Photo: Andrew Dowsett Bust by William Brodie, 1857, in birthplace cottage, Cromarty (NTS). CELEBRATING THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HUGH MILLER Scotland in the Early 19th Century Ethnography & folklore, geology & natural history, church & society Edited by Lester Borley Copyrights © The Editor & Contributors severally 2003 Published by the Cromarty Arts Trust & the Elphinstone Institute of the University of Aberdeen with the financial support of Scottish Natural Heritage and Ross & Cromarty Enterprise * A collection of papers presented at an international conference held in Cromarty from 10-12 October 2002, to celebrate the bicentenary of Hugh Miller. Organised by the Cromarty Arts Trust in collaboration with the Elphinstone Institute of the University of Aberdeen and the Highland Theological College. * Under the patronage of Dr James Hunter, Rt Hon Lord Mackay of Clashfern, Mrs Marian McKenzie Johnston, Dr John Nightingale of Cromarty, Mrs Anne Short, Professor Duncan Rice and Professor Roger Wheater. ISBN NB insert number in black before printing, or delete this whole line Foreword Dr John Nightingale Chairman, Cromarty Arts Trust Hugh Miller used his understanding of fossils to transport his readers back in time to witness a spell-binding spectacle of the creation and unfolding of the world in geo- logical time. The papers collected in this bicentenary volume similarly use Hugh Miller’s life and writings to open up the great issues of geology, church and society, and ethnography in Scotland in the first half of the nineteenth century – a period of great scientific discoveries, revolution in the church, and of clearances, emigration, urbani- sation and rapid social change. Miller’s ability to combine the skills of a Highland story-teller with the visual imagery of new technologies of panoramas and dioramas to dramatise his subject may be hard to match, but these papers leave readers in no doubt that this period was every bit as formative as the Scottish Enlightenment. As a self-taught geologist, a key player in the Disruption, and an acute observer of his own society, Hugh Miller challenges our modern tendency to compartmentalise religion, science and history. From his first attempts to edit his own paper at the age of 18, to his position as editor of a leading national newspaper for the last sixteen years of his life, there was little that Miller did not touch upon. As one of the most widely read Scottish authors of the nineteenth century, his accounts of the Clearances and his con- trasts between rural and urban Scotland, Highlander and Lowlander, the English and Scots have done much to shape modern perceptions and, as several of these papers remind us, deserve close scrutiny for precisely this reason. In his address on Miller, printed in this volume, Lord Mackay of Clashfern con- cluded that Hugh Miller was a man who knew how to make the best of the opportu- nities available to him. The same could be said of Cromarty. Left behind by the rail- roads in the nineteenth century, it was already making much of its association with Hugh Miller on the first centenary of his birth in 1902. A century later Miller is again part of the story through which the small community of Cromarty is reinventing itself as a place at the centre of things. The international conference at which the papers in this volume were delivered was held in Cromarty to coincide with the bicentenary of Miller’s birth. Speaking a month later at a British Council conference in Brussels, one of the speakers in Cromarty, Christopher Harvie, held up the ecumenical nature of the Miller event as a template: “mixing local historians, history of science experts and social historians from England, America and Australia, ministers of the Kirk and Lord Chancellor Mackay, and lots of locals, with plenty of good food and drink and a ceilidh - all this in a tiny eighteenth-century northern burgh, with (it seemed) an oil-rig at the bottom of every street. This was high-grade Wissenschaft, international, and fun, pret- ty central to the present Scottish predicament (parochialism versus internationality, sci- ence versus religion, science versus cash).” The Cromarty Arts Trust, as part of its goal of advancing educational opportunities in the Highlands, began preparing for the bicentenary in 2000 with a first conference in Cromarty, Miller’s birthplace, on “Hugh Miller in Context: the Cromarty Years”, followed by a second conference held in Edinburgh in October 2001 on “Hugh Miller in Context: the Edinburgh Years” (the proceedings of both conferences were published 2 by the Cromarty Arts Trust in 2002). Thereafter, joining forces with the local com- munity and national institutions, momentum increased and the bicentenary saw a year long programme of over 80 Miller-related events both within Cromarty and through- out Scotland. A new opera on Miller was written and performed throughout the town with every primary school child taking part. The day of the bicentenary itself