Hard down! Hard down!. Captain Jack Isbester
that their tenants were treated fairly and reasonably and were not oppressed, while detached observers such as clergymen considered that the crofters were compelled to knit shawls and to go fishing in circumstances where, being usually in debt to the landlords and merchants, they had little alternative.
Women knitting shawls used wool from their own sheep which they spun themselves, or wool obtained from the merchants who bought their finished shawls. These beautiful, intricately patterned creations were about 2.5 yards (2.3 metres) square, and, if the wool had to be spun before the knitting the whole process of making a shawl took about four weeks of hard work. Clementina Greig17 of Scalloway, a woman with 33 years’ experience of knitting shawls, reported ‘When I spin the wool myself [making a shawl] it takes me a month, but with clean worsted I will make it in about three weeks,’ and when she was asked ‘How long will the spinning of half-a-pound [of wool] take?’ she replied, ‘It will take me a week to spin it sitting very close at it and sleeping very little.’
Euphemia Russell18 of Scalloway had knitted shawls for 25 years when she could sell them, and when she could not she worked ‘Sometimes in the fields and sometimes at the fish’ for about three months a year. Working at the fish would have been gutting herring or tending the cod spread to dry on the beaches for subsequent sale overseas.
Shawls usually sold for 17 shillings which would normally be paid entirely in the form of goods from the shop such as tea, sugar, bread, soap and cotton. The knitters preferred payment in cash, but this they say was normally refused except for the odd penny or two. They would accept more tea than they needed and would then exchange it with farmers for produce such as potatoes and meal. The possibility of selling a shawl for £1 cash direct to a summer visitor was a rare but welcome opportunity.
When asked ‘Have you often had to barter your goods for less than they were worth? ‘Mary Coutts19 of Scalloway replied:
Sometimes, if there had been 2½ yards of cotton lying [unused] and a peck of meal came in, we would give it for the meal. The cotton would be worth sixpence a yard, or 15 pence [in total] and the meal would be worth one shilling [12 pence]. I remember doing that about three years ago; but we frequently sold the goods for less than they had cost us in Lerwick.
To explain why spinning the necessary wool would take her more than a week, Mary Coutts said, ‘We have to go to the hill for our peats and turf, and that takes up part of our time,’ a reminder that the knitting of shawls was no alternative to housework, but just one more task.
It is not clear how long Sarah Anderson lived at South Hamarsland, but six years after the census she was again recorded in the same vicinity. On 4 July 1867 she died in the Garths of Easthouse, a stone-built dwelling with a single room, the ruins of which still stand about 200 metres from the ruins of South Hamarsland. Her death was untimely – she was only 37 – and terrible. The death certificate gives the cause of death as ‘Inflammation of the throat and lock-jaw’, otherwise known as tetanus. John Isbester was 15 at this time, and had already spent a summer at the herring fishing. He was home between cod-fishing voyages aboard the Faroe smacks. The death certificate records that he was present at her death and that she had no regular medical attendant.
His mother’s death and the manner of it must have been a traumatic experience for my grandfather, boy that he still was at the time. My father spoke often of my grandfather – he was proud of both of his parents – but I do not recall him ever mentioning his grandmother’s death, and it is possible that he never knew the details of this event, which had occurred more than 30 years before he was born.
So, what was Whiteness like in the 1850s when my grandfather was a boy? The crofters lived their lives at subsistence level:
It has been calculated that from 1780 to 1850 there was on average one famine year in every four and, although destitution did not reach the level of Ireland or the Western Isles in the 1840s, there were families who lived without oatmeal or bread for months on end. Fish proved to be their salvation.20
The census enumerator describes South Whiteness in 1851 as being
partly pastoral and partly agricultural … Soil mostly thin on limestone rock with a considerable portion of wild moor – precipitous towards sea shore – intersected by the voes [long, narrow arms of the sea] of Binniness and Whiteness … The inhabitants are industrious and chiefly employed in farming and in fishing and in those seasons that out of doors occupations cannot be carried on the men are engaged in repairing their boats, nets and fishing tackle – and the women in knitting hose, gloves, shawls etc.
J. O. Ross, the enumerator for North Whiteness, when describing the district as ‘Nearly divided into two distinct parts by a wild barren hill which has to be crossed east and west ere the Census could be taken making it a more difficult task to perform’, appears to be trying to justify his claim for expenses, or appealing for sympathy for the privations he had been forced to suffer in performance of his duties. He goes on to observe that
In the South part of the district agriculture is poorly attended to, in the North end of the district pasturage of sheep and cattle is more attended to than the proper tillage of the soil. The people tho’ poor and subjected to inclement weather and other casualties [attempt] by fishing and farming to provide in a measure for their families. For the past two or three seasons the potato failure so prevalent in these islands has reduced the people in circumstances and it will be some time ere they recov’d their position.21
It is fortunate that there were almost always fish in the sea. Every croft had its boat, and a few hours on the water would usually bring a catch, perhaps some herring, haddock, ling or cod.22
The neighbouring district of Weisdale was in 1851 described as ‘Wholly without formed roads, the surface hilly, abounding with marsh and moor, and the houses very widely scattered.’23 In these conditions in the 1850s and for many years thereafter, most journeys were made on foot or by boat. In Shetland one is never far from water and, particularly when less active people required transportation, the journey was usually by boat. David Hobart, schoolmaster in Whiteness for a number of years in the 1860s and 70s, provides a lively description of a trip mainly by boat from Busta to Whiteness in May 1868. Both boats mentioned would have been double-ended Shetland fourareens, about 23 feet in overall length, rowed by two or four oarsmen, each with one oar. At the helm was my maternal great-grandfather, Magnus Irvine of Strom Bridge,24 Whiteness, aged 45. The passenger was Margaret Irvine, his wife, aged 41. At the oars were David Hobart, aged 26, and Robbie Tulloch, aged 43, a live-in farm worker with the Irvine family. David Hobart lodged with the Irvine family and was in love with their elder daughter, Mary Jane, for whom this account was written.
After leaving you at Busta we kept close along the shore [see Fig.1.2] making fair progress, till we came to the opening of St Magnus Bay where, the wind having increased and the sea having more space to gather way, we could with some strokes urge forward the boat scarcely half her length, and with others barely hold our own. [The wind was probably south-west.] Mrs Irvine was for returning. Mr Irvine was for going. This opinion prevailed. There was no danger he said, except that of a long hard pull, and when the boat had made marked progress across, he further remarked that patience and perseverance – I didn’t hear the conclusion of that proverb. Then came a slight lull of which we took due advantage by rowing like galley slaves. This brought us under the lee of the island [Papa Little] and our next difficulty was to get round the point [Selie Ness] on which we nearly went aground last night. We had to go out into the middle of the voe under the full force of both wind and waves and as the wind