History Society Photograph Collections | The Small Isles of the inner Hebrides| visitsmallisles.com

1. Barbara Barrie Collection

Barbara Barrie is the daughter of James Greig, who was Head Forester on Eigg for the Runcimans from 1926 to 1939, and Morag MacKinnon, daughter of John MacKinnon of Bayview, Cleadale (sister of Dugald MacKinnon). Previously, James Greig had been forester for the Runcimans on their Doxford estate in Northumberland. James’s father, Andrew Greig, had been Head Forester for the Dawyck estate in Stobo in Peebleshire and then on the Powerscourt estate in Ireland. After working for his father on the Powerscourt estate for some years, James decided to leave Ireland and took up a job on the Doxford estate in...
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Barbara Barrie Collection

Barbara Barrie is the daughter of James Greig, who was Head Forester on Eigg for the Runcimans from 1926 to 1939, and Morag MacKinnon, daughter of John MacKinnon of Bayview, Cleadale (sister of Dugald MacKinnon). Previously, James Greig had been forester for the Runcimans on their Doxford estate in Northumberland.

James’s father, Andrew Greig, had been Head Forester for the Dawyck estate in Stobo in Peebleshire and then on the Powerscourt estate in Ireland. After working for his father on the Powerscourt estate for some years, James decided to leave Ireland and took up a job on the Doxford estate in Northumberland in about 1923.

As Head Forester on Eigg, James was responsible for establishing new plantations on the island, for fencing and for the construction and repair of timber buildings. He lived in Forester’s Cottage (No. 32) in the middle of the island opposite the old shop. At the time, the north end of the row was Forester’s Cottage, next door lived Katie Ann MacDonald, the post mistress and her sister Bella who looked after the shop (No. 44) next door. The post office was on the south end of this row in a corrugated iron hut. The shop and post office were later amalgamated and moved across the road to a new shed, which was closed as a shop in 1998.

After arriving on Eigg James married Morag MacKinnon in October 1928 and they had four children, three close together: Andrew in 1929, Iain in 1932 and Barbara in 1933. They left Eigg in January 1939 at the outbreak of war for James to take up a post responsible for woodlands on Raasay for the Board of Agriculture. His next move was in February 1941 to Rothiemurchus near Aviemore to supervise operations for home-grown timber production for the Ministry of Supply. However, his family stayed in Raasay because there was no house available at Aviemore, and moved back to Eigg in July 1941 while waiting the chance to join him. During this period they lived at Bayview with Morag’s mother, Kate MacKinnon, and Morag’s brother Dugald. (John MacKinnon had died in 1938). Eventually, in July 1942 they were together again in Aviemore. Barbara’s sister, Catriona, was born in Inverness in 1942. Thereafter, James only returned to Eigg occasionally for holidays in the 1940s and 1950s.

Barbara came back to Eigg regularly on holiday thereafter, and still does. So, the photographs belong mainly to Barbara’s childhood on Eigg when her father was forester there, but some relate to her later visits. Her childhood was very much centred on Forester’s Cottage and Bayview. There are also some significant pictures which Barbara has purchased as postcards at postcards fairs, where she looks out for anything relevant to Eigg. Some other pictures are copies of photographs sent to Canada over the years to Dugald’s brother Charlie. His son, Ian MacKinnon, recently (1997) copied these back to Barbara. These Canadian copies are marked with an asterisk.

The pictures were borrowed from Barbara Barrie, who lives Glasgow, and copied in April 1999. The information has been kindly provided by Barbara and her brother Andy.

2. Duncan MacKay Collection

Duncan Mackay and his sister Katie Ann were both unmarried and lived together in their father’s croft house in Cleadale. Duncan worked most of his life on the Eigg estate farms, and can be seen frequently in other collections in this context. He seems to have been both shepherd and ploughman. There is a fine picture of the two of them by Eric Ellington in Judy Urquhart’s Eigg (1987), p. 103. Katie Ann died at home in Cleadale in 1987, and Duncan died in a home for the elderly off the island in the early 1990s. There was a third unmarried...
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3. Ann Raith Collection

Ann Raith of Edinburgh, has loaned a remarkable hand-made album of photographs taken by her father during a family visit to Eigg in June 1936. The album consists of sheets of black paper bound at one end with a bootlace. It is a work of great ingenuity. On the front cover are the words “EIGG – 1936”. The album is a photographic chronicle of their holiday from the time they arrived at Mallaig pier on 12th June until their return home to Edinburgh in 26th June. The photographs are captioned in white ink on the black paper. Also provided by Ann are transcripts...
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4. Iain McGowan Collection

Iain McGowan, photographer from South Mundham near Chichester, took 1,253 black and white pictures on 37 rolls of film between1980 and 1987 during his regular visits to Eigg. From his contact sheets I have selected 94 pictures which he has printed for the archive. The following is Iain’s own introduction to this collection. The captions are largely his own words as well, with some additions. Detailed identifications of people in some of the pictures have been supplied by Eileen Ferguson and Morag MacKinnon, and they are listed at the end. See also his book Hebridian Images (1993), ISBN 1 873319 09 06, published by Creative Monochrome.

