Keeping Hillock in the Family

The Sinclair croft at Dunrossness, Shetland

When Thomas, Laurence and John Sinclair left Shetland for Western Australia, they left their parents, George and Margaret Sinclair, at Hillock in the parish of Dunrossness. Their sister Ann remained in Shetland with her husband, James Mainland. As George and Margaret grew older, Ann and James assumed an increasing share of the work of the croft and of responsibility for the elderly couple. Margaret died in 1886 and George on 1 April 1888. His death raised a question that was at once practical, familial and legal: who would succeed to Hillock, and on what terms?

A croft was not simply a cottage with a small field, and it was not necessarily land owned by the family occupying it. In Shetland terms it was a small agricultural holding governed by a distinctive form of tenure. The crofter was normally the tenant, paying rent to the estate or landlord for the land, while the house, agricultural buildings, fences and other improvements were commonly provided and owned by the crofter. A croft might also carry a share in common grazing. Most crofts were too small to provide a complete living, and Shetland households commonly combined crofting with fishing or other work.¹

The Hillock papers show that this combination of crofting and fishing was central to the Sinclair and Mainland household. James Mainland described himself as one of the landlord’s fishermen. Rent for Hillock was deducted from his fishing earnings in the annual accounts maintained by John Bruce junior of Sumburgh. Land, fishing, rent, credit and family labour were therefore closely connected. The arrangement belonged to the wider Shetland truck system, under which landlords or merchants received the fishermen’s catch, supplied goods and settled accounts periodically, often leaving working families economically dependent upon the same person as landlord, employer, merchant and creditor.²

George Sinclair stated that he had held and occupied Hillock since November 1835. By 1875, however, age and infirmity made it difficult for him to cultivate and manage the holding. He asked James Mainland to join him. According to James’s later statement, the arrangement was precise: James was to pay two-thirds of the rent, provide two-thirds of the stock and receive two-thirds of the produce. When the old houses became unsafe, George and James agreed with the landlord to build a new house, and James was charged with two-thirds of the cost of quarrying and carting stone and supplying timber. In 1881 George sold his remaining stock, after which James stocked the whole croft. James also stated that he and Ann had entirely supported George and Margaret during their later years of illness and incapacity.³

The surviving documents record the steps taken to preserve Hillock for the household that had continued to live there and work it. They do not describe a simple transfer of ownership. What was at stake was the crofter’s tenancy, the improvements attached to it and, after 1886, the statutory status of a crofter.

The four documents

The first document is George Sinclair’s will, dated 3 May 1887. Describing himself as an eighty-two-year-old crofter, George declared that he had occupied Hillock for fifty-one years. He bequeathed his entire “Tenant and Crofter Right” to his son-in-law, James Mainland, empowering James to take possession after his death and to have his name entered in the landlord’s book as George’s successor. The will was witnessed by G. Sinclair, merchant of Ollaberry, and Joseph Strathern, teacher at Dunrossness.⁴

George’s intention could hardly have been clearer. James had already assumed most of the financial and practical burden of Hillock and had supported George and Margaret in their old age. The difficulty was whether George’s will was sufficient to give James the protected status of crofter.

The Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886 had come into force less than a year before George made his will. It gave qualifying crofters important protections, including security of tenure, the right to have a fair rent fixed and compensation for permanent improvements. It also restricted the way in which a croft tenancy could be transferred. A crofter had no general power to assign the tenancy, and the provision governing a testamentary bequest allowed the right to the holding to be left to one person who was a member of the crofter’s family, defined as the wife or a person who would succeed in the event of intestacy. James, as George’s son-in-law, does not appear to have fallen within that class in his own right.⁵

This legal restriction appears to explain the second document. After George’s death, James prepared a detailed statement intended to prove that he was already “a Crofter within the meaning of the Act 25th June ’86”. His case did not rest only upon the will. Instead, he argued that he had been a substantive occupier of Hillock before the Act was passed. He set out the division of rent, stock and produce; his contribution to the new house; the estate accounts in his own name; the deduction of rent from his fishing earnings; his stocking of the entire croft after 1881; and the support given to George and Margaret.⁶

James said that, shortly after George’s death, he asked the landlord to enter his name on the estate roll as crofter. The landlord refused. He was willing for James to remain as a tenant at Hillock, but not as a crofter within the meaning of the 1886 Act. The distinction was crucial. An ordinary tenancy depended much more heavily upon the landlord, while statutory crofter status carried security of tenure and other legal protections. James therefore applied to the Crofters Commission, arguing that his occupation and financial responsibility before June 1886 had already made him a crofter.

