Kintyre Instructions: The 5th Duke of Argyll's Instructions to His Kintyre Chamberlain, 1785-1805 - Softcover

Cregeen, Eric R; Martin, Angus

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1845301099 ISBN 13: 9781845301095

Publisher: Grimsay Press, 2011

Synopsis

The House of Argyll acquired its Kintyre lands in 1607 and sold them in 1956. During that period, the Campbells exerted a powerful influence in Kintyre, through politics, religion, and agrarian reform. The core of this book is the 5th Duke of Argyll's estate instructions to his Kintyre chamberlain, or manager, from 1785 to 1805. Through these annual directions, and the chamberlain's responses, emerge the complex workings of a West Highland estate. Kintyre historian Angus Martin has taken the late Eric R. Cregeen's hitherto unpublished transcript of the instructions and illuminated them with a lengthy series of commentaries, explaining agricultural practices, social customs and cultural nuances, and providing biographical sketches of the chief personalities of the time. The study is informatively introduced by both Cregeen and Martin, enhanced by 72 illustrations, ranging from eighteenth century portraits to present-day photographs, contains a reproduction of George Langlands' celebrated 1801 map of Kintyre, and is fully furnished with references, notes and index.

About this title

About the Author

Eric R Cregeen, who died in 1983, was an internationally renowned social historian.

Angus Martin is a poet and historian whose knowledge and interests encompass archaeology, local history, language and genealogy, natural history, hill-walking, and reading. Born in Campbeltown, he followed family tradition by becoming a fisherman when he left school, later working for many years as a postman.

Review

'Angus Martin, taking up where Eric Cregeen left off, ... provides commentaries [containing] both factual information and informed rumination of a sort bearing witness to the many years Martin has spent studying, and thinking about, Kintyre. Taken together with the original texts at this book's core, they add up to a fine publication.' James Hunter, Emeritus Professor of History, University of the Highlands and Islands in the Scottish Historical Review.

Edition details

• Publisher: Grimsay Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1845301099
• ISBN 13: 9781845301095
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 244