The Sutherland Estate, 1850-1920

From the mid-nineteenth century until the end of WWI, the Sutherland Estate was the largest landed estate in western Europe; at 1.1 million acres, the ducal family owned almost the entire county of Sutherland as well as a further 30,000 acres in England.The estate was owned by the dukes of Sutherland, who were among the richest patrician landowners of the period; from the early nineteenth century, however, the family were shadowed by their reputation as great clearance landlords, something that would come back to haunt them throughout the coming decades.This book:*studies the workings of the estate management and policy formation in the face of challenges from their crofting tenants, the land reform lobby and government agencies; *asks whether the ducal family experienced a ‘decline and fall’ as argued for the British aristocracy generally in the period;*examines a crucial period of Highland history from the neglected perspective of an estate, using estate papers, newspapers, crofter s