I would like to thank the staff of Edinburgh University Library, the National Library of Scotland, and above all the National Archives of Scotland for all the help and patience they showed to me during my research. This article could not have been written without the groundwork laid down in two masterly and exceptionally important local history books: De Vere Loder’s classic Colonsay and Oronsay in the isles of Argyll : their history, flora, fauna and topography (Edinburgh, 1935: reprinted Colonsay, 1995), and the new study by Peter Youngson, Jura: island of deer (Edinburgh, 2000). I apologize for including footnotes, and ask the reader’s indulgence and forbearance: I hope that they show just how rich and varied are the archival sources for the study of Colonsay during this fascinating period. Unless indicated otherwise, all manuscript references are to the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Having recently spent a most enjoyable few days organising a small Gaelic féis with the children at Kilchattan School, I thought that Colbhasaich at home and away might be interested in a little study of the first schoolteachers and catechists we know about in any detail who taught in Colonsay. These were James Moore (whose surname generally appears in contemporary documents, though not in his own signature, as "Muir") who taught from 1728 – at least – until 1736; and his successor, and indeed briefly his predecessor, Donald MacLean. Although I had intended at first just to present a mere list of names and a couple of letters, I soon found that there was a great deal of information hidden away in the archives about both these men, information which might be of some interest to the people of Colonsay, and maybe even of some use in contributing to the history of the island and perhaps further afield.

Through looking at the vagaries of the catechists’ careers – and their careers were nothing if not volatile – I hope that we might come to a better understanding not only of the different pressures and interests which affected and shaped the history of Colonsay during the eighteenth century, but also of the two bodies which funded these schoolmasters: the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, known as the SSPCK; and the Royal Bounty Committee. The papers of these two rather amorphous organisations, especially those of the latter, form a largely unindexed treasure trove for the historian of the early modern Gàidhealtachd. Owing perhaps primarily to the basic difficulty of retrieving the documents from storage for research, studies of these exceptionally important organisations are few and far between. What studies have been written are generally made from the top down. Maybe greater attention has been paid to "mission statements" and policies than to how these organisations actually functioned.

However, through studying how the SSPCK and the Royal Bounty Committee funded and administered the post of catechist-schoolmaster in a small and even then relatively remote island such as Colonsay, I hope that we might come to a better understanding of how they operated "on the ground". Of course, as far as the ministers meeting at Edinburgh were concerned, Colonsay was not high on the list of areas which needed urgent assistance: there were no Catholics on the island, certainly no missionary priests, nor was it a hotbed of jacobitism. We cannot make any claims that the experience of the Colonsay catechists was at all typical of their colleagues elsewhere. In the correspondence and committee minutes which relate to them, however, we can see clearly how supposedly clearly delineated, closely regulated methods of management and supervision were altered and at times thwarted by the various tensions, suspicions and basic misunderstandings which constantly coloured relations between centre and periphery.

In order better to understand the experiences of the first catechist in Colonsay, it might be helpful to take a look at the background, both local and national, to his story. With regard to the national context, we will briefly examine the origins of the Royal Bounty scheme which organised and financed the nationwide, and indeed subsequently international, teaching programme James Moore was involved in. First of all, however, I should like to consider the character of the Rev. Neill Campbell (1677-1757), the minister of Jura and Colonsay in the first half of the eighteenth century, and the problems he faced in administering his vast and scattered parish.

The Rev. John MacSween, the previous minister of the parish, had enjoyed somewhat fraught relations with the his colleagues in the Presbytery of Kintyre, as suggested by the name under which he is recorded, perhaps rather tongue in cheek, in their minutes: "McSwine". MacSween not only remained an episcopalian after the introduction of presbyterianism to the Church of Scotland in 1690, he also remained in possession of his parish. This stubbornness, as well as the fact that MacSween appears by repute to have been an accomplished drinker, may go some way to explain the presbytery’s consistent hostility to him. We should also note just how zealously presbyterian, and indeed fervently anti-episcopalian, some members of the Presbytery of Kintyre were. The father of the Rev. David Simson, minister of Kilarrow and Kilchoman, had been minister of Southend, but was now in exile over the ocean in New Jersey because of his religious allegiance. The Rev. Robert Duncanson, minister of the Highland Kirk in Campbeltown, who died in February 1697, had been ordained as a member of the earlier presbyterian Synod of Argyll during the Cromwellian era. Imprisoned in 1685 because of his presbyterian faith, he was later described by the Rev. Robert Wodrow as "a man of rare gifts and parts and a Malleus episcopalium."(1) We should also remember that the majority of the Lowlanders who had been involved in the Kintyre plantation in the second half of the seventeenth century came from staunch Ayrshire covenanting stock.(2) Just a few years before, in May 1685, a great number of these presbyterian Lowland colonists had risen up with Archibald Campbell, ninth earl of Argyll, their erstwhile patron and benefactor, as part of his ill-fated rebellion against James VII; after its collapse, many of them had been deported overseas, mostly to the Jamaican plantations.(3) The campaign to depose the recalcitrant episcopal minister of Jura was thus also a chance to settle some old scores.