5. Jessie MacDonald

In July 2001 Sandra Mathers produced a very large collection of 1,517 photographs from the late Jessie MacDonald (“Big Jessie”) who lived at Port Mor, Muck. The following summary of her life has been compiled by Barbara Barrie from information provided by Ishbel Winning, Jessie MacGowan and Hugh MacKinnon who were also helpful with the Flora and Sarah Campbell Collection. Jessie, the eldest daughter of John and Ellen MacDonald, was born at Kildonnan Cottage on 16th Jan 1906. It was usual at this time when a woman was expecting a child to go to her mother’s home prior to the birth. A...
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Jessie MacDonald

In July 2001 Sandra Mathers produced a very large collection of 1,517 photographs from the late Jessie MacDonald (“Big Jessie”) who lived at Port Mor, Muck. The following summary of her life has been compiled by Barbara Barrie from information provided by Ishbel Winning, Jessie MacGowan and Hugh MacKinnon who were also helpful with the Flora and Sarah Campbell Collection.

Jessie, the eldest daughter of John and Ellen MacDonald, was born at Kildonnan Cottage on 16th Jan 1906. It was usual at this time when a woman was expecting a child to go to her mother’s home prior to the birth. A further reason on this occasion was that for the first time the Small Isles had their own doctor who was resident on Eigg. (Dr Walters later married Flora MacKinnon, sister of John MacKinnon from Bayview). Jessie’s schooling from age 5 to 14 was in the main undertaken in the Muck school (called “the shed”) by her mother on Muck. Her mother and Sarah Campbell, who also taught on Muck, taught for a time under the supervision of a qualified teacher in Eigg, a Mr Johnstone who was known for his whisky drinking.

At aged 14 in 1920 Jessie left “the shed”, which was a room within the same large building also occupied by her family. It had originally been erected by Thomson, the laird before the MacEwens, as a store. The building housed the school and the MacDonald and the Russel families. In the school there were two small rooms, one for the teacher’s living area and one for the school with a door opening from the back of “the shed” with a small flight of steps on which numerous snapshots in the collection were taken.

To understand these pictures one needs to visualise the layout of Port Mor and which family occupied each house. A summary of the families on Muck at the time can be found after the picture captions.

Having left school, Jessie worked for a time as a laundry maid for the MacEwens. The laundry was equipped with a coal boiler, wooden mangles and flat irons. There was no electricity or sufficient peat on the island. Then for a time she worked as a tablemaid for Commander MacEwens parents in Edinburgh.

Jessie returned to Muck in 1925 when her father came home after a spell in hospital. She then did seasonal work for the MacEwens when they had visitors. John MacDonald died in c.1926. For a time in the 1930s Jessie kept house for Dr Devon, a lady doctor in Eigg. After leaving Eigg, Jessie was employed as housekeeper by a Captain Black who had a residence in the south of England as well as Ardmay House Arrochar (now a hotel). In the late 1940s Jessie returned to Muck to look after her mother and carried out milkmaid duties for the MacEwens. To a great degree she was involved in seasonal work away from Muck. At various times she was employed by Lady Fielding in the Laggan area where their family had extensive property.

Jesssie never married and she eventually retired to the family home on Muck severely disabled with rheumatics in the 1980s, and she died in 1995 aged 90.

Some of the pictures are pre First World War portraits taken in studios in Glasgow, but the majority date to the 1920s and 1930s and were taken by Jessie or of Jessie on Muck with her box camera. She has her empty camera bag hung from her shoulders in Nos 218, 273, 287 and 317. Many of the photographs were taken on the steps of “the shed” in Port Mor, with people either on the steps or on the wooden bench to the left of the door. Very few pictures were taken after the Second World War. Jessie seems to have had a passion for photographs and accumulated an extra-ordinary number of them in the pre-war years.

