In 1847, twenty seven year old Samuel Newall took the tenancy of Bower House Farm, Eastby. He had recently married Elizabeth Myers but she died shortly after the birth of their son John Myers Newall on 19 May 1848. Despite the death of his wife, Samuel established himself as a successful sheep farmer and by 1855, with the assistance of his nephew Thomas Newall, he was winning prizes at Craven Agricultural Show for a variety of his sheep.

In 1859 he married his second wife Adelaide Poytress from Tirley in Gloucestershire, who had been a house servant in Skipton to the vicar of Christ Church, Revd William Willett. In September 1860 Adelaide gave birth to Samuel Albany Newall, the first of their 8 children, and the following year his nephew Thomas Newall married Ann Tattersall of Crag Nook Farm at St Mary’s Church, Embsay.

1862 was a significant year for Samuel. He won seven prizes for his sheep at Skipton plus third place against national competition at the Royal Agricultural Show at Battersea Park, London. He also leased 2,000 acres of land for sheep farming at Tolsta on the Isle of Lewis, 12 miles north-east of the main port of Stornoway, and his nephew Thomas and his wife Ann moved north to manage the farm. The land was leased from Lady Matheson, widow of Sir James Matheson who had bought the island in 1844 and introduced major land reforms. By 1866 Samuel’s various prizes at Craven Agricultural Show included his ‘Scotch Wool Sheep’, and the Bradford Observer on 23 August 1866 described him as a ‘celebrated breeder’.

When his son Samuel Albany Newall was 15 he was sent to board at Archbishop Holgate’s School in York for a commercial education, and in 1876 he went to Bradford to learn the Woolsorting trade. This highly skilled occupation required an expert understanding of the fineness, length, strength, and cleanliness of wool, which would later serve him in his future business enterprises.

In 1883, Albany, as he was generally known, moved to the Isle of Lewis, and in addition to the land at Tolsta, he and his older cousin Thomas leased two farms from Lady Matheson that were nearer the port of Stornoway. Thomas Newall took over Melbost Farm 2 miles east of Stornoway, and Albany took Aignish Farm, 2 miles further east.

However, trouble was brewing with local crofters unhappy about farmers taking up large swathes of grazing land, thereby reducing the common land available to them for their few sheep and cows. Things came to a head in December 1887.

Accounts of what happened were widely reported in Scottish, Regional and London Newspapers from which it is possible to summarise the sequence of events.

On Christmas Eve 1887 several hundred crofters from various townships marched in procession to Aignish farm, carrying flags and banners, and accompanied by musicians. They held a meeting near Aignish churchyard presided over by crofter John Mackenzie. Several speeches were made, some ‘being of a wild nature’, and a resolution was moved that Aignish Farm should be cleared of the whole stock within a fortnight. A deputation of three met Mr Albany Newall at the boundary of the land who remarked that ‘he would have sufficient force to prevent this.’ They afterwards ‘started for Melbost sheep farm, tenanted by a relative Mr Thomas Newall’ only to find that he was away from home.

A week later, on 30 December 1887, police surprised three men destroying fences, two escaped but ‘one was captured after a severe struggle and conveyed to the farmhouse. Subsequently a crowd assembled and demanded the liberation of the prisoner, but Mr Newall, the tenant of the farm, going outside with a loaded gun, drove back the crowd and the prisoner was conveyed to Stornoway jail.’

This only inflamed the issue and on 9 January 1888 between 400 and 500 crofters ‘assembled on the hill in front of Aignish farm, all armed with sticks. They made for the low lying fields adjoining the farmhouse, where several hundred sheep were grazing. The sheep were driven off, hotly chased by scores of people towards Stornoway.’ [extracts from the Glasgow Evening Citizen 10 January 1888]

At this point police and marines, who had been stationed to protect Aignish Farm, emerged from the farm buildings and set off after the ‘Raiders’ who had driven most of the sheep and a small number of cattle out at the other end of the farm.

