Origins and history before 1886 Crofting communities were a product of the
Highland Clearances (though individual crofts had existed before the clearances). Previously, Highland agriculture was based on farms or , which had common grazing and arable
open fields operated on the
run rig system. An individual might have between five and ten families as tenants. As landowners sought to increase the income from their lands, the first step was the removal of the
tacksmen. They were steadily eliminated over the last quarter of the 18th century. A tacksman (a member of the , sometimes described as 'gentry' in English) was the holder of a lease or
tack from the landowner. Where a lease was for a , the tacksman usually sublet to the farming tenants and may have provided some management oversight. Tacksmen were integral to the trade in black cattle out of the Highlands, providing an important role in the overall Highland economy. By preventing this section of society from sub-letting, the landlords obtained all of the rent paid by those who worked the land. Secondly, landowners replaced the older farming methods with
pastoral systems, with leases being auctioned off to the highest bidder. In early cases, these new farms raised cattle. Much more common was the introduction of extensive sheep farms. Both required the eviction of the tenants of each . In many clearances, the tenants of inland farms were moved to crofting communities in coastal areas, often on poorer quality land. This type of clearance was carried out mostly until the 1820s. Croft work was hard, back-breaking work which yielded a subsistence living. Aside from hay and oats, usually root vegetables, potatoes or cabbages were grown and peat would be cut by hand and left outside in various characteristic patterns of stacks to dry so as to serve later for fuel or sometimes for bedding for animals. Most crofters had sheep to shear and lamb. Some crofters had the care of small numbers of cattle. The crofts created by clearance were not intended to support all the needs of those who lived there and consequently were restricted in size to a few acres of arable land with surrounding shared grazing. Landlords intended their crofting tenants to work in various industries, such as fishing or kelp. A contemporary estimate was that a crofter needed to carry out 200 days of work away from his croft in order to avoid destitution. In the second half of the 19th century, many crofters provided a substantial migrant workforce, especially for lowland farms. Crofting communities in the period 1846–56 were badly hit by the
Highland Potato Famine. The small arable plots had meant that the potato was an essential crop, due to its high productivity. The arrival of
potato blight (and the collapse of the kelp industry a few years before) made some crofting communities inviable. This gave rise to the second phase of the Highland Clearances, when many tenants left the Highlands, often emigrating. In 1852, in response to the poverty in the Highlands,
Sir Charles Trevelyan and
Sir John McNeill founded the
Highland and Island Emigration Society, designed to save poor families from starvation by emigration to Australia. In 1883, the
Napier Commission was established. Though its recommendations were not accepted, the problem of poverty and insecurity of tenure in the Highlands was investigated. Consequent on this, the first Scottish crofting legislation of 1886 was enacted.
History 1886 onwards The
Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886 (
49 & 50 Vict. c. 29) provided for security of tenure, a key issue as most crofters remain tenants. The Act encouraged tenants to improve the land under their control, as it ensured that the control could be transferred within families and passed to future generations. Crofters were given the right to purchase their individual crofts in 1976. In 2003, as part of the
Land Reform Act, crofting community bodies were provided with the right to purchase eligible croft land associated with the local crofting community. In 1974 the Laidhay Croft Museum near Dunbeath in Caithness was opened to preserve and enhance a two hundred year old thatched crofting longhouse with its agricultural buildings (barn and stables). The home is fully furnished and there are displayed farm and stable equipment. In 2018 a section of the Sutherland Estate was bought out by a crofting community initiative, Garbh Allt Community Initiative Estate. The area amounted to 1,214 hectares (3,000 acres) of land and included the crofting townships of
Gartymore,
Portgower, Marrel and
West Helmsdale. The £250,000 purchase money was made available in the form of two major contributions. These were: £273,000 from the Scottish government funded Scottish Land Fund; and £29,918 Beatrice Partnership Fund (a body connected to Beatrice windfarm in the Outer Moray Firth). The transfer of ownership was in favour of crofters, some of whom were descendants of people removed from the Sutherland Estate two centuries previously. From the 1990s, a rural planning scheme in western West Lothian, central Scotland, borrowed the concept of subdividing land into holdings under the name 'Lowland Crofting'. To date, ten farms have entered the scheme, creating over 100 crofts along with extenside amenity woodlands, walks, and nature areas, with the best land retained in farming use. == Statutory codes ==