Statue: Duke of Sutherland

[Flag of Scotland] Flag of Scotland

In 1994, Sandy Lindsay of Inverness, Scotland, proposed that the Statue of the Duke of Sutherland be removed from its lofty perch on Ben Bhraggie, in Golspie, Sutherland(shire). He appealed to the descendants of the Highland Scots who were driven off their lands by agents of the Duke of Sutherland, often with their houses burned over their heads.

It was the time of the Clearances; the Marquis of Stafford, by marriage the Duke of Sutherland at the time, allowed his own clansfolk to be cruelly forced away from their homes to seek a scanty living fishing in the most treacherous waters Scotland has to offer, to the slums of Glasgow and Edinburgh, or across the oceans to (now) Canada and USA, New Zealand and Australia.

If the ships on which they sailed (often more crowded and in poorer condition than the slave ships out of Africa) did not sink to the bottom of the ocean, they faced privation and hardship in establishing new homes in a very unfamiliar land.

More information will be added to these pages. For now, we invite you to peruse a three-way correspondence with supporting documents, which took place by e-mail between:

Alasdair McKay of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
[native of Stirling, Scotland with McKay ancestry in Strathnaver];

Tom McRae of University of Queensland, Australia
[native of Edinburgh, Scotland];

Janet MacKay of Halifax, Nova Scotia
[ancestry in Rogart (Sutherland), Scotland

The Book of Ben Bhraggie:
Proposal of Sandy Linsday and others
to remove statue of the Duke of Sutherland
from the top of Ben Bhraggie, Golspie

The Glasgow Herald: December 15, 1994

The Statue Must Go!?

Blow That Statue Up!

Let the Statue Stand!

The Removal of Statues

The Statue Must Stay

Statues

On Moving Statues

Response to Sandy Lindsay's Proposal

The Statue Must Stand: Surrounded by Interpretive Plaques