The Parochial Board of Harris in 1851

The members of this board, who signed a document relating to the situation in the island on the 3rd of April 1851 in Tarbert, Harris, are listed here with some (tentative!) notes in parenthesis:

RODERICK MACDONALD Minister (by 1855 the minister of South Uist)

J. R. MACDONALD Factor (Born Snizort, Inverness-shire)

DONALD McRAE Tacksman (Factor's Nephew, Farmer of 200 acres Employing 8 men & Justice of the Peace?)

JOHN MACDONALD Tacksman (possibly the Farmer of 150 acres on the Island of Taransay?)

ALEX. McRAE Tacksman (presumably the Farmer of Nisishee Employing 21 men?)

ROBERT CLARK Surgeon (From Argyll)

NORMAN M'LEOD Merchant (possibly the 'Farmer & Ship-person' of Tarbert?)

JOHN M'LEOD Ground-Officer (From Harris and living at Port Esgein)

JOHN KERR Joiner and Tenant (see below)

R. H. WATSON Fish-curer (English-born living at Rodel)

JOHN TROTTER Superintendent of Croft Culture (Drat, I can't find him!)

ALEX. CAMPBELL Lighthouse-Keeper (Born Harris, Assistant Light Keeper at Rhinns Lighthouse, Island of Oversay, Argyll)

Several of these twelve men are familiar to me and make appearances in earlier entries so I feel a little bit mean in not having diligently made a list of links for you, but if any of them are of particular interest then a simple search should lead you to those entries.

However, I am going to look at John Kerr the 'Joiner and Tenant' who is NOT someone in my own immediate family tree but who does feature in that of a well-known island 'character'.

John Kerr (1811-1879) was the older of the two sons of a Farmer, John Kerr, and his wife, the Weaveress Marion Macleod of Scarista and Borve. Both brothers became Joiners/Carpenters and the younger one, Roderick, was the father of John Kerr, the Minister of Harris who appears in Finlay J Macdonald's 'Crowdie & Cream' as 'Ayatollah Kerr'.

John the Joiner makes three appearances in the Scottish censuses, as a Carpenter in Scarista in 1841, as a Joiner in Luskintyre with his Perthshire-born wife Janet in 1851, and as a 'Journeyman' in the company of two younger Joiners in 'East Tarbert Shed' in 1861. I should explain that in that year his wife, Jessie, was living in Obe with their five children and described herself as a 'House Carpenter's Wife'.

What happens next is not one, but two migrations for the next child is born in Wales in 1863 and the one after that in Birkenhead in England in 1866, and it was there that the 'Ayatollah's uncle died in 1879.

Looking at the Parochial Board list it is clear that several came from outside of Harris and that at least half had an interest in seeing the expansion of sheep-farms at the expense of the native population. There are also several family ties that I have yet to fully explore & make explicit but the lack of any representation of the majority of the populace on this particular Parochial Board is obvious.

Finally, as I do suspect that this John Kerr is related to me and am sure that he (like all the other Harris Kerrs whose family trees I have fully constructed) was descended from 'incomers', probably arriving at the time of Captain Alexander Macleod, I think that his inclusion is indicative that in many cases they were allied to the 'improvers'.

This is not the first time that I have made this observation, and situations are always far more complex than one can hope to fully and accurately reconstruct after such a long passage of time, but John the Joiner, Member of the Parochial Board of Harris, uncle of John the (future) Minister of the Established Church at Scarista, who finally ends his days in England, must be trying to tell me something!