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David Taylor’s Followers (1)
David Taylor
Genre
Influences
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'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863
by
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published
2022
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3 editions
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The Wild Black Region: Badenoch 1750 - 1800
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published
2016
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4 editions
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Glen Banchor: A Highland Glen and its People
by
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published
2024
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* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.
“...while the troubles sweeping Europe and southern Britain comprised liberal and radical elements protesting against powerful elites to secure better rights, in Badenoch it was the opposite - a subtle exercise of power by a small but influential outsider elite seeking to sweep aside the long-established rights of the lower orders, whose mere presence disrupted their leisure pursuits. There was, of course, a measure of protest, but the scattered and impoverished nature of local communities rendered them powerless. Land-owners knew well enough which side their bread was buttered on - a trend that became increasingly evident over the next two decades.”
― 'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863
― 'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863
“The physical reclamation of the floodplain of the Spey involved a hugely ambitious series of localised engineering projects, surely equal to any undertaking in lowland Britain - perhaps more so considering the region's remoteness and economic difficulties.
...Around 40 miles of banks were constructed over five decades, reclaiming some 4,000 acres of the most fertile land in Badenoch, dramatically increasing the region's pastoral and arable yields to the benefit of all. Many of these floodbanks still protect the riverside fields, a monument not just to the ideology of Enlightenment and improvement, but to the vision and labour of all involved - lairds, tacksmen, tenants and labourers. Ironically, the huge Invereshie reclamation scheme, the great drain and riverbanks, are now - in response to a new ideological vision being re-converted into wetlands, the Invereshie Meadows reverting to the Insh Marshes.”
― 'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863
...Around 40 miles of banks were constructed over five decades, reclaiming some 4,000 acres of the most fertile land in Badenoch, dramatically increasing the region's pastoral and arable yields to the benefit of all. Many of these floodbanks still protect the riverside fields, a monument not just to the ideology of Enlightenment and improvement, but to the vision and labour of all involved - lairds, tacksmen, tenants and labourers. Ironically, the huge Invereshie reclamation scheme, the great drain and riverbanks, are now - in response to a new ideological vision being re-converted into wetlands, the Invereshie Meadows reverting to the Insh Marshes.”
― 'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863
“Landowners were indeed guilty of an astonishingly myopic cupidity, as exposed by the Reverend John Macdonald of Alvie in 1835. During the war, he pointed out, local rents had 'more than tripled', but 'the price of cattle and sheep was so high, that the tenants were enabled the bear these heavy burdens'. Twenty years on, however, 'it is entirely out of their power to pay the rents then imposed upon them. Since the peace, the price of cattle has been so much reduced, that sometimes three can scarcely be sold at the price formerly received for one; while the rent continue still the same.' Arrears, he predicted, would soar and tenants go bankrupt until landowners eventually fell victim to their own policies.”
― 'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863
― 'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863
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