Doughty Donald Ross - fighter for cleared Highlanders: Donald Ross [1813-1882], critic of the Highland Clearances and contemporary of Hugh Miller

Abstract

• Much has already been written about the Highland Clearances, then and since, foremost among them Hugh Miller in the Editor’s chair at The Witness, with such still famous leading articles as “Sutherland as it was and is” (1843), and by Donald Macleod and other eyewitnesses, to the savage cruelties of many proprietors. We are honoured in this edition to bring to public notice the story of another fighter, and recorder of the evictions, Donald Ross, a native of Sutherland, who was simultaneously a successful fundraiser to help the landless victims. The author is Donald’s four times great nephew Dr Andrew Ross, Principal Curator of Palæobiology at the National Museums Scotland (NMS), whose very extensive researches enable Andrew here to present Donald’s evidence of atrocities, and his sterling endeavours for the starving evicted tenants. Andrew has also turned up several important connections with Hugh Miller that he made during these campaigns. We wish him well in seeking a publisher for a full biography of this fascinating, worthy, but flawed man.