Plaque unveiled today for evicted Rousay crofter

The eviction of a Rousay man in the 1880s by the former laird of the Trumland Estate, General Burroughs, was commemorated on Saturday, August 18, by a stone plaque at the entrance to his family's croft.

James Leonard of Digro was elected chairman of the tenants' committee which gave evidence against General Burroughs to Lord Napier and the Royal Commission when they came to Rousay to consider tenants' concerns.

Having heard what they had to say, General Burroughs evicted James Leonard and another Rousay man, James Grieve, on a technicality, although they were not direct tenants of his estate.

Exiled Rousay man, Robert C. Marwick who wrote the book Rousay Roots, suggested to Rousay, Egilsay and Wyre Community Council some time ago that they should commemorate the eviction. After discussion, the community council decided to commission the erection of an engraved stone as a millennium project. It has been erected at the roadside near the croft of Digro.

The suitably inscribed stone was funded out of the community council's £5,000 allocation for millennium projects, and was unveiled at a ceremony on the island by two of James Leonard's great granddaughters, Mrs Christine Cuthill and Mrs Rosemary Gillon.

Mrs Cuthill, who is a retired civil servant from Glasgow, told The Orcadian: "It will be a very poignant ceremony, because my great-grandfather never got back to Rousay. Initially, he went to stay with his older brother who was a cabinetmaker in Kirkwall. Then James Leonard set up home with his fairly large family elsewhere in the town, but then left Orkney when he was in his fifties for Oban, where he established a successful coal merchant business."

She added: "I came up to Orkney 1980, when I was researching my family tree and was able to speak to a number of elderly people in Rousay who corroborated what I had been told by word of mouth by my own family. I also passed on information to Mr William Thomson, who was writing the book The Little General and the Rousay Crofters at the time. It was information about my great-grandfather which was not available from written records.

"When I was in Orkney, I visited Digro and it seemed to be in a fairly derelict state, although the crofthouse was still wind and watertight. I would hope that some day it could be turned into a folk museum about Rousay and the tenants' stand against General Burroughs' behaviour.

"I am really looking forward to visiting the place again, and would like to meet up with anyone I met in 1980. I would also love to hear from anyone who knows about James Leonard's son, also called James, who went to Canada to work for the Hudson's Bay Company. We believe he lived for a time in the town of Goderich, Ontario, on the shores of Lake Huron. But we have never been able to find out more about him."

Former KGS rector and author, Mr Thomson, said of James Leonard's eviction: "It was a national scandal. Questions were asked in Parliament, because a landlord had defied the ruling of a Royal Commission which had found in favour of the tenants. Anonymous poison-pen letters were sent to General Burroughs because of the strength of ill-feeling about his ruthless behaviour. The Government even sent a gunboat to Rousay to ensure that things didn't spill over into an all-out revolt. So it was a significant period in Rousay's history and it's quite fitting that a plaque has been put up to commemorate the crofters' defiant stand."