Scotland

The Soapman, Lewis, Harris and Lord Leverhulme by Roger Hutchison is a wonderful factual book that reads like a novel. The book has received the most incredible reviews and the reasons are plentiful. The coherent narrative describes in vivid detail the struggles of the Scottish Highland lower classes, at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, against the upper classes and nouveau riche.

The Highland Clearances had such an impact that it’s reverberations were carried around the world and remain an emotive subject today. During the clearances whole village societies were uplifted from quality arable land so that rich landowners could install lucrative sheep farms or graze deer for shooting. The poor souls who had eked out a poor living from the land for generations were now either dumped on rocky unproductive coastal land or shipped abroad to Canada, Australia or some other distant and strange land.

As a result there are Highlanders all over the world and many Scots have played important and influential role in the development of our Western society the principles of which we all hold dearly. Many of these principles are deeply engrained in the Scottish psyche and were brought to the world during the period of Scottish Enlightenment and by the many Scots who settled outside their native homeland. It is incredible that so many of the discoveries and inventions, which we all now take for granted, have Scottish origins. Some of the world’s greatest leaders were either born in Scotland or were of Scottish descent.

In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s Scotland was a deeply religious nation with nearly every member of society being a conscientious Calvanist. Life then was harsh and uncompromising and death by starvation was still common and the harshest of conditions were to be found in the Hebrides of Scotland. The Hebridean folk are a hardy proud race and in the Great War (WWI) the Isles of Lewis, Harris and the rest of the Hebrides sent more of their young men to fight than anywhere else in the whole of the United Kingdom.

The Soapman describes the clash of interests between the eminent liberal industrialist Lord Leverhulme and the 30,000 inhabitants of this incredible group of islands off the west coast of Scotland. Leverhulme had purchased the Isle of Lewis in 1918 believing that he could revolutionize and industrialize the main town of Stornoway by building up the fishing industry.

In contrast to Leverhulme’s vivid dreams of transforming the small town of Stornoway into the “Venice of the North“, the vast majority of islanders sought only to have a small piece of land on which they could grow sufficient produce to feed themselves. Only a few years before the outbreak of the First World War the Government had promised to provide sufficient crofts (small pieces of land) to any person who wanted one. Servicemen had been promised that they would return to a land fit for heroes where they could spend the rest of their lives as crofters (smallholders).

The Soapman had made his riches through hard work, good judgment and an amount good fortune. He was highly successful his Sunlight Soap was known throughout civilized society and his model town of Port Sunlight near Liverpool, England was a shining example of vision of the future. He was a deeply religious man who saw his purpose in life was to improve the lot of the working man but by his methods and his methods only. Lord Leverhulme was a stubborn man and he refused to allow his, recently purchased land to be transformed from large farms to small crofts.

The battle lines were drawn and Roger Hutchison’s book draws you into this incredible conflict in such a personal and deeply moving story that leaves you feeling as though it happened only yesterday and that you had been involved.

I can only describe this book as a magnificent achievement that almost anybody will find an enjoyable, highly informative and incredibly interesting read.

Published by Birlinn Limited

ISBN-10: 1841583278

ISBN-13: 978-1841583273

Andrew Kelly has lived in the Hebrides of Scotland for 16 years. Initially concentrating on accommodation in the Hebrides he began writing for the Internet he began writing about vacations in Scotland in general and has now published tens of thousands of pages and articles across many popular sites.