Melness, a Crofting Community on the North Coast of Sutherland"

Dr. James Coull
Scottish Studies, 7, (1963).

Used by Kind Permission of Dr Coull

In 1792, the threat of hunger was obviously very real. By this time potatoes were the staple diet, supplemented by meal, butter, cheese, milk and fish, while only the better off sometimes had milk and beef (O.S.A. 1792: 524). However, import of grain from Caithness, was relatively easy (Sinclair 1795: 151), and its continued importance is shown in 1849 (St. John 1884: 81). In bad seasons the landlord and the government had to provide relief food, and after the bad harvest of 1782 many of the poor had to subsist largely on the cockles and mussels they could, gather at low tide on the mudflats in the Kyle of Tongue (O.S.A. 1792: 522); these indeed figured regularly in the diet of the people - they were mentioned again in 1840 (N.S.A. 1845: 172).

Fishing has always been pursued to some extent, although attempts made to put it on a commercial basis show the usual West Highland story of very sparing success. In the late eighteenth century, the emphasis was on white fishing from small boats for which the winter was the time of peak activity (O.S.A. 1792: 522).

In the 1830's there were attempts by the Duke of Sutherland to promote commercial herring fishing to help accommodate the men cleared from the inland straths and in 1833 each boat in Tongue parish, on the average landed 118 barrels (N.S.A. 1845: 76); a good return by the standards of the successful port of Wick in Caithness. Success was not maintained, however, and there was no investment in the bigger boats and other equipment which would have given fishermen the range they needed in pursuing their elusive quarry. More significant was the growth of the practice of the men going to the East Coast herring fishing in summer. About 1888, nearly all the able-bodied men went to the East Coast for 8 to 10 weeks and brought back £12 to £25 for the season (Edwards-Moss 1888: 80-81). However, there was a herring fishing station established in the nineteenth century, and a pier built at Talmine, and French and Dutch boats as well as those from Caithness and Sutherland landed herring. Note 7 Click Here A post office with a telegraph was built to aid this in 1911, but it was never of great consequence. White fishing did attain some economic importance, and continued to be a source of income until after World War II when lorries came to transport the fish; but the lack of port facilities, and of capital to buy modern boats and gear, together with a population ageing and declining in numbers, led to the final demise of the fishery.

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