Foula 1892

The mail steamer Queen, with a quantity of provisions on board, yesterday proceeded out to the island of Foula, west side of Shetland, to the relief of the islanders who, as already reported, have been for six weeks without communication with the mainland, with the result that their provisions had run short. Owing to the boisterous weather and heavy sea the steamer was unable to land anything. There is no harbour in the island, which all around lies quite exposed to the ocean, and the sea round it is often so tempestuous that it is impossible for any boat to live. The steamer was forced to return to Scalloway, and was to resume her voyage to the south last night. Meantime the condition of the islanders, who number between two and three hundred souls, must become one of great privation should no boat be able to land with food for them. It is believed that they must still have part of their own produce remaining, and there is a good stock of cattle and sheep on the island, so that there is little fear of actual starvation; but all the provisions usually got from the small store seem to have become exhausted, including flour, oatmeal, sugar, tea, and the like. Later accounts of the steamer’s voyage show that on her arrival at the island there was a perfect storm of snow, in the midst of which it was impossible to do anything. The sea was so heavy that no boat could possibly have lived. The people themselves have plenty of good boats, and if the worst comes to the worst they will probably make an attempt to launch them and come to the mainland for supplies. The island is distant from the nearest point in the mainland about fifteen miles, but it is so surrounded by dangerous tideways that the navigation is very difficult. When the wind is about east of north or south of south-west, landing on the island is impossible, as the landing place is the merest indentation on the coast line, into which the sea runs with terrific force. It is this that has prevented communication for the past six weeks, no boat or vessel having been able during that time either to approach the island or leave it.

The Famine in Foula

From The Scotsman 08/02/1892

On the arrival of the North of Scotland Navigation Company’s steamer Queen at Leith on Saturday, several additional particulars were obtained regarding the attempt made by the vessel to convey relief to the inhabitants of the island on Thursday last. It seems that on the Queen reaching Scalloway from the south on Wednesday of last week, the agent of the North of Scotland Company there intimated to the captain that he had received a telegram from Mr Merrylees, the manager of the Company, to the effect that the people of Foula were in a destitute condition, and that the Queen should, if possible, force a landing with provisions. At once a large quantity of provisions was taken on board to convey to the unfortunate islanders, and the store of about five tons included sixty bolls of meal. Three passengers were also on the steamer bound for Foula, one of them being an Edinburgh lady, Mrs Traill, who, being in Shetland when the message from the island was washed ashore in a bottle, and possessing a lively interest in the islanders from visits she had made, had resolved to accompany the steamer on its expedition of relief. The other two passengers had been in Shetland for over six weeks, waiting an opportunity to get to the island, while in addition to the passengers and provisions, there was a large bagful of letters and parcels to be put ashore. Leaving Scalloway on Wednesday, the Queen, after calling and landing goods at several places on the west coast of Shetland, departed from Voe on Thursday at noon for Foula. The weather was of an exceedingly stormy character. A fresh gale was blowing from S.S.W., accompanied by a blinding fall of snow and sleet, so that when after two hours’ sailing they were a short distance off the island, it was only at intervals that the land could be seen from the deck of the steamer. It was also extremely cold. It was known to those on board that the only part where there would be any chance of landing in such a storm was a small haven locally called the Ham, and it was off this point that the Queen stood. It soon, however, became apparent that nothing could be done towards getting ashore. At all seasons a strong swell exists around the island, and this operated on by the gale on Thursday made the sea very tempestuous, so that it would have been worse than folly to launch a boat. It was also considered unlikely that the islanders, even if they had sighted the steamer would face the fury of the elements, and in the circumstances the master of the Queen, Captain Sutherland, to his own regret and that of every one on board, put the vessel about and returned to Scalloway with the passengers, provisions, and mails. These were landed, but Mrs Traill came on with the steamer to Leith. The steamer leaves Leith at midnight to-night for Shetland, and will make another attempt to visit Foula. The second mate of the Queen, Mr John J. Tulloch, who has had a long and intimate acquaintance with the people of Foula, stated on Saturday that they would never have written such a message as was contained in the bottle unless matters on the island had assumed a serious complexion.