The pictures were often taken on Sundays with people in the best clothes, when there was time to relax and socialise. The photos hardly provide a balanced view of life on the island, but this is true of most of the collections. This is how they liked to be seen. The quality of the pictures is variable because of the nature of the equipment Jessie was using. Nevertheless, the collection as a whole does provide a remarkable window onto this small Muck harbour community, and to a lesser extent onto Eigg, between the wars.

There appears to have been some intermixing with the Flora and Sarah Campbell Collection, and the same or very similar pictures do appear in both. Of the 1,517 pictures in the collection, 587 have been copied and 930 not copied on the grounds that they are duplicates, they are not of Muck or Eigg, they are poor prints, uninformative general views, babies in prams or pets. Only just a few pictures have anything written on their backs, so identification depends on the long memories of elderly people who were on the islands at the time. The captions have been written by Barbara Barrie mostly with help from Ishbel Walker (nee MacDonald)at Kilwinning, but then living at Port Mor. Sadly, Ishbel died in April 2002 just after the captioning of the collection was finished. We were only just in time.

Mainly numbered in the 500s is an extra-ordinary group of early faded sepia prints, mainly printed onto postcards, dated to about 1909 which appear to show the MacDonald family outside Shore Cottage on Eigg. Two men are shown holding bibles. The texts on the backs of Nos 551 & 552 demonstrate considerable religious zeal. The men wear smart suits, some with flowers in their button holes, and the women have white blouses with flowers pinned to them. This appears to be all part of a Faith Mission movement and deserves further investigation.

Families in Muck, c.1910 to 1940

Some explanation is required to account for the number of families mentioned in the photo captions.

Using Picture No 37: Houses from Left to Right. (see also the view in the Hugh MacKinnon Collection No. 38)

1. Mackinnons (Fishermen with their own boat who worked as estate boatmen)
The home of John and Catherine MacKinnonm and children: Hugh, Donald, Duncan, Alan and adopted daughter Ina.
Still to be seen to the left of the new house built in the 1920s are the ruins of the old family home which was latterly used as a byre. This is the house now used as the tearoom.

2. MacDonalds (shepherds who also with their own boat and helped to run the estate boat).
“The Shed” was built by Thomson as a store. The left hand (northern) end was converted into a home for John and Ellen MacDonald (nee Campbell, Kildonnan, Eigg). Their children were Hugh, Jessie, Charlie and Ishbel.

2A. School room
The central part of “The Shed” with a door and steps opening to the back (towards the harbour) was converted into a school room and a room for the teacher’s use. Prior to a qualified teacher being appointed in c. 1920 the education of the children was undertaken by unqualified teachers eg Sarah Campbell (1911-c.1916) & Mrs Ellen Campbell (c.1916-1920). Later two qualified teachers appear in the pictures: Miss LacLean (c.1920), Dollie Currie (1924), Mary Campbell (c.1925), Miss MacDonald from Skye (pupil teacher: no date), Miss Stewart (1928), and Bessie Logan who taught in Muck and Eigg in the 1930s.

When the new purpose-built school was put up in the 1920s, the old school room provided extra accommodation to the MacDonalds.

Several pictures show that at the front there was a porch and outside larder which was built by Jessie’s older brother Hugh.

2B. The Russells (general estate/farm worker).
The right hand part of “The Shed” was occupied by Mr and Mrs Russell and their children Donald, Duncan, Hugh, Dannie, Johnny, Mary, Annie and Jimmy.

3. Purpose-built school house
The new school was built in 1930 with accommodation for the teacher. Mary Campbell would have been the first to occupy the new school. To the right of the school was an assortment of four outhouses.

4. MacDonalds (estate boatman/fisherman/estate worker)
A house completed in 1951 when Charlie and Kate MacDonald moved in. Their children were Sandra and Ellen.

5. The MacDonalds (“The Sandies”) in Pier House (Ferrymen, fishermen and estate workers).
The father was Alexander MacDonald (Black Sandy). The children were Donald, Colin, Hector, Lachlan, Alex, Johnny, Jessie, Sarah and Flora.

Alex MacDonald married Katy Kelly, and they had three girls who went to Tobermory; no details. Isabella, the sister of John MacKinnon (house 1), had married William Kelly from Dumfries. He had worked in a dairy in Glasgow and they had adopted a girl whose real name was Mary Adams, but she was always known as Katy Kelly; eventually she retired to the north end of “Lageorna”, Eigg, the other end of which was Dotie Campbell’s mother’s home. Isabella Kelly and Dotie’s mother Maggie were sisters of John MacKinnon.

