There is a very interesting document that is available at archive.org that details the proceedings of a meeting held by The Islay Association in Glasgow in 1867. It relates to a very unfavourable report made by the Rev Cameron in 1845 regarding the people of the parish of Kilchoman. John Murdoch, recently mentioned in another thread, makes a small contribution to this report (page 17 of the actual document) in defence of the people of Kilchoman. My g-g-great uncle, Duncan Campbell (then of Ellister, previously of Rockside) also comes out in defence of the parishioners on page 15, just before the quote from Murdoch's letter to the one of the members. I recall having read the Rev. Cameron's account somewhere but cannot find it on the internet at present. Perhaps someone else knows of its exact whereabouts. A full copy of the proceedings can be found at the following URL: https://archive.org/details/kilchomanpeoplev00isla One of the saddest thing one reads about in this document is the loss of the Islay bards and of the decline of the Gaelic language. One of things that the recent reference to John Murdoch brings to mind is that that there always seems to be a lot of ire directed at Shawfield but, to my mind, the main culprit appears to be Ramsay who bought the island after him. He and his factors clearly didn't have a clue as to how things should be run on the island. It should be noted too that was not just the crofters who suffered. The so-called "tacksmen" fared no better after the island was sold. Their fortunes also took a dramatic turn for the worse. It was, in fact, because they were dispossessed that the crofters were dispossessed. I often wonder how many people are aware of this because it seems to me that the tacksmen are constantly lumped together with the 'evil' Lairds. They tacksmen may well have held a certain stature on the island, but their fate was just as much in the hands of the Laird as the crofters was. Fiona MacAlister