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North Ronaldsay, Orkney One Place Study

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Location: North Ronaldsay, Orkney, Scotland, United Kingdommap
Surnames/tags: One_Place_Studies Orkney Scotland
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North Ronaldsay, Orkney One Place Study

WELCOME TO THE NORTH RONALDSAY ONE PLACE STUDY

This study aims to document the family histories of all the people who were born or lived on the close-knit Orkney island of North Ronaldsay prior to 1900. Please feel free to add extra information to these profiles or drop me a line if you want to discuss or just say hello!

This profile is part of the North Ronaldsay, Orkney One Place Study.
{{One Place Study|place=North Ronaldsay, Orkney|category=North Ronaldsay, Orkney One Place Study}}

The database is being built up in stages:

  1. 1851 Census from FreeCEN: 526 names, 476 (89%) added, 58 unclear relationships
  2. 1841 Census from FreeCEN: 481 names, 407 (85%) added, 74 unclear
  3. 1800-1859 Baptisms from FreeREG: 454 names, 413 (91%) added, 41 unclear
  4. 1818-1859 Marriages from FreeREG: 58 couples, 55 (95%) added, 3 unclear
  5. 1736-1800 parish records from combined parish with Sanday: Tulloch/Kelday/Muir/Swanney/Thomson: 791 names, 145 (18%) added, work in progress
  6. 1704-1719 baptisms & marriages 1711-33 [3]: not yet started
  7. Gravestone photos: 282 names, 57 (20%) added, work in progress
  8. Migration from North Ronaldsay to Eday in 1836: 5 of 32 families (15%), work in progress
  9. Settlements: Over 100 recorded discrete settlements (mainly crofts) in six townships; 46 placeholder pages added so far, work in progress; 7 complete
  10. Kirk session accounts - [4][5] - started
  11. War Memorial Details
  12. Bayanne/Northern Genealogy - not yet started
  13. Apportionment of Sheep records - investigating
  14. Poll Tax records - page copied over
  15. Estate rentals - sourcing
  16. FindMyPast - not yet started
  17. OrkneyFHS - not yet paid
  18. Society of Genealogists - not yet started

Name

The name North Ronaldsay (previously North Ronaldshay) comes from the Norse Rinansey, meaning the island of St Ninian. By the 1300s the name was being confused with Rognvaldsey, the island of St Ronald, in the south of Orkney so they were named North Ronaldsay and South Ronaldsay to distinguish them from the other.[1]

Geography

See also Space:Settlements in North Ronaldsay
Continent: Europe
Sovereign State: United Kingdom
Country: Scotland
County: Orkney
GPS Coordinates: 59.37, -2.42
Elevation: 7.0 m or 23.0 feet

North Ronaldsay is the northernmost island in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland. With an area of 690 hectares (2.7 sq mi), it is the fourteenth-largest island in Orkney. In modern times it is known for its historic lighthouse, migratory bird life and unusual breed of sheep.[1]

It lies around 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) north of its nearest neighbour, Sanday, at grid reference HY759542. It is around 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) long and is defined by two large sandy bays; Linklet Bay on the eastern shoreline and South Bay at the south. The west of the island is very rocky, with many skerries. North Ronaldsay is low-lying and exposed; its climate is extremely changeable and frequently inclement. The surrounding waters are stormy and treacherous, and have been a notorious "graveyard" for ships (hence the unusually early provision of a lighthouse on the island).[1]

Hollandstoun at the south of the island is the most sizable settlement; it lies roughly equidistant from the airfield and the pier. North Ronaldsay is also home to a bird observatory.[1]

A dry stone dyke has been built to surround the island, the purpose of which is to keep the seaweed-eating local sheep off the arable land.[1]

Two ancient dykes divide the island into three parts, which are in turn divided into six "townships": north of the Matches Dyke are Ancumstoun and East North Yard; between Matches Dyke and the Muckle Gersty is Linklet and south of the Muckle Gersty are Bustatoun, Hollandstoun and Nesstoun.[2]

