Gavin Hunter: Lord of The Isles

 

 

Mr Hunter’s subject desrcibed the changing fortunes of Lord Leverhulme his purchase of the Isles of Lewios and Harris in the outer Hebrides. His Lordship’s fortune was of course derived from his highly succesful soap manufacturing company based at Port Sunlight and other locations in England.  He was born in 1851 and had a succesful grocery business with his brother before venturing into Soap manufacture in an extremely succesful way which made him incredibly wealthy.

He first visited Lewis on a cruise in 1884 at which time he was Baron Leverhulme of Bolton le Moors.  Lewis was in a very poor state commercially and he thought he could make massive improvements to improve the lot of the inhabitants who were mainly  crofters or badly organised fihermen, so he purxchased the whole Island and set about Organising the fishing industry by providing boats new harbours and out lets for both fresh and canned fish via a chain of shops called MacFisheries.  Leverhulme had great tenacity of purpose and built a castle like structure for his own residence with wonderful gardens whih survives today.  He attempted to build up Dairy Farming and to amalgamate Crofts into larger holdings.

Incredibly it turned out that the majority of the Islanders did not trust him and in any case did not want to change their way of life they could not relate to such munificence and despite many attempts and vast investments he had to give up his ambitions.

Recommended reading  ‘The Soap Man’