Freshness, Freedom, and Peace?: Land Settlement in Scotland after the Great War

Abstract

This article will attempt to look at the wider context of 1919 and its meaning in historical chronology. The 1919 Land Settlement Act was an uncontroversial intervention in this important year but was embedded in the deeper history of the Highland land question, rather than the immediate moment of 1919, which was dominated by other concerns. The article will suggest that viewing 1919 as an end point is misleading, in both the history of the land question and in a wider sense. The act settled large numbers of people on the land but it did not provide a settlement of the land question in Scotland. The article will draw on extensive evidence from the newspaper press in the north of Scotland in 1919 to look at the wider issues that confronted readers and, thereby, attempt to place the Land Settlement Act in its wider context.