Lachlan MacDonald married Marybell MacQuarrie and moved to Eigg where he worked the MacQuarrie croft and on the Eigg estate. Their family was Maryann, Flora and Alisdair.

Sarah MacDonald married Malcom MacRae from Skye and they lived at Pier House. They had four children, Jessie, Katy, Annie and Peter. Peter (seen in several pictures) worked for the MacEwans doing general farm work, but in the 1950s he was killed in a tractor accident at Port Mhor pier.

Hector and Johnny drowned in the sea off Gallanach.

6. The estate shepherd’s house
Katie MacKinnon’s (Bayview, Eigg) father’s family lived in the shepherd’s house. After several deaths from T.B. within the family John MacKinnon left during Thomson’s time to live on Eigg to evade the disease.
Charles MacDonald, estate shepherd, and his wife Isabella (Jessie’s grandparents) had also lived there. They were followed by John MacDonald, Jessie’s father, who was also estate shepherd. The shepherd’s house features in several pictures, eg Nos 52, 183, 320 & 572.

Immediately to the left of the shepherd’s house are the ruins of the previous house, known as “Carn Dearg”, once the home of a tacksman John McLean, grandfather of Hugh MacKinnon (see Hugh MacKinnon Collection No. 8).

Later shepherds feature in Jessie’s collection (but not listed in date order):
• Bob and Jenny Lawrie and family Bobby, Jimmy & Betty.
• John MacIsaac and family Phemie and Jessie.
• Donald MacLeod came from Canna; their adopted son was Francis.
• Archie and Agnes MacKinnon and their sons

Gallanach
The only other houses were at Gallanach, where, in addition to the laird’s house, there were:
1. The Grieve’s house:
Alex MacRae & Katy Kelly
Angus and Bella Stewart and daughters Peggy, Jessie and baby

2. The ploughman’s house:
MacDougal family
William and Ellen Elrick and daughter in 1936

3. Cattleman’s house:
Donald MacColl and sister
Lachie MacLean (“Clippen”)
Donald MacLean

6. Hector MacLean Collection

Dr Hector Maclean arrived on Eigg in 1952 and was then doctor for the Small Isles for the next 39 years until he retired in 1991. Previously he had been in general practice in Oban. Dr Maclean and his wife Helen had three sons: Hector who became an airline pilot, Lachlan who was a lobster fisherman and Donald who went into the army. Of the three, Donald is the only one who now lives on Eigg, and it is through him that their father’s collection of slides have been made available. Dr Maclean died in 1995. Dr Maclean was renowned for his bagpipe...
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7. Ann Campbell Collection

Anne first came to Eigg at the age of sixteen with her family from Gourock near Glasgow in 1953. Her father was William Phillip, the headmaster of Gourock High School, and they spent a month in The Tophouse in Cleadale. The house was then run as a holiday house by Hugh and Mary MacKinnon who moved down to the bottom house each year for the summer season. In the party with Anne were her father, William, mother Annie (Nina), brother Jimmy, Anne’s school friend Fionnuala Matthews and Jimmy’s school friend Tommy Butler. At the time Dodie Campbell was the...
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Ann Campbell Collection

Anne first came to Eigg at the age of sixteen with her family from Gourock near Glasgow in 1953. Her father was William Phillip, the headmaster of Gourock High School, and they spent a month in The Tophouse in Cleadale. The house was then run as a holiday house by Hugh and Mary MacKinnon who moved down to the bottom house each year for the summer season. In the party with Anne were her father, William, mother Annie (Nina), brother Jimmy, Anne’s school friend Fionnuala Matthews and Jimmy’s school friend Tommy Butler.

At the time Dodie Campbell was the postman, having returned from the Merchant Navy in 1951. Iain MacPhail had come from Sollas in North Uist and ran the Co-op shop, along with Frankie Kirk (Cleadale) on the east side of the road. Katie and Bella MacDonald (Mary MacKinnon’s sisters) ran the post office.

In 1954 Anne returned to Eigg with Fionnuala’s family and again stayed in the Tophouse. The two girls became friendly with Dodie Campbell and Iain MacPhail. In 1956 the Co-op moved Iain MacPhail to their shop in Scourie in Sutherland, and a year later Fionnuala married him and moved there. Later Iain had a nervous breakdown while studying to become a minister, and they moved down to Conington in Cambridgeshire; he died in about 1971/2. In 1958 Anne married Dodie Campbell in Glasgow after she had completed her training as a nurse at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. When Anne moved to Eigg she was one of the very few people who didn’t speak Gaelic, but everyone was very polite and welcoming and always spoke English in her presence.