The marines running across the fields intercepted the people at the entrance to the narrow isthmus connecting the peninsula with Stornoway (see map) and ten men were handcuffed. But after the sheep had been driven off the crofters numbers swelled to 700. The marines were then halted at the opposite side of the farm at the place where the public road runs between banks five feet in height. They were drawn up in 2 ranks with fixed bayonets, with the crofters mustered on the other side, extending a deep front along the face of the bank.  The Sheriff read the Riot Act and explained its provisions in Gaelic; and at the same time a company of the Royal Scots, who had been stationed at Melbost farm, were called up. (see illustrations from the London Illustrated News, 4 February 1888)

At Stornoway Sheriff’s Court, 13 men were charged as leaders in the raid upon Aignish Farm, forming a scheme to trespass on the land occupied by Mr Samuel Albany Newall and driving away all the sheep and cattle.

At Edinburgh High Court on 30 and 31 January 1888 several crofters were tried for offences including breaking down fences at Aignish Farm, riotous behaviour, and driving away 320 sheep and 19 cattle belonging to Mr Samuel Albany Newall, who said he had no intention of leaving the farm. The juries on the two days returned unanimous verdicts of guilty but recommended leniency. The judge sentenced the men to between 6 and 15 months in prison.

Despite the tensions, Albany, with two farm servants, stayed at Aignish, but with part of the fences demolished, cattle and horses belonging to the crofters began to stray upon the farm. In March, he was attempting to pinfold a horse that was straying on his farmland when ‘a young lad named Donald MacLeod from the village of Knock’, adjacent to the farm, tried to take the horse away. ‘Newall followed him and struck him severe blows with a stick on his thigh and side.’ In the Sheriff’s Court at Stornoway on 31 March 1888 Albany Newall was found guilty and Sheriff Fraser stated that ‘although provoked, he had no right to take the law in his own hands. He was fined £2 or eight days imprisonment.’ [6 Apr 1888 several Scottish newspapers]

This had a profound effect, as on 11 April 1888, Albany Newall sent John Mackay, a local constable to the village of Knock, authorising the crofters to put their cattle to feed upon his farm. Two days later nearly ‘100 head of cattle were seen grazing on the east side of the farm, near Mr Newall’s own cattle’.  [Aberdeen Free Press 13 April 1888]

His cousin Thomas Newall and his wife Ann, who had been on Lewis for 26 years, continued to farm at Melbost, along with their son John born at Tolsta Farm in 1872, and their Embsay born nephew, Thomas Tattersall. Albany also had personal reasons for wanting to remain on Lewis as within a year, on 6 June 1889, he married Jessie Flora Mackay, the daughter of Revd Donald Mackay, the Church of Scotland Parish Minister for Stornoway. After their marriage, they settled at Aignish Farm where their first child Samuel Donald Albany Newall was born on 7 May 1890.

Within a few years the tide of public opinion shifted towards sympathy for the crofters and broader land reforms in the Highlands and Islands resulted in Albany and Thomas Newall giving up Aignish and Melbost farms. Thomas took over Tong Farm, 3 miles north east of Stornoway, and Albany and his family moved to their original farm at Tolsta.

When his father Samuel Newall died in 1897, his mother Adelaide and her remaining children moved to Rockville in Embsay. Albany took over Bower House, which was managed by his elder half-brother John Myers Newall, and Albany and his wife shared their time between the Isle of Lewis and Eastby. The Newall’s finally left Bower House in 1905 when the tenancy was taken by Robert Carr who had formerly farmed Catgill at Bolton Abbey.

Albany Newall then concentrated his activities at Tolsta but that was far from the end of the Newall family’s enterprises on the Isle of Lewis. In the early 20th century they went on to play a major part in the development of the Harris Tweed industry, which will be the subject of my next article.

David G Turner, Embsay with Eastby Historical Research Group

SOURCES:

Local, Regional and National Newspapers (British Newspaper Archive)
Census Returns for England (Ancestry.co.uk)
Parish Registers for Skipton, Bolton Abbey and Fewston (FindMyPast.co.uk)
Parish Registers and Census Returns for Scotland (Scotland’s People website)
Diaries of Elizabeth Greenwood of the Mason’s Arms, Eastby 1872-1889 (Private Collection)

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