John MacSween appeared before a meeting of the presbytery appointed by the Synod of Argyll in November 1697, a show trial at which he was presented with a lengthy list alleging consistent negligence of duty. MacSween denied the charges, but nevertheless was suspended from office at the next meeting of the Synod of Argyll. Rather to his credit, MacSween ignored all charges and carried on at his post. It would be a full six years before the presbytery deposed him, in February 1703.(4)

Two months later, the young Neill Campbell was appointed as MacSween’s replacement. This was largely thanks to the efforts of John Campbell of Sannaig, baillie of Jura, who represented to the Presbytery of Kintyre on 26 June 1704 "that he hes been at no smal exspenses in attending sundry of the presbytries and synods in pursuance of several Calls to probationers in order to get a minister settled in the Isles of Jura and Colonsa particularly Mr Neill Campbel their present Minister of which exspenses he had not been hitherto reimbursed by the other heritors concerned in the said Isles tho he acted by their Commission."(5) Donald MacNeill of Crear and his son Malcolm, who had just acquired the island of Colonsay, were present at the same meeting, and voiced the same complaint. It was hardly an auspicious beginning to Campbell’s career.

It was not long before further problems arose. Traditionally the minister of Jura and Colonsay had the island of Oronsay as a glebe. Malcolm MacNeill of Colonsay refused to give Campbell the farm unless the baillie of Jura contributed as well. At a meeting the following year, on 30 July 1705, the two heritors fell out with each other.(6) The presbytery continued to attempt to hammer out terms with the heritors, but no manse, glebe or indeed increase of stipend was forthcoming. The most the local landowners would allow Campbell was free transport between the many islands in his new parish. But even this promise does not appear to have been honoured. For the next four years Neill Campbell complained to the presbytery that he was unable to obtain a parish glebe. In September 1707, evidently fed up with the stalemate, the minister requested a transfer to another parish. The fact that he was shortly to marry Florence, daughter of Donald MacNeill of Tarbet on the island of Gigha, may have contributed to his eagerness to leave for a more lucrative position. Indeed, Campbell could not even guarantee a jointure for his new wife; that had to be done on his behalf by his brother Patrick and a friend. In fact, it would be another forty three years before Neill Campbell demitted his charge.(7)

Campbell’s difficulties were not just due to the heritors’ reluctance to finance his ministry. There may have been deeper hostility towards him from the people, if not from the heritors themselves, as a presbyterian and thus the representative of an alien and still unpopular denomination. In addition, he was the replacement for the disgraced John MacSween, who, as we have seen, may have been more popular in the parish than the allegations worked up against him by the Presbytery of Kintyre might otherwise suggest; indeed, he was still living on the island in 1706.(8) It is noteworthy that Neill Campbell nominated John Campbell, baillie of Jura as his accompanying elder to the Synod of Argyll in 1711 and 1712, while the Duncan MacKellar nominated in 1716 would appear to be the same as the only Jura man called to witness against MacSween in 1697.(9) In passing, we might note that MacSween’s daughter was married to Archibald Campbell, second son of Duncan Campbell of Sannaig, previous baillie of Jura, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that her father once in prayer "did Imprecat destruction on the Ballie of Jura his famely and Children".(10)

As will be seen later in the article, even after a generation the Rev. Neill Campbell had made little progress with his parishioners. Certainly they would have little interest in having to submit their problems to outside decisions. Martin Martin’s account of Colonsay, probably compiled as a result of a visit at the very end of the seventeenth century, mentions the women of the island still keeping the feast of the Blessed Virgin, and relates an instance of the bible being used as a healing charm. This rather suggests that the people there, if not in Jura, remained strongly wedded to popular rites and beliefs which may have been reinforced by the teachings of the Franciscan missionaries who ministered to the Colbhasaich as far back as the 1620s.(11) As we shall see, in 1727 Campbell, explaining why he had never administered communion to his parishioners, replied that "He was discouraged from attempting such a work in regard he found little appearance of the reality of Religion amongst them".(12) What the people of the parish did expect from their clergyman was that he baptise their children, and this, of course, he appears to have done conscientiously, although it is most unfortunate for later Colbhasaich genealogists that it is only the Jura records which have survived. (13)