Anne and Dodie lived in the northern half of Lageorna, which at the time was an estate cottage, and his parents Lachlan and Maggie Campbell lived as crofters in the south end. Mr MacKenzie, the church of Scotland missionary was a joiner by trade, and he built the porch for them and added the dormer windows and the bathroom before they moved in. The couple had three children, Margaret-Anne, Eilidh and Dileas before Anne left Dodie in 1963 and returned to the mainland. In 1965 Anne successfully obtained a divorce on grounds of physical and mental cruelty, the first time there had been a divorce on Eigg. Anne trained as a Health Visitor in Glasgow in 1965/6 and in 1966 started work as a Health Visitor, first for Stirling County Council and then from 1968 until 1978 for Cumbria County Council. After that she ran a guesthouse in the Lake District until 1982.

In 1982 Anne returned to Eigg to be with Dodie again, and was home help to Peggy MacKinnon until she died from lung cancer in 1983. Anne soon found life impossible with Dodie and moved out into his caravan at Easter 1984. She then moved into Katie MacKinnon’s house in Cuagach in October 1984. In 1985 she bought her own caravan and put it on a site near Howlin Cottage, but in 1986 there was a dispute over the croft on which the caravan was located and she moved it down to Angus MacKinnon’s lower croft house. She then became housekeeper to Angus MacKinnon and helped him run a guest house from 1988 to 1992. They remained close friends until he died in May 2000. In 1993 she moved to live in the Smithy near the pier so that she could be near the craft shop which she ran for several years. Since 1997 Anne has been in the new Lochaber Housing Association housing scheme in Cleadale (she is pictured at the formal opening in the Oban Times on 10th September1998), and still paints and knits for local craft shops.

Anne is an accomplished artist. She has made many watercolours of Eigg landscapes, and the artwork on the cover of Eigg an Island Landscape is by her.

Dodie lost his life in tragic circumstance in 1991 after his end of Lageorna caught fire. He was pulled clear of the flames but died in hospital a few days later from severe burns.

People in the pictures are described from left to right unless otherwise indicated.

8. Barbara MacNeil Collection

Margaret MacNeil who lives at Ailleagan, Loch-na-H’obe, Northbay, Isle of Barra, HS9 5YQ is the daughter of John MacIsaac, estate shepherd for the Runcimans (see F & S Campbell Collection No. 168). They lived at Laig until 1958 when the family moved to Fort William and he became a lock keeper on the canal.

9. Catriona White Collection

Three photographs were provided in October 2000 on computer discs by Catriona White, Lawrence MacEwen’s sister. The originals of the first two are in a family album she has which probably belonged to her grandmother, Margaret MacEwen, but possibly to her aunt. The album is undated, but these particular pictures are in a group which can be dated to 1913 or 1914 by members of the family who are in them.

10. Sir Steven Runciman Collection

James Cochran Stevenson Runciman, scholar, writer and traveller, was born in 1903 and he died in November 2000. He was the second son of Walter Runciman who was made a viscount in 1937 for his services as a government minister. Walter and Hilda Runciman had five children: • Walter Leslie (always known as Leslie) • Margaret (Margie) • James Cochran Stevenson • Ruth • Katherine (Kitty). Margie was subsequently Mrs Nettleton, then in 1931 Mrs King-Farlow and later Mrs Fairweather. Ruth was subsequently Mrs Molmden and later Mrs Bovill. Kitty was subsequently Lady Farrer and later Lady Lyell. Garry Runciman, the present viscount, is the son of Walter Leslie...
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Sir Steven Runciman Collection

James Cochran Stevenson Runciman, scholar, writer and traveller, was born in 1903 and he died in November 2000. He was the second son of Walter Runciman who was made a viscount in 1937 for his services as a government minister. Walter and Hilda Runciman had five children:
• Walter Leslie (always known as Leslie)
• Margaret (Margie)
• James Cochran Stevenson
• Ruth
• Katherine (Kitty).

Margie was subsequently Mrs Nettleton, then in 1931 Mrs King-Farlow and later Mrs Fairweather. Ruth was subsequently Mrs Molmden and later Mrs Bovill. Kitty was subsequently Lady Farrer and later Lady Lyell. Garry Runciman, the present viscount, is the son of Walter Leslie Runciman.