The statement is carefully constructed. Each item of family history—the division of produce, the new house, the fishing accounts, the stock and the care of the elderly couple—also serves as evidence in a legal claim. James was presenting himself not as a newcomer seeking a vacant tenancy after George’s death, but as the person who had already borne the chief responsibilities of the holding for more than a decade.

The third document was executed at Bunbury in Western Australia on 12 May 1890 by John Sinclair. John described himself as George’s third son and stated that he had no intention of returning to Shetland to take possession of Hillock. He resigned and relinquished any right, title, interest or claim he might have in the croft in favour of his sister Ann Mainland and her heirs. The declaration was witnessed by Edward Fox Angelo, Lieutenant-Colonel, Justice of the Peace and Resident Magistrate of the Wellington district, and by [Robert] Hayward, Justice of the Peace.⁷

The fourth document was executed in Perth on 13 May 1890 by Laurence Sinclair, who described himself as George’s second and eldest surviving son. Laurence likewise declared that he had no intention of returning to Shetland, renounced any claim upon Hillock and assigned his interest to Ann Mainland and her heirs. The document was witnessed by two clerks employed by the Perth solicitors Burnside and Gawler, one apparently G. Jennings and the other James J. Callaghan.⁸

It is significant that the two brothers made their declarations in favour of Ann rather than James. Ann was George’s daughter and therefore stood within the family relationship contemplated by the succession provision of the 1886 Act. The declarations may have been intended to remove claims by the absent sons and strengthen Ann’s position if James could not succeed directly under George’s will. That interpretation fits the sequence of the surviving papers, but it remains an inference: none of the documents explains who devised the arrangement or records the final ruling.

Why the process mattered

Taken together, the four documents reveal a process rather than a single transaction. George first attempted to determine the succession by will. James then sought recognition as a crofter on the ground that he had already shared the occupation and management of Hillock before the 1886 legislation. Finally, John and Laurence, living thousands of miles away in Western Australia, formally relinquished their claims in favour of Ann. The object throughout was to preserve Hillock for the household that had remained there, cared for George and Margaret and continued to work the land.

The papers also show why it is misleading to describe the matter simply as the inheritance of a family home. George was not disposing of an unrestricted freehold estate. He was attempting to pass on a tenant’s crofting right, together with the practical value created by decades of labour and improvement. The landlord’s willingness to accept James as a tenant, while refusing to recognise him as a crofter, demonstrates that occupancy and legal status were not the same thing.

The case sits at the meeting point of family obligation and major changes in Scottish land law. The 1886 Act was intended to protect established crofting communities from arbitrary removal and excessive dependence upon landlords. Yet its rules also made succession formal and sometimes difficult, particularly where the person who had actually assumed responsibility for a holding was a son-in-law rather than a child of the crofter. At Hillock the family responded with a will, a detailed evidentiary statement and legal declarations carried across the world for signature.

Crofting remains a distinct form of landholding in Shetland. Modern crofts may be tenanted or held by owner-occupier crofters, but they remain subject to crofting law and regulation. In figures published by the Scottish Government in 2021, Shetland had 2,129 tenanted crofts and 1,193 owned crofts. Crofting continues to combine a legal relationship with the land and a wider social purpose: sustaining settlement, small-scale agriculture and rural communities in places where a croft alone has rarely provided a complete livelihood.⁹

The Hillock documents preserve one family’s encounter with that system. They record an elderly crofter’s wishes, a son-in-law’s account of years of work and expenditure, and the decisions of two emigrant sons who accepted that the croft should remain with the sister and brother-in-law who had stayed behind. Although the final legal outcome has not yet been recovered, the documents show how seriously the family took the task of keeping Hillock in occupation and within the family circle.

