000 while debts amounted to £584,000. There were, however, arrears of rent, £25,000 in Badenoch and £29,000 in Lochaber which may have determined which parts to sell.
Despite these factors, however, Mr Dick informed the members that the Duke of Richmond inherited a considerable estate in four counties. He quoted from Bateman's The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland in 1874 showed his holdings in Banff 160,000 acres, in Aberdeenshire 60,000 acres, Inverness-shire 27,000 acres and Elgin 12,000 acres, a total of 256,000 acres. He considered the Trustees had done well.
From his study of The Sportsman's and Tourist's General Time Table and Guide to the Rivers, Lochs, Moor and Deer Forests of Scotland (1873 until c.World War I) he found useful evidence that Highland sports replaced sheep farming in many areas and its increasing popularity led to rising sporting rents. (e.g. at Coignafearn the sporting rent rose from £300 in 1873 to £2,000 in 1898). Such increases were not all windfall profits as many landowners invested heavily in building comfortable lodges in remote locations. The Corrour records of shooting tenants and rentals from 1873 to 1932 were examined (sources being the Sportsman's periodical, Corrour accounts in Glasgow City Archives) included Mr H.C. Phipps, Colonel Guinness, Robert Fleming (the Banker?), Thomas Londsdale, Commander Egerton paying substantial figures, apart from 1915, 1916, but begin to fall off from 1925; Probably due to the economic situation in the 1920s. The game bag lists not only the number of stags killed but also grouse, black game, ptarmigan, snipe, duck, hares, woodcock, golden plover, roe deer, rabbits - and various?
The speaker, while aware it is generally accepted that sheep farming went into decline because of foreign competition and was probably accelerated by the popularity of Highland sports, was of the view that the increasing popularity of Highland sports had a momentum entirely independent of the decline of sheep farming in the Highlands - the rising sporting rentals in the late nineteenth, early twentieth centuries bear evidence in support of this. For many landowners it would have been a rational economic decision to let to sporting tenants rather than sheep farmers.
The sportsmen renting sporting estates came from a wide variety of backgrounds, people of means, many landowners from Scotland and England but as time passed the self-made rich and their families appear more frequently on the lists, a roll of honour of the successful in 19th century Britain and to a lesser extent the USA. The lists include such household names as Worthington, Haig, Crabbie, George Coats, Andrew Carnegie and his partner's son, Henry Phipps, the Guinness family, Mr W. Cox, the jute manufacturer from Dundee; Glenfiddich and Blackwater in Banffshire regularly remained in the Duke's possession, unlet. Mr Dick amused his audience with one entry in the Sportsman's periodical, in 1893 Mr John M. Crabbie (of ginger wine fame) rented Auchlyne on the Breadalbane Estate, Perthshire while five years later a Captain Crabbe (his son) also rented Auchlyne, assuming this was a misprint, he was later told Captain Crabbe had changed his name having been blackballed from the New Club in Edinburgh because his family were in trade!
Mr Dick had followed up the land use of the parts of the Estate sold - Cluny Macpherson bought part in Badenoch and carried out traditional land management, in Lochaber much land being sold to people from outside the area apart from Cameron of Locheil, Inverlochy went to Lord Abinger in 1841, Loch Treig Estates went to the West Indies merchant John Walker of Dumfriesshire producing a healthy profit from high sheep farming land for c.40 years but when sheep farming went into decline the estate turned to deer stalking - the sporting rental grew from £553 in 1873 to £1400 in 1888. By 1891 the estate was sold to Sir John Stirling Maxwell who built a new lodge, roads and staff cottages but is best remembered for his pioneering forestry plantations at Loch Ossian at an altitude of 1200 - 1700 feet although this and climate mitigated against commercial success. One wit, the speaker said, remarked that 'a rose and two Corrour trees make a nice button-hole'. However, modern forestry benefited greatly from Sir John's experiments and many of his trees still stand. Sir John compared the percentage of afforested land in UK with potential enemies before World War I, UK 4%, Germany 26%, Austria-Hungary 30%, Russia 40% (but mostly inaccessible). Hence one of the reasons for establishment of the Forestry Commission in 1919.
What we have today at Corrour and many sporting estates, Mr Dick concluded, is essentially the system that was created in the 19th century - in most cases wealthy purchasers of land have not changed the use and the sporting estate system has remained. He invited discussion on the future of sporting estates in view of land-reform legislation, in particular the impact on their value on the open market, or the possibility of some compromise whereby grazing and sport worked together as was more common in the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries.
Some valuable comments were raised regarding capital investment made by way of shooting lodges and other facilities in remote areas of the Highlands, the employment market when such estates were more labour intensive; the meeting rounded off with a very competent summing-up and vote of thanks by Vice-president Bob Steward, to our speaker who had, he felt, well-fulfilled his remit in terms of the Bursary award.