Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886
| Act of Parliament | |
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| Long title | An Act to amend the Law relating to the Tenure of Land by Crofters in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and for other purposes relating thereto |
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| Citation | 49 & 50 Vict., c. 29 |
| Territorial extent | Scotland |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 25 June 1886 |
| Other legislation | |
| Relates to | |
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Status: Amended
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The Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which created legal definitions of crofting parish and crofter, granted security of land tenure to crofters and produced the first Crofters Commission, a land court which ruled on disputes between landlords and crofters. The same court ruled on whether parishes were or were not crofting parishes. In many respects the Act was modelled on the Irish Land Acts of 1870 and 1881. By granting the crofters security of tenure, the Act put an end to the Highland Clearances.
The Act was largely a result of crofters' agitation which had become well organised and very persistent in Skye and of growing support, throughout the Highlands, for the Crofters Party, which had gained five members of parliament in the general election of 1885. Agitation took the form of rent strikes (withholding rent payments) and occupying land which the landlords had reserved for hunting or sheep.
The Act itself did not quell the agitation. In particular it was very weak in terms of enabling the Crofters Commission to resolve disputes about access to land. It was enough however to make much more acceptable, politically, the use of troops in confrontations with agitators.
The Act was not fully effective in increasing the equality of land distribution in Scotland; today, 2/3 of Scotland's land area is still owned by only 1.252 landowners out of a population of 5 million.
During the Highland Clearances, the crofters had no official rights to the land; until 1886, it was legal to evict any crofter at the landlord's convenience. The Land Wars commenced in Scotland in 1874 with the successful legal case of the Bernera Riot on the island of Great Bernera in the Outer Hebrides. The crofters wanted recognition of their traditional rights to the land that they had enjoyed under the clan system from the Middle Ages. Through political and economic development the gentry began to take an alternate perspective on their tenantry:
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