Campbell does seem to have had a brief moment of success at the beginning of 1712. It is clear that, doubtless with the support of sympathetic ministers and other landowners, he had taken the heritors of the parish to court. In fact, he had dragged the case through the Commissary Court of the Isles, then down to the Court of Session in Edinburgh. At Edinburgh on 11 January 1712 Donald MacLean of Tarbert in Jura promised to pay the minister his share of the money owed for the parish manse and glebe, as well as compensation for the expenses of the case.(14) Neill Campbell was not picking on MacLean because he was the smallest and thus the least powerful landowner in the parish. Donald MacLean had just inherited the estate of Torloisk after the death of his cousin Alexander, a captain in the Scots Guards who had been mortally wounded at the battle of Brihuega in Spain on 9 December 1710. With his new estate in north-west Mull, Tarbert was now in a position to pay his dues, and it was surely expected that the other heritors would follow suit. Sophisticated and cultured, hereditary tutors to the family of their chiefs, the MacLeans of Duart, the MacLeans of Torloisk are an exceptionally important family in the history of Mull. Donald MacLean of Tarbert, a man "noted for his kindness and refinement of manners", will appear again later in this article.(15)

While the minister and Donald MacLean hammered out an agreement in Edinburgh, it seems that John Campbell of Sannaig, the baillie of Jura, had in fact paid the entire expenses due to Neill Campbell on behalf of the other heritors. A letter of 22 January to Campbell of Sannaig from Murdoch MacLaine of Lochbuie, at that time the owner of the Ardlussa estate in the north of Jura, thanks him for the trouble he has taken, promises to reimburse him for his pains, and also alludes to a planned meeting of himself, the baillie, Tarbert and Archibald Campbell of Crackaig at Kinuachdrach at the very northern tip of Jura. Rather ominously, Lochbuie promises that he will do his utmost "to defend ous in time coming in just proportion".(16) Despite his little victory, then, Campbell’s problems with his refractory heritors appear to have continued unabated.

Loder makes much of the difficulties faced by Campbell in his struggle against both the local landowners and indeed the unforgiving geography of his parish: "such were the difficulties with which he had to contend that, combined with indifferent health, they caused him to lapse into cantankerous negligence long before the end of his time."(17) Youngson, in his book on Jura, comes to much the same conclusion. Contemporaries, however, may have been more sympathetic, while fully recognising his unfitness for his post. The Rev. James Boes or Bowes of the Lowland Charge in Campbeltown, writing in June 1729 to Nicol Spence, agent of the Church of Scotland, describes John Campbell, the minister of Kilcalmonell in north Kintyre as "an utter Invalid, both in body & mind", and goes on to say that "Jura [is] little better, tho otherwise a worthy man".(18) But it seems that within a few years of taking up his parish Campbell’s spirit was broken. He averaged barely one attendance every two years at the monthly presbytery meetings, excusing himself both because of the bad weather and his own chronic bad health.(19)

In terms of comparative attendance, Neill Campbell was more assiduous visiting the yearly meetings of the Synod of Argyll at Inveraray. Indeed, his habit was to attend meetings of the Presbytery of Kintyre not in Campbeltown, but rather when his colleagues were present at the gathering of the entire synod. Obviously, the burgh was a place where the minister could transact business and meet with old friends. Synod records, however, also suggest that Campbell had more allies there than at the presbytery meetings in Campbeltown, fellow ministers who could better appreciate the burdens he laboured under in trying to supervise the different islands which made up his scattered parish. It was through the synod, at the urging of the heritor Malcolm MacNeill of Taynish, that the island of Gigha was eventually legally separated from Campbell’s parish (although in fact it had been administered from the parish of Killean since 1698). We should of course note once again that Neill Campbell’s wife Florence was the daughter of Donald MacNeill of Tarbet on that island.(20)

It was through the synod also that Neill Campbell mooted a radical new proposal in August 1716. Together with another Rev. John Campbell, this time the minister of Killarrow in Islay and thus the closest neighbouring clergyman, he suggested that the parish of Jura and Colonsay might be split in two. Although it is not actually stated, it is obvious that he meant that the two islands should be erected into two separate parishes. The proposal would be partly paid for, according to the ministers, by appropriating the local revenues of the old episcopal Bishop of the Isles. Theoretically, this was feasible: after the presbyterian ascendancy in 1690, the moneys originally due each year to the Bishop of the Isles had been awarded to the Synod of Argyll for ecclesiastical and educational purposes. Unfortunately, the synod would or could do nothing without the assent of the local heritors:

The ministers’ proposal might have been better timed. Made in the immediate aftermath of the jacobite rising of 1716, the local landowners probably had enough financial troubles of their own without adding to them by paying church dues, possibly twice over, which they badly needed themselves. Neill Campbell did not attend the synod meeting of 1717. The heritors must have made their displeasure felt, and it would be some years before the proposal was raised again, this time in very different political circumstances.

