‘They Sow the Wind, They Reap the Whirlwind’: Estate Management in the Post-Clearance Highlands, c. 1815-c. 1900

Highland factors were men of immense influence – social, political and economic
– over often extensive territories and populations. The factor was the
symbolic figure of estate authority, in place of often absentee or disinterested owners.The concentration of landownership into a small number of hands in Scotland generally and the Scottish Highlands in particular, led to a similar concentration of the management of those estates into a limited circle of administrators. This put a burden of immense responsibility and pressure on most Highland factors, with often negative results. Highland factory was a challenging role which physically and mentally broke many of its practitioners, as this article will illustrate.