Until the 15th century, the land was held under "udal" tenure, which meant that the landowners were relatively free and were secure in their landholding. The Earl of Orkney granted a feudal holding of the island to Margaret Bonar, wife of William Henryson, treasurer of Orkney and minister of Stronsay. In the 1595 Rentalls, the value of the island was listed as 72 pennies, of which only 6 pennies remained as odal land. These remaining udal rights were quickly removed; over the next nearly 300 years the tenants had little security of tenure, with instances of tenants being "warned out" or removed from their land by the proprietor or his resident "baillie", often to increase the size of their own farms. This was finally ended with the Crofters Holdings Act 1886 which gave North Ronaldsay farmers security of tenure and reduced their rents.

Agriculture was based on the "run-rig" system,[3] where strips of land were farmed in rotation by several families in the township. In 1832 the Baillie forced through the "squaring" of the land - dividing into self-contained farms that were wholly the responsibility of the tenant.[4]

Under the Norse system of inheritance that was used in Orkney, the main house passed to the eldest son but the property was divided among all their children, with sons receiving an equal share and daughters a half share. This led over time to an increasing number of farms that were smaller and smaller in size.[5] These small farms managed to continue being sustainable only with the added income from kelp, which was collected and burnt to produce soda ash, a raw material for the manufacture of glass. The kelp boom supported an increase in the population and at its height saw 3,000 tons per year of kelp ash exported from Orkney. The industry lasted until the 1820s, when the price crashed due to the popularisation of the alternative "Leblanc process" which produced soda ash from brine. The price falls provoked a wave of emigration across northern Scotland.[6][7][8]

History

According to the Orkneyinga saga,Torf-Einarr, a 10th-century Norse Earl of Orkney, killed Hálfdan Longlegs on North Ronaldsay in revenge for Hálfdan and his brother Gudrød Ljome's slaying of Torf-Einarr's father.The sagas claim that Hálfdan was captured, and sacrificed to Odin as a blood-eagle.[1]

The Earl of Orkney granted a feudal holding of the island to Margaret Bonar, wife of William Henryson, treasurer of Orkney and minister of Stronsay.

John Dick was the proprietor of North Ronaldsay in the late 1500s.

Archibald Nisbet of Carfin acquired the island of North Ronaldshay and also Woodwick and other lands on the mainland of Orkney from Robert McLellan in 1670.[9] His son Archibald sold the island to James Traill in 1727.[10]

In 1840 the island's proprietor created a 60 acre farm in Hollandstoun near his residence, Holland House. Five crofting families were "warned off" their land in order to create the new farm. A second farm, 18 acres, was also created in Howar, the residence of the laird's "Bailie", Charles Thomson.[11]

Population

The population peaked in around 1881, after a boom brought about by kelp farming was brought to an end by the reduction in prices. This prompted a period of mass migration, first to neighbouring islands such as Sanday, Eday and Westray and also further afield to Canada and Australia.