It is probably safe to say that the ministers on mainland Argyll would not have been well acquainted with the spiritual welfare of the people of Colonsay. They would have been more aware of what was happening on Scarba and the other islands to the north of Jura, hence the special admonition to Neill Campbell to look after the islanders there. Indeed, for at least some years afterwards the people of these small islands were regularly served by the Rev. Daniel Morison, minister of Kilbrandon and Kilchattan, the mainland parish opposite, and, although the proposal came to nothing, it was later suggested that they should in fact be disjoined from Campbell’s parish and annexed thereto.(22)

By the 1720s it looks as if the Rev. Neill Campbell and the Presbytery of Kintyre had reached a modus vivendi. Every so often the presbytery would urge the recalcitrant minister appear more regularly; Campbell would thereupon, for appearances’ sake, tender the usual excuses of bad weather and indifferent health. This long-standing tacit agreement would be disrupted by the intrusion of the representatives of the west-coast presbyteries who made up the Synod of Argyll, themselves impelled by the great plans and projects for the church taking shape further north. As the Gaelic proverb says, ‘S e farmad a nì treabhadh – it is envy that makes the ploughing. It was from the mid-1720s, a time of astonishing upheaval in the administrative framework of the church in the western Gàidhealtachd, that the synod would give the greatest assistance to Neill Campbell, through colleagues, auxiliary ministers and indeed money. It is then that the difference between their zealousness and the comparative dilatoriness of the Presbytery of Kintyre comes through most clearly. First of all, however, we have to turn to the wider picture, and look at the nature and origins of these extraordinary innovations introduced in a space of barely three years.

1 Fasti iv, 49, 66, 73.

2 Andrew McKerral, Kintyre in the seventeenth century (Edinburgh, 1948), 80-109.

3 Paul Hopkins, Glencoe and the end of the Highland war (Edinburgh, 1998), 95-103.

4 Loder, Colonsay, 150-1; Youngson, Jura, 183-95; cf. also CH2/557/3, 160, 187, 206; /4, 5, 82.

5 CH2/1153/1 fo.158v.

6 CH2/1153/1 fos.167r.-v.

7 Loder, Colonsay, 151-2; Youngson, Jura, 196-9; Henry Paton (ed.), The Clan Campbell: abstracts of entries relating to Campbells in the Sheriff Court Books of Argyll at Inveraray (Edinburgh, 1913), 132-3, 147.

8 Youngson, summing up MacSween’s character, has "a suspicion that he may well have been a most likeable rascal": Jura, 195; also 248.

9 CH2/557/5, 117, 129, 186, 314; CH2/1153/1 fo.72; also 167v.

10 CH2/1153/1 fo.72; Youngson, Jura, 194.

11 Martin Martin, A description of the Western Isles of Scotland (London, 1703), 246-9; Cathaldus Giblin, Irish Franciscan mission to Scotland 1619-1646 (Dublin, 1964), 25, 34-5, 41-4, 53, 61-2, 81, 121, 122, 124, 125, 131, 137, 149; Kevin Byrne, Colkitto!: A celebration of Clan Donald of Colonsay (1570-1647) (Colonsay, 1997), 105-10, 217-24.

12 CH2/1153/3, 59.

13 Youngson, Jura, 237-53.

14 CS271/22,801.

15 Alexander Maclean Sinclair, The Clan Gillean (Charlottetown, 1892), 459-60; Jo Currie, Mull: an island and its people (Edinburgh, 2000), 145, 173, 443.

16 GD64/1/131.

17 Loder, Colonsay, 151.

18 CH1/2/59 fo.199; on 8 March 1732 the Rev. John Campbell was deposed from his parish for drunkenness: Fasti iv, 58.

19 Loder, Colonsay, 152; Youngson, Jura, 198-200.

20 CH2/557/3, 206; /4, 26-7, 93, 257-8; /5, 178-9, 196, 242-3, 259-60, 267; CH2/1153/1 fos.144, 145, 161v., 162.

21 CH2/557/5, 196.

22 CH2/557/5, 226, 238, 249, 269, 278, 280, 310.