The Aurora
FAMILY HISTORY
Building this cottage has given me a surprising insight to the lives of my ancestors on the island and beyond and the similarities throughout the generations. The Ross family originated from Wester Ross. My great-great –great- grandfather, Donald Ross, was born in an area called Drummond near Evanton in 1758. The main industry was crofting; however the land was cleared for sheep as instructed by the landowner, Sir Hamish Munro, who was serving in the British Army in India. With the loss of livestock and arable land, families suffered without the means of making a living. On Sir Hamish’s return to Wester Ross, he was saddened by the plight of the crofters and their refusal to accept charity. He ordered a monument to be built on the nearby Fyrish Hill, a replication of a monument in India where he won his last battle. For this he employed the crofters and legend says that as they transported the boulders to the top of the hill, he had them rolled down the hill again. He would then pay them again for doing the same task. We have assumed by Donald Ross’s place of birth that he would have been employed in the building of this monument, which still stands today.
His son Neil Ross, was born in Evanton in 1797, and followed his father footsteps and became a stonemason. As work was scarce in Wester Ross, he travelled to Skye and was employed by the Macleod’s working as a stonemason on Dunvegan Castle. He married a Christina MacLeod and settled in the Glendale village on Skye. During this period, the Macleod’s owned the island of St Kilda. In the the 1830’s, Neil was sent to St Kilda to help build new stone thatched cottages for the tenants, leaving his wife on Skye with seven sons. For over 25 years he travelled to and from St Kilda and in 1862, during one of his trips, he collapsed and died carrying water from the well to his boat. The St Kilda locals named the well after him and the well was known locally as ‘Ross’s well’.
His son, my great -great -grandfather, Alexander Ross, married Dorothy MacDonald and settled in an area called Fasach on Skye. He was to break with the stonemason tradition and became a crofting tenant on the Macleod’s estate. In the 1840’s, the land owners of Skye, decided that large sheep farms were more profitable than crofting tenants. The rents were raised beyond their means resulting in evictions. Evicted families were left with no means of support and anyone to offer them help or shelter were to suffer the same plight. In 1883, a Royal Commission was set up to investigate the actions of the landowners.
I have often heard my father talk of a factor holding a gun to his grandmothers head and of their dog being shot and thrown in to the well.
I discovered when looking up the Royal Commission report of 1883, my great grandfather appeared as a witness to the atrocities and his statement does indeed mention the incident. He explained that of the 22 families living in the area, only three remained and that the rest had been evicted making way for sheep. This was the work of a MacLeod factor called Tormore. He explained that 7 years prior, he had summoned the Macleod’s gamekeeper to court for killing his dog and shooting a rifle in the direction of his wife. One of his neighbours gave evidence and appeared as a witness. The gamekeeper was found guilty and received a fine or 3 days imprisonment. The consequences of reporting the crime, resulted in Donald and his neighbour were both served with eviction notices, despite them keeping up with the rents, which at that point had been trebled. We can only assume that he would have moved on to the barren rocks of the seashore to make a living, as the rest of the Island had to endure.
The evidence of the crofters to the Royal Commission resulted in the Crofters Holding Act in 1886 which gave the crofters security of tenure ensuring that clearances by land owners would never happen again. I was pleased to see that one of my ancestors played a part in what has now become the Crofters Commission. Due to the decimation of crofting, his son, Alexander went to sea in 1898. In 1903 he returned and secured a job building railway viaducts on the West Highland Line. The similarities between the viaducts of my grandfather’s time and the Fyrish Monument of his great-great grandfather’s time are obvious, and I am immensely proud of their achievements and involvement when I see them today.
One of his grand uncles cousin Alastair Ban Mackinnon served on board the Aurora as a deckhand on the Skackleton mission to the South Pole. Island seafarers were sought after due to their experience in harsh and turbulent seas. In and around 1920, the late MacLeod chief co-operated with the government and agreed to break up some of his estates, allowing the islanders to return to crofts on the land. My grandfather returned to Skye and rented a croft in Caroy, where he set about building a house. After a few years, he rented the Balmeanach croft. My father, Ewan Ross, was born in this house in 1925 and still lives there today. Alexander left the house to my father and his brother on his death, and they continued in the crofting life. During and after the war, my father turned to building and worked in the quarries on Skye, breaking up stone for new roads on the island. On my marriage, my father transferred the deeds of the Balmeanach croft to myself. Prior to this I had served my time as a bricklayer and worked on many houses on the island before changing direction and going offshore to work in the oil industry. It was a labour of love, building the cottage; it was a feeling of walking in the footsteps of my ancestors. I was lucky that I could employ the help of builders, tradesman and modern machinery. It now gives me greater appreciation of their endurance and hard work, which has made it possible for me to be where I am today, in a beautiful landscape, which I own, surrounded by family and good friends.