Those Left Behind: The effects of war on a Scottish island

War memorial at Port Ellen, Islay

 

When we think of war and loss the tendency is to think of the fighting men and women who died or whose lives were altered by their experiences, not those who are safely left behind to their normal everyday lives. But there were also losses for those who stayed behind as well as the very real possibility that the family member who had gone off to war would not return.

 

The Hunter family of Glenegedale farm had one son to give to the war effort and one to stay and work the farm. John Hunter signed up on December 11, 1915. His older brother, Lachlan, stayed behind on the farm with their mother and sisters.

 

The Hunters were long term tenants at Glenegedale. Typical of the Scottish system of land holding, those who owned the land let it out to tenant farmers. Landlords generally owned huge swathes of land and tenancies were handed down through families. Lachlan and John's father, Ronald, had bequeathed his interest in the lease of Glenegedale to his wife, Mary and his two sons, Lachlan and John. Handing down of the lease must have been going on for generations as I found rental lists for Glenegedale farm back to 1733. There were Hunters on the rental list for the farm since that date.

 

So, a settled life, almost as good as owning the land although there was no room for expansion. Many heeded the call of immigration. But there was a core line of the Hunter family that got to stay on Islay at Glenegedale farm. 

 

Change came to the Hunter family with WWI when John Hunter enlisted in 1915. He was killed in action in August, 1918, a corporal in the Princess Louise's, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Sadly, he predeceased his mother, Mary. She died in 1919 and left Lachlan as the sole tenant of the Hunter portion of Glenegedale farm.

 

Perhaps Lachlan would have stayed a farmer at Glenegedale for all his days but for the progress of the 20th century spurred on by another war. When it was determined that an airport was needed on Islay, it was opened at Glenegedale in 1935. At first planes landed on the grass but improvements were needed when troops moved on to Islay during WWII. Paved runways were laid down. 

 

The valuation rolls show that Lachlan Hunter was still a tenant at Glenegedale farm in 1941 but a fellow tenant was Western Isles Airways Ltd. That doesn't seem like a comfortable fit for a traditional farm, does it? From what I could see, there is no traditional farming done at Glenegedale farm at the present time. I have the feeling that Lachlan was gradually muscled off of the land - a further casualty of war and change. 

 

 A view of  Glenegedale Airport

 

Sources:

 

Ancestry.com, British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920

 

Islay Airport History https://www.islayinfo.com/islay-airport.html

Valuation Rolls, Museum of Islay Life, Port Charlotte, Islay