Talk:Highland and Island Emigration Society

Comments on Copy Edited Version

In the Rules section, the following sentence now needs a citation:

"The last rule which required landlords to partially fund the emigration of their tenants was a controversial one."

This is because the following text was removed which provided the support for the above statement:

Quoting Richards:

the operations of the ... Society were clouded by its allegiance with landlords wanting to divest themselves of small tenantry who were no longer economic. [19]

Quoting Prebble:

Helped by the Highland Emigration Society and by the Commissioners for emigration - the one finding the money and the other the ships - the lairds of the Isles were now clearing their estates with sickening haste. [20]

Why not just add the references if you don't want the explicit quotes? Camerojo (talk) 23:40, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Good point! I've added them back. I removed the quotes originally because they kind of confused me. I expected the quotes to represent the 2 sides of the controversy but they don't, at least not obviously. I think that the quotes need a little explanation, rather than just having them sit out there. That was really my only objection with those quotes. If they are better integrated into the text, I think they could/should be put back. I just wasn't comfortable doing it myself since I don't have the sources.

I have put the quotes back in, changing the first sentence to talk about "criticism" rather than "controversy". Hopefully that leads better into the quotes. Camerojo (talk) 22:21, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

The Success of the Society

In the original version there was the following quote on the success of the society: "The HIES succeeded in dispensing thousands of impoverished Highlanders abroad by knitting together colonial needs, landlord eviction, public charity and Highland kinship." It was successful in many ways and I think that should be acknowledged. My own ancestors came out with the society. Like many others, they were escaping dire circumstances at home and took advantage of the new opportunity provided to them, eventually thriving in their new land. (In one generation, my grandfather returned to the UK to do a post graduate degree at Cambridge University!) I would argue for reinstating that quote. What was the rationale for removing it? Camerojo (talk) 22:39, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

The 'End of the Society' section was mostly a string of quotes with very little explanatory text. In trying to fix that, I probably removed more than I ought. That quote would go very nicely at the end. I would begin by a sentence or two about the success of the society in the long term, and reinforce it with the quote - just a suggestion. Leschnei (talk) 15:23, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I worked hard to choose quotes that would run together making a comprehensible narrative - but clearly failed! My view was that a professional historian's words would be better than my amateurish paraphrasing. Personally I would rather see original quotations from reputable sources rather trust the paraphrasing of an anonymous Wikipedian. But obviously others do not share my view. I have attempted to follow your advice and have reinstated the quote. Camerojo (talk) 05:11, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Highland and Island Emigration Society/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 05:14, 15 February 2018 (UTC) I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 05:14, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Additional comments by Lingzhi

To check as many errors as possible in the references and/or notes, I recommend using User:Lingzhi/reviewsourcecheck in conjunction with two other scripts. You can install them as follows:

• First, copy/paste importScript('User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js'); to Special:MyPage/common.js .
• On the same page and below that script add importScript('User:Lingzhi/reviewsourcecheck.js');. Save that page.
• Finally go to to Special:MyPage/common.css and add .citation-comment {display: inline !important;} /* show all Citation Style 1 error messages */.

When you've added all those, go to an article to check for various messages in its notes and references. (You may need to clear your browser's cache first). The output of User:Lingzhi/reviewsourcecheck is not foolproof and can be verbose. Use common sense when interpreting output (especially with respect to sorting errors). Reading the explanatory page will help more than a little. The least urgent message of all is probably Missing archive link;. Archiving weblinks is good practice but lack of archiving will probably not be mentioned in any content review. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:02, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Review by Mike Christie

I'll copyedit as I go; please revert if I make a mess of anything.

• The lead is too short for the length of the article.
• There are some harv errors in the bibliography: there are no citations pointing to the Colonial Land and Emigration Commission, MacLeod, Morley, or Prentis (2008).
• He became convinced that emigration was the only solution and eventually joined the London Committee of the Highland and Island Emigration Society: this reads a little oddly, given that this is the first mention of the Society in the body -- we haven't described its founding yet. Can we make it something like "He became convinced that emigration was the only solution, and joined the London Committee of the Highland and Island Emigration Society when it was founded three years later"? That wording implies he joined it in 1852, which may not be the case. Any wording to make it clear to the reader that the society hadn't been formed in 1849 would do.
• Suggest redlinking Board of Supervision; it's redlinked from Poor Law (Scotland) Act 1845 which implies there will eventually be an article.
• MacMillan attributes the success of the Society primarily to this powerful trio: can we say who MacMillan is inline? "Historian David MacMillan attributes..." or something like that. The same comment applies to Richards and Prebble in the next section.
• Can we get quotes around the list of rules, or have some other method of visually indicating that this is a direct quote?
• There's an uncited sentence at the start of the "Popular support for the emigration plan" section, and another at the end of that section.
• Prince Albert (105): should this be "Prince Albert (£105)"?
• There are quite a lot of direct quotes; some are usefully illustrative, but I think some would be better paraphrased. For example, in the criticism section, both Kent's and MacMillan's quotes don't seem important to let stand as they are. The quote from Trevelyan embedded in MacMillan's quote does seem worth keeping, though. The quote about "trifling sickness" surely doesn't deserve a blockquote of its own, and could be reworded harmlessly. In the "End of the Society" section I think we could rephrase MacMillan's quote. And does the quote from Hellier (who also needs an introduction if we keep the quote) really add anything? It's a summary, but we can summarize in our own words and cite Hellier.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:48, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks for these thoughtful comments - I will get on to them. Camerojo (talk) 21:22, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Camerojo, are you still planning to work on this nomination? I will fail this in a week if I don't hear from you. If you need more time, just let me know. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:34, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Failing as there has been no response. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:56, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Sorry that I did not respond. I simply haven't had time to do any more on this Camerojo (talk) 23:43, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Camerojo: no problem; things get busy and I completely understand. If you do come back to this, feel free to ping me and I'll take another look if I have time. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:30, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

New Sources from Devine

Thanks User:ThoughtIdRetired for contributing the references from Devine which I was not aware of. I have ordered copies and look forward to reading them. Camerojo (talk) 21:40, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

One thing you may find if you are looking at the several works by Devine is that he demolishes Prebble as a reliable source on this sort of subject. (You'll find that in Devine, T. M. The Scottish Clearances: A History of the Dispossessed, 1600-1900 (pp 4-11). Penguin Books Ltd.) Another thing relevant to this article is the recognition of Devine's study of landlord behaviour during the Highland Potato Famine (Devine: The Great Highland Famine, 1995), as acknowledged by James Hunter in the 2010 edition of his The Making of the Crofting Community. Hunter deals with this in the preface to the new edition, but frustratingly does not alter the text of the main part of the book, which generally labels the landlords as uncaring despots, a view which Devine is able to substantially refute based on detailed research.

I think one can feel relaxed about using Devine as a source when the review of Clanship to Crofters' War in Scottish Economic & Social History, Volume 15 Issue 1, Page 116-118, ISSN 0269-5030 Available Online Sep 2010 (https://doi.org/10.3366/sesh.1995.15.15.116) says "However, this book will be an uncomfortable read for those, and there are many, who regard Highland history as a repository of information to justify simplistic prejudices." Devine is able to handle complexity which challenges the sound-bite view of history.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:40, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Certainly a fan of Devine (another one of his books was already quoted in the article). I just wasn't aware that he had written anything else directly related to HIES. Thanks for locating those references. Camerojo (talk) 22:47, 11 January 2019 (UTC)