Margie’s daughter Ann (now Ann Shuckman), has inherited Sir Steven’s estate and house at Elshieshields near Lockerbie, a sixteenth-century Peel House which he bought when Eigg was sold in 1966. Ann found Sir Steven’s photo albums in the house after his death, although he had previously written to me to say he thought they had all been destroyed in a fire.

Sir Steven was a rather reserved character who devoted his life to study and to travel. His great work, A History of the Crusades, published in three volumes between 1951 and 1954, was largely written in the Eigg lodge. Dugald MacKinnon on Eigg still remembers that when he passed Sir Steven on the road he seldom seemed to notice. Friends knew never to disturb him while he was out walking because that was when he was writing. When he came in from his walks he sat down and set out his text almost word perfect. Ann can find very few drafts of his books in the house, probably because he only needed to write once and then very few changes were necessary. Sir Steven clearly worked with great intensity, and then obtained release from this deep concentration through travel. The album covering the period 1951-4 when he was working on the Crusades contains pictures from a wide range of places: Cyrenaica, Egypt, Sudan, Jordon, Greece, Lebanon, Spain, Kerak, Petra, Cyprus, Italy, USA, Germany, Ireland, Siam (he had a friend in the Royal household there), Malaya, Singapore, India, Bulgeria and, of course, Eigg!

His Fall of Constantinople was translated into Greek, Bulgarian, Dutch, Hungarian, Rumanian, Turkish, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish, showing how successful he was at writing works of scholarship in a style which the layman could enjoy.

The first photograph album covering 1926 to 1930 is clearly a family album, featuring Walter and Hilda Runciman and their daughters. Nos 1 to 70 have been selected from this album; other pictures not copied include Brixham, Dunvegan Castle, Duart Castle and a highland gathering at Portree. Then there is a gap, and the main set of albums are Sir Steven’s, neatly labelled in his own handwriting*. It is the most carefully recorded collection of Eigg pictures found so far. His pictures of Eigg in these albums have been numbered from No. 71 onwards, while the rest cover his travels to many parts of the world. The Eigg pictures record a wide range of visitors who came to stay in the Eigg lodge as guests. The personalities included musicians like Sir Arthur Bliss and Yehudi Menuhin and academics like Guy Burgess (later identified as a spy), Noel Annan, Sebastion Sprott (later vice-chancellor of Nottingham University) and George Rylands, fellow of Kings College, Cambridge. A regular procession of academics, musicians, poets, diplomats and politicians from Britain, the U.S.A., Greece, Japan and elsewhere passed through the lodge over these forty years.

A copy of the two visitors’ books from 1925 to 1966 have also been deposited in the Eigg archive, and the photos and visitors’ books should be examined together. It should be remembered that there were many visitors who signed the visitors’ books who were never photographed. Names in the albums and in the books don’t always tie up, presumably because not all visitors wrote in the books before leaving. Addresses in the books often provide useful background information: see index below.

It is extra-ordinary how different life was at the lodge compared with the rest of the island. The conspicuous wealth of the Runciman family, exemplified by their magnificent yachts, Sunbeam I and then Sunbeam II, contrasted with the poverty on the island at the time. Nevertheless, the Runciman years are still considered by older people on the island as the “Golden Years”, when everyone who wanted a job could have one. Particularly in the 1920s and 1930s, life for the family when in the area on holiday centred on Sunbeam with Eigg used primarily for shooting and fishing. Then, gradually Sir Steven started to use Eigg as a retreat for his research, and emphasis on field sports seems to have diminished.

It will be noticed that there are relatively few pictures of Eigg people or their houses. This is because it was thought that to photograph them would be intrusive. The life in the lodge and in the rest of the island were poles apart. One was seldom allowed to intrude on the other. There are, however, rare glimpses of Eigg life, with sheep being handled in the Kildonnan fank in 1950 (Nos 103-5) and sheep being loaded onto boats at the pier in 1960 (Nos 220 & 221) and 1964 (No. 254). There is a fine photo of the estate shepherds taken in June 1950 (No. 106) and one of islanders waiting at the pier talking to Sir Steven (No. 161). There are occasional glimpses of boatmen and an excellent picture of an old croft house at Galmisdale which had by then become the gamekeeper’s cottage (No. 59).

Also with this collection is a copy of the Address given by George Jellicoe at the memorial service for Sir Steven in London on 22nd January 2001, which provides a useful summary of his achievements.