Research note

This account is based on the corrected transcriptions of the four surviving Hillock documents and on the background information presently available. The Crofters Commission decision on James Mainland’s application, the relevant estate roll and any additional declarations by other members of the Sinclair family have not been located. The documents therefore demonstrate the steps taken to secure the succession, but they do not by themselves prove the final legal outcome. The present ownership or crofting status of Hillock has also not been established. This post should be corrected or expanded if further records come to light.

Notes

Scottish Government, ‘Crofting’; Scottish Government, Crofting Consultation 2017, introduction. The average modern croft is approximately five hectares, although individual holdings vary greatly and may include a share in common grazing. ↩︎
Hillock Croft Documents, James Mainland’s statement; Angus Johnson, ‘The New Year, 1872 and the Truck Commission’, Shetland Museum and Archives, 5 January 2022. ↩︎
Hillock Croft Documents, James Mainland’s statement, especially the account of the arrangement beginning in 1875, the new house, the estate accounts and the stocking of the croft. ↩︎
Hillock Croft Documents, ‘George Sinclair’s Will Bequeathing the Hillock Croft to James Mainland’, 3 May 1887. ↩︎
Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886; House of Commons debate, ‘Crofters (Scotland) (No. 2) Bill’, 19 April 1886, clause on bequest of a holding; Scottish Government, ‘A Simplified Guide’, Small Landholdings Legislation: Guide to the Law in Scotland. ↩︎
Hillock Croft Documents, ‘James Mainland’s Statement Claiming Recognition as Crofter of Hillock’, undated, written after 1 April 1888. ↩︎
Hillock Croft Documents, ‘John Sinclair’s Renunciation of Rights in the Hillock Croft in Favour of Ann Mainland’, Bunbury, 12 May 1890. ↩︎
Hillock Croft Documents, ‘Laurence Sinclair’s Renunciation and Assignment of Rights in the Hillock Croft to Ann Mainland’, Perth, 13 May 1890. ↩︎
Scottish Government, National Development Plan for Crofting: Island Communities Impact Assessment, 8 September 2021; Scottish Government, ‘Crofting’. ↩︎

Bibliography

Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886, 49 & 50 Vict., c. 29.

Crofting Commission. ‘Testate Succession: Bequest of Croft Tenancy—Notification to Landlord(s)’, https://www.crofting.scotland.gov.uk/applications-and-notifications/application-notification-types/testate-succession-bequest-of-croft-tenancy-notification-to-landlords/, accessed 5 August 2026.

Hansard. ‘Crofters (Scotland) (No. 2) Bill’, House of Commons debate, 19 April 1886. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1886/apr/19/crofters-scotland-no-2-bill, accessed 5 August 2026.

Hillock Croft Documents, 1887–1890. Digitised copies held by the author.

Johnson, Angus, ‘The New Year, 1872 and the Truck Commission’, Shetland Museum and Archives, 5 January 2022, https://www.shetlandmuseumandarchives.org.uk/blog/the-new-year-1872-and-the-truck-commission, accessed 5 August 2026.

Scottish Government, ‘A Simplified Guide’, Small Landholdings Legislation: Guide to the Law in Scotland. 25 September 2018, https://www.gov.scot/publications/small-landholdings-legislation-guide-law-scotland/pages/4/, accessed 5 August 2026.

Scottish Government, ‘Crofting’, Agricultural Holdings Including Crofting and Small Landholdings, https://www.gov.scot/policies/agricultural-holdings-crofting/crofting/, accessed 5 August 2026.

Scottish Government, national Development Plan for Crofting: Island Communities Impact Assessment, 8 September 2021, https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-development-plan-crofting-island-communities-impact-assessment/pages/2/, accessed 5 August 2026.

Last updated 5 August 2026.

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