Our Lerwick correspondent telegraphs : - Nothing has yet been done in the way of getting relief sent to the Foula crofters. The weather has not as yet been such as would allow a sailing vessel to reach the island, and it is probable that the people will have to wait until another attempt is made by the mail steamer to land provisions. It has been arranged that the steamer Queen, on her return to Shetland on Wednesday next, will proceed to Foula, and if the weather is favourable a landing will then probably be effected.

The Rev. Hope Davidson, secretary of the Congregational Union of Scotland, in making a special appeal yesterday forenoon in St Augustine Church, Edinburgh, on behalf the Congregational Union, gave some interesting particulars about the Island of Foula. Its population numbers about 250 souls, and he mentioned that there was only one ordained minister on the island, and he is a Congregationalist. The Established Church maintained a catechist. Foula, he thought, had a special claim, therefore, on Congregationalists. It was not a creditable thing, he said, that there should be any part of these islands so neglected in the matter of communication that the people might be suffering for six weeks from famine, and their fellow-countrymen know nothing about it. If there was as famine in the heart of Russia or in the wilds of Asia, intelligence of it was flashed over the world in four-and-twenty hours. But in Foula such a state of things might exist for weeks on end, and there was no means of making it known except that precarious method adopted by the minister of the place of committing the intelligence to a bottle cast into the sea, in the hope that it might be cast ashore at a spot where human hands would lay hold of it. There were perhaps difficulties in the way; but it did seem to him that such an island as Foula should be connected with the mainland by telegraphic cable.

From The Scotsman 09/02/1892

The mail packet managed to reach Foula on Sunday, and a portion of the mails and some stores were landed, although the latter was, unfortunately, damaged by water. Another sailing packet was to have left last night for the island with a large quantity of provisions, and as the weather had moderated and the sea gone down, it was expected that a successful landing would be effected this morning.

supplies landed ON FOULA

From The Scotsman 10/02/1892

Supplies have at last reached the people of Foula, which has been cut off from communication with the mainland for nearly seven weeks. As stated yesterday, a smack left Scalloway on Monday night at nine o'clock for the island with a stock of provisions on board, and returned to Scalloway last night, having effected a landing on the island. The vessel took out meal, sugar, tea, tobacco, &c., to the people, the supplies having been sent by Mr J. C. Grierson, the proprietor's agent. The commodities, it appears, of which the people had principally run short were sugar and tobacco. The crofters still had some of their own produce to fall back upon, and were in no danger of actual starvation. The resident clergyman, however, and some others, who depended entirely on stores brought from the shop or conveyed specially from the mainland, had been reduced to some straights, having little but coarse meal and potatoes to live on for the last three weeks. A boat which has arrived from the Fair Isle, which lies midway between Orkney and Shetland, brings news that the residents in that island were also getting short of provisions owing to the protracted stormy weather.

THE RELIEF OF FOULA

From The Scotsman 11/02/1892

The vessel which took out goods to the Foula people had a fine passage to the island. The sea was comparatively smooth, and the supplies were landed in safety. There were about four tons of goods, which were put in charge of the Rev. George Morrison, the resident minister, to be sold to those who required them. Up to Sunday the Foula people knew nothing of the Duke of Clarence's death. The mail which reached the island brought Christmas cards and Christmas numbers just about six weeks too late. There were also several articles intended for a Christmas treat to the Foula children, who had been forced to defer their Yule festivities till next year. It appears that three messages, two bottles and a tin canister attached to a fishing buoy, were sent off to let the distressed condition of the people be known, but only one of these turned up.

A Visit to Foula.

Communication re-established.