The photographs as set out below are in chronological order. Nos 1-70 are from the 1926/30 family album, and the complete pages of this album have been copied with a laser photocopier, and they are available as separate A3 copies. Pictures Nos 1-70 have also been computer scanned at 200 dpi and then laser photocopied onto A4 sheets from the computer prints. The later albums (picture Nos 71-258) were computer scanned at Elshieshields, but only at 150dpi, so only small same-size prints are technically possible without re-scanning. (Much of the early material is also replicated in the Garry Runciman Collection where the project has had access to some of the original negatives.)

11. Ishbel Anderson Collection

Ishbel Anderson was married in 1954 to the late Donald Anderson who died in 1988 and is buried on Eigg. Donald was the son of Arthur Anderson and Mary MacIntyre. Arthur and Mary married in 1939 and lived in Glasgow. Arthur’s family were from Peterhead, and Mary was from South Uist. Sadly, both parents died before Donald was two and a half, and he was then fostered in 1930 by Mary MacLeod, who had looked after the boy while his parents were ill. Mary MacLeod was the oldest daughter of the Eigg gamekeeper, Donald MacLeod. (Mary MacIntyre’s mother and Mary MacLeod were...
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12. Wade Martins collection

The Wade-Martins family, Peter and Susanna and their two sons Richard and Edward, have been holidaying on Eigg since 1980. They always stayed in Angus MacKinnon’s Tophouse in Cleadale, and bought the house from him in 1995 after he decided to sell. In the intervening 23 years they have taken many pictures of landscapes, friends and family, but surprisingly few of historic interest, probably because they felt it would have seemed intrusive.Peter is responsible however for putting the photographic collection together, which required a huge amount of work and dedication in the years since the setting up of the Eigg History...
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13. Camille Dressler Collection

Various photographs collected by Camille Dressler from a number islanders, including Angus and Dugald MacKinnon, in 1998 and later; many of those were used in Eigg, the story of an island (1998)

14. Gary Runciman

The Runciman family owned the island from 1926 until 1966. In 2001 Garry Runciman, the present Viscount, could only find four photographs relevant to Eigg in the family home in London. These are listed as Nos 1 to 4. No. 1 shows the first Viscount Runciman and some members of his family on the steps of their newly completed lodge in the late 1920s. It is a large print, and the picture could well have been taken by a professional photographer. Their daughter Margaret (“Margie”), who became Mrs Fairweather, was the one who landed the plane on Laig beach in the 1930s (see Barbara Barrie Collection...
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Gary Runciman

The Runciman family owned the island from 1926 until 1966. In 2001 Garry Runciman, the present Viscount, could only find four photographs relevant to Eigg in the family home in London. These are listed as Nos 1 to 4. No. 1 shows the first Viscount Runciman and some members of his family on the steps of their newly completed lodge in the late 1920s. It is a large print, and the picture could well have been taken by a professional photographer. Their daughter Margaret (“Margie”), who became Mrs Fairweather, was the one who landed the plane on Laig beach in the 1930s (see Barbara Barrie Collection Nos 20,21 & 26).

It is Margaret’s daughter, now Ann Shukman, who found Sir Steven Runciman’s own photographs at his Peel House near Lockerbie, following his death in November 2000 (see the Steven Runciman Collection). Then in 2002, with Garry, she found a considerable collection of negatives and prints numbered from No. 5 onwards at Doxford in Northumberland. There are three large prints (Nos 5-7) and negatives containing images of historical and topographical interest. Contact prints of most of these have been made, numbered 8 to 69. Negatives which show fairly featureless landscapes and sunsets have mostly not been printed. This is altogether a most significant find; some of the negatives were used for prints in the first Runciman family album of Eigg for 1926-30 copied as Nos 1-70 in the Sir Steven Runciman Collection. Some negatives have deteriorated significantly since then. The negative wallets have dates on them as follows:
Nos 8-9 1926
Nos 10-24 1927
Nos 25-55 1928
Nos 56-61 1929
Nos 62-65 (undated)

However, there is no certainty that the dates are entirely reliable, since negatives could have been moved between wallets at any time over the last 60-70 years.

Then there are some smaller prints in labelled envelopes as follows:
Nos 66-69 loose and undated
Nos 70-76 1926-8 and some later
Nos 77-82 ?1927
No 83 1927
Nos 84-86 1927/8
Nos 87-88 undated
Nos 89-91 January 1940
Nos 92-99 1947
Nos 105-109 1950 “Taking over from Gowans”
Nos 110-112 are the negatives used for making three well-known postcards of the island sold during the Runciman period. The date of these photos is not recorded.

