A Death from Phthisis

On the 30th of September 1876, having suffered the debilitating effects of Tuberculosis for some twelve months, Mrs Catherine Macaskill died at the age of 26.
The Old Parish Record for September 1850 shows the Birth of Catherine Carr, the first child of Malcolm Kerr and Mary Macdonald, and the first of the four who survived into adulthood (two perished as infants) to die. (I have mentioned previously the then Registrar's preferred usage of the English 'Carr' to the name 'Kerr', which I think is actually truer to the Gaelic when spelled as 'Chiar'.)

Sadly I cannot find Catherine's Marriage Certificate so the last record that I have prior to her death is of the 20 year-old daughter living with her mother and three younger siblings at 46 Bayhead Street in Stornoway. Her father, Malcolm, is absent from the census, the 50 year-old seaman presumably at sea in the coastal trading that was his profession. (He ought to have completed a census return at his next port, which may well have been Belfast, but alas I cannot find him!) With Catherine at this time were her sister Annie, 17, and her brothers Alexander John, 15, and Malcolm, 11. Alexander John lists his occupation as being that of a Labourer, neglecting to mention that the previous year he had embarked on his first voyage as a sailor and travelled to Archangel aboard the 'Alliance' under Captain Macpherson.

Catherine's death was registered by her widower, the General Labourer Donald Macaskill, as having taken place at 11 Bayhead Street, the same address at which my grandfather had been born to her unmarried sister Annie the previous year. The buildings have long-since been demolished and a car lot now sits in their place, so I would welcome any information regarding them.

Phthisis has been blamed upon Blackhouses yet there are interesting references to the disease such as this that indicate that it was not the traditional dwellings that were responsible for the onset and development of the disease. Whatever the buildings at Number 11 were, they were certainly NOT 'blackhouses':

The predecessor of Dr. Millar (in Stornoway), when filling up schedules of life insurance, to the question relating to the death of the proposer's relatives by phthisis, is said to have invariably answered,—" No such disease is known in the island."

That quote comes from an address made in 1865-6 and appears in a volume called Memoirs read before the Anthropological Society of London, Volume 2 1865-6 p435-8 in a piece called Phthisis in the Hebrides. This short article on Phthisis in the Hebrides  is well worth reading in its entirety for it suggests that the islands (and the North-West Coast of Scotland) in the 1860s were relatively free of several significant diseases. They would not remain so forever. It is beyond the scope of this piece to examine the complexity of the subject but I do think that Catherine's death a decade after that address was given to its London audience serves to remind us that not all that may appear 'backward' or 'primitive' is intrinsically so. Had Catherine been living in either of the rural vernacular houses that her parents had been born in, rather than in urban overcrowding, then she, like so many others, might have been spared an early death.

Sir TOM Sopwith & Harris

In 1944 Sir TOM Sopwith purchased the North Harris Estate and in his book 'Discovering Lewis and Harris', James Shaw Grant writes '...whose yacht was crewed almost exclusively by Harrismen.'

It is not clear whether this referred to his yachts Endeavour and Endeavour II with which Sopwith challenged for the America's Cup in 1934 and 1937, his earlier motor yacht Vita (1927-1929), or the 1937 Philante that was requisitioned during WWII and sold in 1947 to become the Royal Yacht of Norway.

It would be good to discover more about this aspect of an estate owner who, alongside the Scotts before him, James Shaw Grant describes as 'good proprietors and were highly regarded'.

37.8%

The total coastline of Great Britain is about 19,491 miles of which 7,376 miles (37.8%) comes from the Scottish islands of Arran, Islay and Jura, Shetland and Orkney, and the Western Isles.

Source: http://www.cartography.org.uk/default.asp?contentID=749

Kebock Head or A' Chabag

I wrote previously about how the Crest came to be wrecked off Kebock Head on the Isle of Lewis and thought that I'd add a couple of links.
The first is to three recent photographs of the headland as seen from the sea - a fearsome sight!:
http://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/NB4213
The second is a dramatic account from 1925 of the sort of seas that face sailors in the area
http://www.electricscotland.com/books/hebrides30.htm taken from Behold the Hebrides
by Alasdair Alpin MacGregor.

I don't know when the light was installed at Kebock Head so if anyone does, please get in touch!


The Hydrographic survey 1849-1856 compiled this beautiful chart:
http://maps.nls.uk/coasts/view-admiralty/?id=1269&zoom=5&lat=14615&lon=1620&layers=B

Note: Modern Mariners have access to information such as this: http://www.anchorageworld.com/content/kebock-head

A Tender's Moment Of Quiet Reflection...

Geocrab, Harris

Convex View

This mirror is bolted to the rock and affords the occupants of the house a view of oncoming traffic along this serpentine stretch of the road through a cutting at Geocrab

Defining Space...

Bays of Harris

Drover & Dog

Howmore, South Uist

Sand, Sun & Seaware...

Beach, Howmore, south Uist

Machair Bound

A small herd being walked at eight in the evening to their beach-side grazing

The Friesian Flyer, Cadha, Isle of Harris

I originally called this the 'Zebrus' but I think 'The Friesian Flyer' fits her better?

Hattersley Loom, Loch Erisort Inn, South Lochs, Lewis

Three photos of the Hattersley Loom at the Loch Erisort Inn.

Kintulavig, Obbe, Strond, Borrisdale & Rodel

I did write a piece on this earlier but thought that I'd return and  include all the settlements along the Sound of Harris that are East of Northton. There are a couple of reasons for considering these five as a group.
Firstly, the boundaries were clearly somewhat imprecise (the 1851list  providing us with a glimpse that it was not just geographic situation but also tenancy of the land that led to the enumerator's sub-divisions) and by no means consistent over time.
Secondly, these settlements are spread along the coast from the harbour at Rodel to the old ferry landing point at Kyles Lodge giving them a prime position at a time when the sea was the highway.

1841 – Kindiping 83, Obb 148, Strond 332, Rodel 81
Total 644
1851 - Kentulavick 68, Obe 166, Strond 40, Port Esgein 150, Port Esgein Farm of Strond 89, Rodel 38
Total 551
1861 – Kenduling 54, Oab 138, Strond 179, Borrisdale 14, Rodel 32
Total 417
1871 – Keudebig 23, Obe 77, Strond 206, Borrisdale 8, Rodel 48
Total 362
1881 – Kentulivig 17, Obbe 147, Strond 241, Rodel 36
Total 441
1891 – Kendulavig 47, Obbe 181, Strond 213, Rodel 48
Total 489
1901 – Kintulivag 69, Obbe 169, Strond 169, Rodel 48
Total 455

The huge decline from 1841 to 1871 (approaching 44%) is remarkable but to what extent it reflects factors such as famine, disease and emigration I do not know. There was certainly a resurgence in numbers between 1871 and 1891 (followed by another decline during the next decade) but even that failed to return the population to pre-famine levels and is largely explained by the population increase in Harris as a whole.

I think that the growth of the importance of Tarbert, which is amply reflected in the growth and nature of the  mercantile settlement there, and developments in the North Harris Estate during the Scott family's ownership meant that these five places along the Sound wouldn't see any significant resurgence until the days of Lord Leverhulme over 20 years later.