From The Scotsman 12/02/1892

The steamboat Queen, belonging to the Orkney and Shetland and North of Scotland Steamboat Company, visited Foula yesterday, and landed a quantity of provisions for the islanders. The Queen left Leith on Monday night, intending to take Foula in course of her trip among the islands. She had failed owing to the boisterousness of the weather, to effect a landing when she visited the island on the previous Thursday, and the stores which she had on board were put ashore at Scalloway, to be taken up again on her return from the South, when a fresh attempt was to be made to land them at Foula if the weather permitted. The weather had so far moderated, however, before she returned to the North that it was found possible on Tuesday of this week to send the stores to the island in a smack from Scalloway. The necessities of the island having been thus relieved, there was no further reason why the steamer should go to Foula: but as she had on board a ton and a half of flour which Mrs Traill, who was a passenger, was bringing to the island, Captain Sutherland was authorised, on a representation to the manager, to make the passage. Accordingly, the Queen, after making her customary calls at Stromness, Scalloway, Walls and Hillswick anchored off Hillswick over Wednesday night, with the view of making for Foula at daybreak on Thursday morning. A start was made at half-past six, the weather being what, in the language of these parts is called fine – that is to say, there was a tremendous sea running, and it was blowing half a gale, which sent the spray washing over the decks every minute. It was good Foula weather, however, the wind blowing from the west, so that Ham Voe, where a landing could be effected, was well sheltered. The steamer was off the island about ten o’clock, and the first view of it was not prepossessing. The rocks on the east side are low. The Voe is a mere gulley extending a hundred yards or so into the land, with a tiny beach at the head of it, on which boats can be hauled up. Behind it the round hill of Hamnafeld rises steeply up to a height of thirteen hundred feet, and at the present season is almost bare of vegetation. The store, the school-house, and one or two crofters’ houses are situated at irregular intervals round the Voe, and there is not another sign of life or habitation. As seen yesterday under a heavy mist, Foula looks unutterably dreary. The blowing of the steamer’s whistle brought the men straggling to the Voe. A four-oared boat was put off and came alongside. Mrs Traill and two or three other visitors, who were the sole passengers on board the Queen, were taken on shore. The oarsmen were strapping-looking fellows, and certainly they made the boat spin through the water in a manner which suggested nothing of privation recently endured. On shore there was much handshaking with the men gathered on the beach, who seemed to regard Mrs Traill as a benefactress, and met her in a frank and hearty manner. She bustled them about in a business-like fashion to launch a six-oared boat to fetch the stuff ashore, and when they had been set to work, a descent was made on the house of the Rev. George Morrison, the Congregationalist minister of the island, whose residence, an unpretentious building for a manse, was reached along a narrow and very boggy road through the peat moss which led from the head of the Voe.

There are two or three denominations in Foula. The Church of Scotland keeps there a catechist of the old school. There is also a tincture of Plymouth Brethrenism : but the Rev. George Morrison claims the greater part of the population as his flock, and is regarded as a sort of head man of the island. Mr Morrison had a good deal to say about the general condition of the islands, and one was able to gather from him the real extent of the alleged destitution. It was Mr Morrison who sent off the bottle which carried the news of the scarcity in Foula. He had tried various expedients to get a message drifted across to the mainland, one of them being a tin canister attached to a fisherman’s buoy; but a bottle was the only one that came to hand. At the time the bottle was dispatched there had been no communication for five weeks, and the weather looked so unsettled that the chances were all in favour of another five weeks of isolation. At that time nearly all the imported stores on the island had been spent, and the people had been thrown back on their native produce. That would have occasioned no serious inconvenience in an ordinary season, but last season was exceptionally bad. The summer was wet, and the crops were practically a failure. Potatoes were scarce and bad, and there was but little native grain to make meal. Provisions at the store were exhausted, and had matters gone on as they were doing the people would have been compelled to fall back upon their seed store, and use up grain and potatoes reserved for sowing in the spring. In the circumstances it seemed best to lose no time in establishing communication with the mainland. Mr Morrison himself seemed to have been one of those who had suffered most. He had run completely out of flour and meal, sugar, and minor luxuries, and had been compelled to fall back for supply upon the native meal which he could get from those of his neighbours who were better situated than himself. A sample of this bere meal bread was produced. It was as dark as if made from coffee beans, unpalatable, and gritty under the teeth from the fact that the Foula people have no method of separating the husk from the seed, and grind all their meal in one process. Certainly, if it were not that the natives are used to such fare, one would be inclined to admit that people who were compelled to eat bread of such a composition had some ground to complain of hardship. Asked how it was that the proprietor of the store did not keep sufficient stock to meet such a contingency, Mr Morrison could only explain that such an emergency was not in contemplation, or that the storekeeper was not enough of a capitalist to be prepared for it. He had been for ten years in the island, and there was one occasion in the winter of 1883 when they were twelve weeks without communication with the mainland. Since then, however, they had been able to rely more or less on regular communication with Walls, the nearest point on the mainland, sixteen miles distant. A local boat carried the mails to the island from Walls once a fortnight, and usually they could look to the boat for bringing them small cargoes, although when the weather was stormy it was very little that she could carry. On the whole, one came away from Mr Morrison with the feeling that, under present arrangements, Foula in bad weather is always open to the contingency of running short of supply in continued bad weather. The unloading of the steamer’s cargo occupied about an hour and a half. The visitors parted from the islanders with many expressions of goodwill, and the steamer returned to Scalloway, where people learned with some surprise that Captain Sutherland had been able to effect a landing.