Year Population Source
1693 220 Poll Tax returns of 1693 for North Ronaldsay
1733 250 46 households[12]
1755 300 Estimate based on Statistical Accounts of Scotland.[13]
1787 384 Statistical Account of Scotland, 1791
1791 420 Haswell-Smith, Hamish (2004). The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 978-1-84195-454-7.
1801 411 Tulloch, Peter (1974), A Window on North Ronaldsay
1811 384 Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, Frances Groome, 1884
1821 420 Cleland (1823), Enumeration of the inhabitants of Scotland, taken from the government abstracts of 1801, 1811, 1821
1831 522 Tulloch, Peter (1974), A Window on North Ronaldsay
1836 443 Tulloch, Peter (1974), A Window on North Ronaldsay;
Migration from North Ronaldsay to Eday in 1836
1841 481 Haswell-Smith, Hamish (2004). The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 978-1-84195-454-7.
1851 536 Tulloch, Peter (1974), A Window on North Ronaldsay; Space:List_of_Tullochs_in_the_North_Ronaldshay,_Orkney,_Scotland_1851_census
1861 532 Tulloch, Peter (1974), A Window on North Ronaldsay
1871 539 Tulloch, Peter (1974), A Window on North Ronaldsay
1881 547 Haswell-Smith, Hamish (2004). The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 978-1-84195-454-7.
1891 501 Haswell-Smith, Hamish (2004). The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 978-1-84195-454-7.
1901 442Tulloch, Peter (1974), A Window on North Ronaldsay
1911 436Tulloch, Peter (1974), A Window on North Ronaldsay
1931 283Tulloch, Peter (1974), A Window on North Ronaldsay
1931 298 Haswell-Smith, Hamish (2004). The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 978-1-84195-454-7.
1951 224 Population Statistics | Total Population, A Vision of Britain through Time
1961161 Haswell-Smith, Hamish (2004). The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 978-1-84195-454-7.
1971 135 Population Statistics | Total Population, A Vision of Britain through Time
1981109 Haswell-Smith, Hamish (2004). The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 978-1-84195-454-7.
199192 Haswell-Smith, Hamish (2004). The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 978-1-84195-454-7.
200170 Haswell-Smith, Hamish (2004). The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 978-1-84195-454-7.
2011 72 National Records of Scotland (15 August 2013). "Appendix 2: Population and households on Scotland's Inhabited Islands" (PDF). Statistical Bulletin: 2011 Census: First Results on Population and Household Estimates for Scotland Release 1C (Part Two). SG/2013/126.

Sources

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Ronaldsay
  2. ↑ Island Saga, the Story of North Ronaldshay, Mary A Scott, page 58
  3. ↑ See http://www.visitwester-ross.com/crofting.asp
  4. ↑ A Window on North Ronaldsay, Peter Tulloch
  5. ↑ Island Saga, The Story of North Ronaldsay, Mary Scott p35
  6. ↑ [1]
  7. ↑ See Kelp (Wikipedia) and Leblanc process (Wikipedia).
  8. ↑ ibid p58
  9. ↑ See Space:Nisbet of Carfin or Carphin
  10. ↑ [2]
  11. ↑ Island Saga, a Story of North Ronaldsay, Mary A Scott, page 83
  12. ↑ 1733 Rental, quoted in Window on North Ronaldsay; population estimated by comparing to 41 households in 1693.
  13. ↑ SAS recorded a combined population for North Ronaldshay and Sanday in 1755 of 1,250. By 1787 the population had increased by 103 to 1,353, of whom 384 were on North Ronaldshay. Four years later the population of North Ronaldshay had increased by another 36 people but the population of Sanday was unchanged. The Statistical Accounts notes that North Ronaldshay had a "greater number of marriages than is usually at an average and consequently the greater number of births". This indicates that the main population growth at the time was on North Ronaldshay. On that basis it seems reasonable to assume that most of the increase from 1755 to 1787 was also in North Ronaldshay and therefore the population in 1755 can be estimated at around 300.




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North Ronaldsay population
North Ronaldsay population
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Turvey-154 Andrew Turvey
john Dick, Sheriff of Orkney --> Robert McLelland, his servitor, who bought Woodwick (which included NR) [1]
posted by Andrew Turvey
Turvey-154 Andrew Turvey
see https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/LB6688
posted by Andrew Turvey
Turvey-154 Andrew Turvey
Population: Norse inheritance, division of farms, expansion from kelp, sheep, transfer to Eday in 1836, warnings
posted by Andrew Turvey
Turvey-154 Andrew Turvey
Sheep Regulations 1902: https://archive.org/details/northernislesork00fent/page/470/mode/2up?q=North+Ronaldsay
posted by Andrew Turvey

Categories: Community, Place Studies | North Ronaldsay, Orkney One Place Study