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The Highland and Island Emigration Society was a charitable society formed to promote and assist emigration as a solution to the Highland Potato Famine. Between 1852 and 1857 it assisted the passage of around 5,000 emigrants from Scotland to Australia. ==Crisis - Relief vs Emigration== In 1846 the Highland Potato Famine elevated the existing difficult circumstances in a region 〔 (【引用サイトリンク】title=Highlands and Islands Emigration - Map of the Distressed Districts of Scotland, 1847 ) 〕 already struggling with overpopulation 〔 (【引用サイトリンク】title=Chart showing the population of Skye at various dates from 1755-1841 ) 〕 and the upheavals of the Highland Clearances to the level of a full blown crisis demanding immediate practical relief.
Relief measures were supervised by Sir John McNeill, himself a highlander. In 1846, in his role as chairman of the Board of Supervision for the New Poor Law in Scotland, he toured 27 of the most distressed parishes. As the famine continued many, like McNeill, began to doubt that relief was a sustainable solution to the problem. For example in Skye, one of the hardest hit areas, the local clan chief Norman McLeod bankrupted himself between 1846 and 1849 providing relief to his people. In 1849 he was obliged to leave Skye and move to London, working as a clerk earning three pounds a week. He became convinced that emigration was the only solution and eventually joined the London Committee of the Highland and Island Emigration Society. As another example, Thomas Fraser, Sheriff Substitute of Skye, had worked there since 1846 organizing relief but...
In 1851 McNeill published a report 〔 〕 to the Board of Supervision which...
This view was strongly shared by Sir Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary to Her Majesty's Treasury in London. He saw emergency food supplies as a "useless palliative" and wrote to Thomas Fraser on Skye concerning...
By January 1852, Trevelyan had founded the Highland and Island Emigration Society with McNeill. They had a strong and useful ally in Sir Thomas Murdoch, chairman of the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners. 〔 (【引用サイトリンク】title=Seventh General Report of the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners )〕〔 (【引用サイトリンク】title=Colonization Circulars ) 〕 MacMillan attributes the success of the Society primarily to this powerful trio: Trevelyan and Murdoch for Treasury and Emigration and McNeill as the chief administrator of Poor Relief in Scotland. Skye was the area selected for the Society's first operations, with Australia as the ultimate destination.
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