A good deal has been talked during the last week of schemes that would benefit the islanders, and remove the fear of their getting into such straits as threatened them during the past fortnight. The one point which has been pressed by people who are most warmly concerned in their welfare is that any assistance which is offered them should not be of a merely charitable nature. The islanders, it is claimed, are industrious and hard-working, and able to pay for all that is done for them. One suggestion which has been generally supported is that something might be done in the way of providing better communication with the island by means of the present mail boat. At present the mails are run on a haphazard sort of fashion by a sailing boat from Walls once a fortnight on a subsidy of about £2 per trip. It has been urged that if the subsidy were suitably increased contractors might be found who would undertake to keep up regular communication with a stout smack which could carry the islanders’ stores as well as the mails. In this way there would be no fear of running short of provisions, and the contractor would reap a handsome reward from freights.

FOULA

From The Scotsman 7/03/1892

“Dispecta est et Thule quam hactenus nix et hiems appetebat” is the first intimation civilised man received of the existence of Foula. Agricola saw it from the north of Orkney in the year 84 A.D., and Tacitus recorded the fact. Orkney and Foula are within sight of each other. Circumstances prevented Agricola from visiting it. It is possible that he thought he had had enough of Caledonia, and did not feel inclined to visit unknown lands which might be in connection with it. The battle of Ardoch gave him a fair idea of the determination and courage of the inhabitants of the north, and he might have resolved to let well alone. It is doubtful if the Romans ever fought a more severely contested battle than that of Ardoch during the whole period of their occupation of Britain. Foula was inhabited long before the arrival of the Romans. The men who fearlessly and courageously encountered the disciplined armies of Rome, and stood their ground till darkness closed around them, had no hesitation in crossing the few miles of water between Orkney and Foula on a fine summer day. It is probable that its first inhabitants were men driven by misfortune from the shores of Scotland. When the worst came to the worst, they put their families into their boats of hoops covered with ox skins, and knowing that there was land within reach, they made for it.

The ancient name of Foula was Uttrie, a name which lingered long among the natives. It was the last resting place of the Culdees, the pioneers of civilisation and Christianity in Shetland, when they were driven from their homesteads by the Scandinavians. It was there that they mustered and recruited, and made their final preparations for crossing the Atlantic. They were splendid boatmen, were far superior to their conquerors in the arts of civilisation, and perilous as the undertaking was, it was their only chance. Either from their own reasoning or from tradition they believed that there was a country to the west, and there is evidence, faint indeed, that they reached it.

Foula, Fugley or Fowl, Island is situated about fourteen miles from the western entrance of Vaila Sound, in the parish of Walls; is three miles in length by two miles in breadth, and contains at the present time thirty-seven crafting families. The inhabited portion of the Island lies to the south, and it rises gradually to the north till it ends in a precipice 1200 feet in height. The north part of the island is divided into what may be called five hills – the Noup, Leorafield, the Sneug, Commafield, and the Kaim, the highest peak being 1300 feet above the level of the sea. In summer the birds congregate around the shores and cliffs of the island in immense numbers, and the sea around it swarms with fish. In former times, and until shops sprang up on the west of Shetland, the natives had considerable intercourse with Orkney, and Orkney men had fishing stations in Foula. The island, however, was never remarkable as a haaf fishing station. The strong currents around it, and the fearful gusts of wind which came down from the hills, were unfavourable. It is in fish for the pot that Foula excels.

