The story of a Lismore Crofter and Entrepreneur
The 19th Century was a hard time for most of the ordinary folk of Lismore, with evictions, emigration, crop failures, famine and widespread poverty. A few individuals did prosper, notably John McIntyre, but his wider family was ravaged by tuberculosis.
He belonged to a kinship group of McIntyres and Blacks, tenants and cotters on Baleveolan estate, which extended over the townships of Baleveolan, Balimakillichan and Sailean. At that time, Sailean (Salen) referred to the northern area only; the southern part (today’s farm) was actually part of Craignich township (croft 3). His parents had moved into Baleveolan from surrounding townships in the wake of the evictions by the Campbell landlord around 1800.
John was the eldest son of Dugald McIntyre and Chirsty McColl, crofters on Balevolan, born in November 1811. He had two sisters (Cathrine 1808 and Anne 1809) and two younger brothers (Donald 1814 and Dugald 1819). Anne married Duncan Black in Achinduin, while Donald remained at Salen; both died of tuberculosis, in 1859 and 1869. Dugald was more adventurous, described as a shipping agent in Glasgow at his death, aged 28 in 1847. Cathrine may have died young. We know nothing about John’s early life, but his high level of literacy and numeracy in later life suggest that his abilities had been recognised and fostered by Samuel McColl, the parish schoolmaster from 1809 to 1862.
By 1841, John, aged 30, and recently married to Cathrine Black (by the Rev Gregor MacGregor at Point on 28 January), was tenant of a 30 acre croft on Sailean, assisted by two “male servants” in his household. His parents, both listed as 60 years of age, were occupying an adjacent croft. Cathrine was the daughter of Duncan Black, who had been brought in by Sir John Campbell of Airds to be the first tenant of the new farm at Park, including management of the new lime kiln at Port Ramsay. Can it be a coincidence that John, whose fortune was to be founded on the lime industry, chose his wife from one of the few families on the island with relevant experience? Was he able to draw on the skills and knowledge of his father-in-law? We have a hint of his social pretentions in a wedding announcement in the Perthshire Courrier of 11 February 1841: “At Lismore, Argyllshire on the 28th January 1841 Mr John McIntyre, Salen to Catherine, 2nd daughter of Duncan Black Esq., Greatpark Lismore”.
John and Cathrine prospered for twenty years at Sailean, bringing up a family of three sons and five daughters, none of whom died in infancy – although Sarah disappears from the records between the 1861 and 1871 census returns (Dugald 19842; Duncan 1844; Christina 1846; Agnes 1849; Sarah 1852; Cathrine 1854; John 1857; Mary 1860). The 1861 census shows that they valued the education of their children; Dugald (18) and Duncan (16) and Agnes (12) were still at school at a time when few island children benefited from more than a few years of elementary teaching.
The Salen Lime Works from the east, showing the pier built under John McIntyre’s management, the double kiln (right, with two circular loading ports) and the coal store (left).
It is not known when large-scale lime burning started on Baleveolan estate, or the site and type of the kiln, but we do know from letters from the factor, Alan MacDougall, to his ground officers that supplies from Dugald McCorquodale, the estate lime burner, were erratic in the 1840s. He was a difficult tenant, with chronic arrears of rent. Interpretation of the establishment of Salen (sic) Lime Works is hampered by the lack of access to the Baleveolan estate records, but some developments can be traced from the ground officer letters. By the 1850s, John McIntyre had become manager of the works and was organising finance for the quay at Sailean to serve two new kilns. The works became the major source of alternative employment on the island, of 12 to 16 quarrymen and lime burners, and, according to islanders giving evidence to the Napier Commission in 1883, the wages (17 to 19/- per week “as good as what are going in the country”) saved island families from starvation. In the process, McIntyre become the independent supplier of coal to the company, and from the depot at Sailean, he created a lucrative business in supplying fuel to the whole island.
The Salen double kiln from the west.
The survival of the Minute Book of the Lismore Agricultural Society provides a window into John McIntyre’s life, and his status in the community. From its establishment in 1854, he was a member, and frequently the chair, of the management committee; he acted as “examiner” of its accounts (in 1854 with Rev. Gregor MacGregor); and he undertook the role of judge for some of its competitions. This did not prevent him from taking part in the competitions himself, winning many prizes for crops and livestock. In his forties, he was regarded as one of the island leaders.
Around this time, the fortunes of the family, built on coal, were beginning to show in terms of landholding. The Society membership list reveals that, by 1862, McIntyre had moved from his modest croft on Sailean to assume the tenancy of the 400 acre sheep farm of Baligrundle. Like Revd. Gregor MacGregor, the parish minister, who rented part of the cleared township of Portcharron, he seems to have had no problem with benefitting from the activities of James Cheyne. The years at Baligrundle were not without tragedy, with the death of two of his daughters from tuberculosis (Christina aged 19 in 1865 and Agnes 23 in 1872). Meanwhile, his eldest son Dugald, aged 29, had taken the tenancy of Frackersaig and Cloichlea (rent £220 in 1885), and assumed the managership of the lime works (rent £25). Most of Dugald’s testimony to the Napier Commission was about rents and farming practice, although he did report that it was proving difficult to get enough labour for the Salen Limeworks. He remained at Frackersaig until the 1890s, when the farm was transferred to his younger brother John Alexander, described as a farmer, lime manufacturer and coal merchant. In the Royal National Directory for 1903, John junior is listed as a grocer, coal merchant and lime burner at Sailean. The trade in coal and lime by the island fleet of sailing smacks had expanded to deal with a wider range of commodities.
1893 Letters fron Dugald McIntyre to the manager of the Bonawe quarry about supplies of lime (see Catalogue of Copies of Historical Documents in the Lismore Archive 16th to 19th Century).
By 1881, John senior had moved across Loch Linnhe to occupy Glensanda Farmhouse, employing seven men and a girl. Finally, he retired in his seventies to Point, back on Lismore, accompanied by his wife and two unmarried daughters, Cathrine and Mary. At his death at Point on 14 April 1897, aged 85, his resources amounted to £3765, equivalent to nearly half a million pounds today. Just over two weeks later, his wife Cathrine followed him.
In the following decades, John’s sons left Lismore to farm elsewhere. Dugald died at Lochaline in 1927; Duncan at Muthill near Crieff in 1928; and John at Torosay, on Mull, of tuberculosis in 1909. Their surviving sisters left Lismore after the death of their parents and have not been traced amongst the many Cathrines and Marys in the Scottish records. The McIntyre name, which was common on Lismore in the 19thC has disappeared entirely.
Laura Gloag, as island genealogist, would welcome any new information from the McIntyre diaspora.
Note that further details of events on Balevolan can be found in Hay (2013) How an Island Lost its People, Chapter 3.
Report: Pauline Dowling
January 2023