opened with the unveiling by Dr Margaret Mackay of a four metre high standing stone on the town’s shore: commissioned by the Cromarty Arts Trust and Cromarty Harbour Trust, it was inscribed by Richard Kindersley with Miller’s report of the departure of the emi- grant ship, the Cleopatra, in 1831, and the names of 39 ships which are known to have left Cromarty for the new world in the 1830s and 1840s; Miller considered himself unsurpassed as a letter carver and so it seemed particularly appropriate to have some of his words inscribed on stone, words which commemorate Cromarty’s place as the principal departure point from the Highlands in these decades; the dedication speech by Margaret Mackay, whose family were amongst those who emigrated on the Cleopatra, is included in this volume. Following a piped procession to the Old Kirk, where Lord Mackay gave his address, the conference opened in the afternoon. The success of the conference showed what it is possible to achieve in the Highlands and provides another feather in the cap of Cromarty, which notably already hosts field stations of both Robert Gordon University and the University of Aberdeen, the latter of which has built up an international reputation for its research on marine mammals. It also provides a marker for the future. A number of speakers at the conference flagged up uncharted areas of study that the Cromarty Arts Trust could encourage in future years within the fields of both geology and history – a powerful plea was made for the systematic study of estate papers which are still in the Highlands, with a view to linking current work on famines and emigration to the wider contexts of war, indus- trialisation, and population growth. Such a conference requires support and unstinting effort from many quarters. Ross and Cromarty Enterprise and Scottish Natural Heritage joined the Cromarty Arts Trust in covering the core costs with further generous support being provided by the Binks Trust, Cromarty Firth Port Authority, Highland Council, Ellice and Rosa Macdonald, and the University of Aberdeen among many others. The Cromarty Arts Trust was delighted to be joined in the organisation of the conference by the Elphinstone Institute of the University of Aberdeen and by the Highland Theological College, a constituent college of the University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute. Their respective heads, Ian Russell and Andrew McGowan, were joined by Cromarty Arts Trustee, Philip Hamilton-Grierson, Roger Wheater, the chair- man of the National Trust for Scotland (which has maintained Hugh Miller’s cottage in Cromarty since the 1930s) and James Hunter, the historian and chairman of Highlands and Islands Enterprise, as chairmen of individual sessions of the conference. David Alston, Sandy Thomson and Peter Tilbrook acted as rapporteurs of the themed sessions. Colin Macfadyen, Lyall Anderson and Nigel Trewin led tours to the foreshore at Eathie where Miller first began to observe fossils. Michael Taylor of the National Museums of Scotland was unstinting in his advice on all matters Millerite. Very con- siderable thanks are due to each of these institutions and individuals. But above all thanks are due first to Lester Borley who, with the unstinting help of his wife, Mary, was indefatigable in promoting and organising the conference and seeing these papers through to publication, and second to the community of Cromarty as a whole for going out of its way to welcome delegates and make the conference one to remember. Last, but not least, we are indebted to all the speakers who gave so much of their time and expert knowledge to make the event a fitting conclusion to our wide-ranging celebration of the life and times of Hugh Miller. 3 Contents 2 Foreword by John Nightingale 8 Address by Rt. Hon. Lord Mackay of Clashfern 12 Dedication of the Emigration Stone by Dr Margaret Mackay Conference Opening Plenary Session Chaired by Professor Roger Wheater OBE, Chairman, National Trust for Scotland 14 Caring for Nature: the Transatlantic Canvas of the Nineteenth Century Professor David Lowenthal Emeritus Professor of Geography, University College, London 34 Hugh Miller and the Scottish Crisis Professor Christopher Harvie Professor of Scottish & Irish History, Tübingen University, Germany 48 Hugh Miller and Resistance to the Highland Clearances Professor Eric Richards Dept. of History, Flinders University, Adelaide, S. Australia * Symposium on Ethnography & Folklore Chaired by Dr Ian Russell, Director, The Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen 64 Summary of Discussion Cllr Dr David Alston, Curator, Cromarty Courthouse Museum 67 Place-names of the Cromarty Firthlands Ian Fraser Hon Fellow, School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh 72 Learning from Cromarty: The Lessons of Town and Landscape Dr William A. Brogden Scott Sutherland School, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen 76 Miller’s Tale: Narrating History and Tradition Professor Edward J.