Between around June and December 1823, a committee existed in Aberdeen that raised funds to support the cause of Greek independence from Ottoman rule. The committee was formed two years into the Greek Revolution of 1821–32 as a local branch of the recently constituted London Greek Committee. A leading figure in the establishment of the Aberdeen Greek Committee was Thomas Gordon of Buthlaw and Cairness (1788–1841), a wealthy Aberdeenshire laird and military officer of international experience. Gordon was among the earliest foreigners to join the revolutionaries in person, and he wrote the first comprehensive history of the conflict in any language. This paper traces the background, origins, life, membership and afterlife of the Aberdeen Committee for the first time, with a particular focus on the involvement of Thomas Gordon. While the committee was short-lived and its material impact negligible, it provided a focal point for support of the Greek Revolution in North East Scotland, mobilising direct involvement or financial support from a circle of at least twenty residents of Aberdeen City and Shire of varying socioeconomic standing. It is thus the key case study for the history of philhellenism – that is, support for the cause of Greek independence – in the region.

According to Alexander Grant, Robert Stewart (the future Robert II) acquired Badenoch through the terce rights of his second wife, Euphemia Ross, countess of Moray, and the political and social situation in Badenoch has been discussed based on this interpretation. However, in his study on the Strathbogie earls of Atholl, Alasdair Ross argued that the lordships of Badenoch and Lochaber, which were included in the Randolph earldom of Moray, were detached from the earldom in the mid-1330s when Earl John brought the earl of Atholl over to the Bruce side. This interpretation has also garnered support from historians; however, these two interpretations are incompatible. Therefore, this study aims to resolve this discrepancy by reassessing the relevant evidence. In conclusion, this study argues that the lordship of Badenoch, together with that of Lochaber, was indeed detached from the earldom of Moray in the 1330s but was recovered by Randolph in the early 1340s and subsequently passed on to the Stewarts as Euphemia's terce land. Although this study focuses on elucidating the belonging of Badenoch in the mid-fourteenth century, this conclusion also contributes to the debate concerning the political and social changes in the central Highlands during the mid-fourteenth century, changes which have been argued to have been caused by the collapse of regional power and the rise of militarised Gaelic kindreds.

This article explores the changing status of the common people in Badenoch in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Two main strands are considered: firstly, the use of protest and petitions in freeing people from oppressive feudal and clan hierarchies; secondly, the role of individual initiative in improving economic status – arguing that protest and economic progress were equal components in improving the lives of the people. The article further considers the mechanisms by which these improvements were effected – the agency and assertiveness of the people themselves, their broadening horizons, and the helping hand provided by landowners and factors. 1

This is the first major study to examine in depth the recruitment, role and responsibilities of estate ground officers across the Gàidhealtachd. 2 Referencing a comprehensive range of primary source materials, this paper asserts a new role for the ground officer and hopes to advance a more sophisticated view of their reception. The role of the estate ground officer ( maor-gruinnd) in Scotland and in particular the Gàidhealtachd has generally escaped the attention of historiographers. They were liable to be overshadowed by their manager the factor, also known as a chamberlain, so there is currently a dearth of meaningful historiography. This is a pity given the popular and ever-growing interest in the Clearances. Generally, ground officers may receive at best a passing reference in academic papers on the subject and a fleeting mention if any, in the general index of any book on the Highland Clearances. The lack of in-depth research into ground officers may also in part be due to their social position in society, and hence the misplaced perception of them as having an insignificant role in the administrative structure of an estate. This paper seeks to challenge this historiographical narrative and offer a new and original contribution to this topic. As principally members of the crofter class, they have been marginalised and dismissed as ‘minor estate officials’ and ‘underlings’ which suggests that they are not considered worthy of serious scholarly attention or scrutiny. 3 Perhaps they have also been viewed one-dimensionally, as menial illiterate figures simply doing the bidding of their superiors, the factor and the estate owner. Ground officers could certainly be involved in the more routine aspects of estate administration, but that is not to say they were incapable of a range of more challenging and multifaceted tasks. While they were in some cases resented by the men and women who fell under their purview, they could also be valued for their work in the community. The explanation for the general unpopularity of ground officers especially during the Clearance era is self-explanatory. After all they were seen as authority figures and were tasked with the strict enforcement of estate regulations as well as the unenviable task of being directly and actively involved at times in local clearances and removal of the native population during the period of this paper. The complete absence of a paper on an estate ground officer in Scotland is surprising given the existing primary sources available to historiographers. 4 I have recently written the first monograph on a Scottish estate ground officer which I hope will be published in due course and start to redress the balance. Various case studies in this paper will shed light on the role of ground officers, their representation and situation within the power dynamics of Scottish estate administration. This new and original paper goes beyond existing scholarship on this neglected subject and hopes to pave the way to a new understanding of the ground officer and his historical significance.

This article examines the reasons behind the formation of the little-known Shetland Female Emigration Society and its reception in the Australian colonies. Much has been written about emigration from Scotland and, even more extensively, about female emigration from the United Kingdom in the second half of the nineteenth century. The question of female emigration from Scotland at the time has, by contrast, attracted little attention from scholars so far, even though the country represents a particularly interesting case-study, offering as it did candidates for emigration that differed widely from one region to another in linguistic, religious and ethnic terms. Yet, the SFES, which was launched in 1850 to help in the emigration of young and single women to South Australia and Tasmania, presents the particularity of having offered a Presbyterian, Scandinavian, English-speaking set of emigrants whose moral, domestic and religious qualities made them stand out from their Celtic (and Roman Catholic) Highland and Irish counterparts. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, this paper looks at the conditions in which this philanthropic society was launched, at the intersection of Scottish, British and Australian needs. It also, and mostly, argues that the reception of such schemes must not only be analysed through the lens of gender, famine-relief and imperialist goals, but also through that of a cultural, religious and ethnic bias.