At what time the Northmen took possession of the island is unknown. The island may have been suitable for their purposes in some respects, and it cannot be much less than a thousand years ago. Very little is known about them. They gave up roaming and fighting, and lived quiet and retired lives. They cultivated their small farms, reared cattle, traded with the ships on the coast, and made a trip to Orkney every summer, where they bought and bartered and learned what was going on in their old country. Repeatedly, and for long, the Lewis men attempted to invade the island in the hope of plunder, but the sight of them aroused the slumbering spirit of Odin, and their attacks were always successfully repelled. On one occasion they managed to burn down a small forest of trees. Bad luck to them for that same. The beacon lights on the Foula hills on those occasions gave warning to the rest of Shetland, and soon the hill-tops were blazing, and men arming and mustering everywhere. Several pitched battles were fought on the mainland of Shetland in those days, and on the last occasion none of the invaders lived to return.

The people resisted all encroachments on their manners, customs, and language for a very long time, and the Norse language was spoken in Foula long after it ceased in every other district in Shetland. It only gave way when the bible was introduced. Even yet there are words and phrases which an Englishman would not understand. The island continued in the possession of the descendants of the Northmen for several hundred years. But at last it became subject to the Donatories of the Scottish Crown, and a descendant of one of the early Reformed clergy received a charter of confirmation from Douglas of Spynie for the lands of Foula. About sixty years later the island was bought by a wealthy merchant, and presented to his grandson, the ancestors of the present landlord. The Foulaese, like all other Shetlanders, lost their lands, and, except the Hoseason family, I do not know a single descendant of the ancient landlords who owns an acre.

The first Protestant sermon was preached in Foula in 1700. The people listened to it attentively, and when the service was ended they gathered around the minister, and in loud voices, and all speaking together, they freely criticised the sermon. I suppose it was imperfectly understood, and much of it would have been new. They continued to do that for several years, addressing the minister as brother – a term they used, and I think still use, to one another. A school under the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge was established in the island in 1740, and Mr Thomas Henry, grandson of the first Protestant minister of Walls, was appointed teacher and catechist. Every family in the island at that time, with the exception of the teacher’s family, were descendants of the early Scandinavians. The men and families who had come to Shetland during the preceding 300 years had avoided the island as a residence. There were after the school opened 38 scholars on the roll, 18 boys and 20 girls. Allowing the children on the school register to have been one-sixth of the population, the island then contained nearly as many inhabitants as it does now. Several families have removed to it during the present century, and the population is now more mixed. In those earlier days the people must, to a large extent, have depended on their own resources. From November to May they had little communication with the mainland. When the fishing commenced in the end of April, the Walls and Foula boats would draw together on the Shaalds, and have a chat about all that had happened in their respective districts since harvest, and if a letter or message had to sent from either side that was the only mode of conveyance.

There is a minister, a catechist, and a teacher in the island. The first teacher appointed under the School Board was a B.A. of Glasgow University, but the nearest doctor is at Walls. The people use simple remedies, tested by the experience of generations, and they are robust, healthy, and live to a good old age. They are very agreeable, obliging, and ever ready to help each other. But, like all isolated peoples, they are opinionative, have a respectable idea of the extent and accuracy of their knowledge, are apt to combine, and tact is needed to manage them. When very young, I chanced to give mortal offence to a Foula man who had left the island shortly before. He had purchased a copy of the Shorter Catechism for one of his sons. On examining it, the boy found several squares with lines of figures on the outside leaf, and asked what they meant. His father had not noticed them, but took the Catechism, examined the figures long and closely, and then said – “Why, this is navigation tables; you must first get this Catechism by heart, and then turn over and learn navigation.” The acquisition of navigation was, in those days, regarded as the highest effort of the human intellect. The man who had mastered navigation knew everything, and had nothing to learn. I had heard of it since I could remember, and had begun to dream of the possibility of acquiring it when I became a man. Here was, I thought, a golden and unlooked-for chance. I seized the Catechism in a tremor of excitement, roaring as I did so, “If navigation can be learned out of the Shorter Catechism, I shall have it.” I turned to the outside leaf; my spirits sank below zero at the first glance of it, and I shouted. “Man, this is the multiplication table, and the addition and subtraction!” The look he gave nearly extinguished me, and I made for the door. He followed me home, and stated that my impudence had become insufferable.

Foula has sent out into the world two ministers, both of them excellent men, a merchant or two, and a few successful colonists. A minister has resided in the island since 1847. The present minister is ordained, and having a minister on the spot who can baptise and marry them is a great boon. It was a serious matter for a wedding company, in a sixern or two, to …………………….

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