15. Hugh MacKinnon Collection

Hugh MacKinnon spent all of his working life involved with ferries and the sea. He retired in 1974 and has since lived at “Mingary” in Corpach near Fort William. Hugh was born on Muck in 1911. His father, John MacKinnon, one of ten children, was a lobster fisherman on Muck and his mother was Catherine Ann MacPherson from Sanna on Ardnamurchan. John had a brother Hector, who was a lobster fisherman on Eigg. Their father was also a fisherman on Muck, although he originally came from Mull. Hugh’s great grandfather, John Maclean, was a tacksman who had the tack in Muck...
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Hugh MacKinnon Collection

Hugh MacKinnon spent all of his working life involved with ferries and the sea. He retired in 1974 and has since lived at “Mingary” in Corpach near Fort William.

Hugh was born on Muck in 1911. His father, John MacKinnon, one of ten children, was a lobster fisherman on Muck and his mother was Catherine Ann MacPherson from Sanna on Ardnamurchan. John had a brother Hector, who was a lobster fisherman on Eigg. Their father was also a fisherman on Muck, although he originally came from Mull. Hugh’s great grandfather, John Maclean, was a tacksman who had the tack in Muck called “Carn Dearg”: see notes on the back of picture No. 38.

Hugh had three brothers Duncan, Donald and Alan and an adopted sister Ina. They grew up on Muck and went to school along with 12-14 other children in a building at Port Mor known as “The Shed”. Hugh remembers well one of his teachers, Miss MacLean. He achieved a notable success in 1922 by winning a bursary which allowed him to progress to High School in Fort William. There was only one bursary each year for children in the Small Isles, then valued at £28 a year. This went towards essential purchases like clothing, books and accommodation. Only bright pupils took the bursary examination, and within the Small Isles winning the bursary was viewed as a considerable accomplishment.

However, after a year or two Hugh contracted mumps and had to return home. When he finally recovered there was some reluctance on his mother’s part to let him resume his studies because it was generally thought that children who progressed with their education on the mainland tended to drift away from their roots, and she didn’t want lose him. So, he stayed at home, a decision he has regretted ever since.

Hugh stayed on Muck and spent much of his time working on boats, doing lobster fishing until he was twenty, in August 1931. He was then hired as Estate Boatman by the MacEwens who owned the island.

Early in 1941 Hugh married Mary MacKinnon, Dugald MacKinnon’s sister from Bayview on Eigg. By March 1941 they had set up home at Polloch near Glenfinnan where Hugh at the time was employed by the Forestry Commission as boatman on Loch Sheil.

From 1945 to 1952 Hugh was hired as Estate Ferryman on the island of Rum, and he also became the caretaker of Kinloch Castle. Their new home on Rum was known as “Rock Cottage”, and as always their home was open to friends and relatives. After a short time back in Muck, in 1952, Hugh and Mary moved to Meoble Lodge, the home of J. Charrington. The lodge was situated at the inland end of Lock Morar. Hugh was employed as boatman on the loch and Mary undertook a variety of domestic duties in the lodge.

In the early 1950s the advancing years and ill health of Hugh’s parents necessitated their return to Muck. Hugh’s father died in 1958 aged 95, followed by his mother in 1959 aged 84. Mary always had a yearning to return to Eigg and indeed they did negotiate to acquire the MacAskill croft house in Cuagach in 1951/2, but this fell through. However, they acquired the tenancy of Howlin in 1955, and they kept this until 1972, long after they left the Small Isles (Barbara Barrie Collection No.120). They let the house to paying guests and relatives. Numerous pictures of families on holiday at Howlin at this time appear in the collections.

The running of the Muck Estate boat over the years had been in the hands of various boatmen, including Johnny and Hector MacDonald of Pier House, Muck. The MacDonalds were popularly known on the islands as the “Sandies”, apparently because their father was known as “Black Sandy MacDonald”. He had come originally from Mull, and he had married Ann Campbell, the daughter of Colin Campbell, a school teacher and catechist on Muck at the end of the nineteenth century. Hugh describes them as a very interesting family which believed in second sight and fairies – they had a fear of the dark and did their best to avoid being out when daylight faded. The “Sandies” from time to time were employed as boatmen by the MacEwens. Colin was employed in the twenties, Hector and Johnny in the forties and fifties and for a longer period in the sixties after Hugh left in 1961. Sadly, in December 1964 while Hector and Johnny were preparing the Muck Motor Boat to leave Galanach Bay a tragic accident occurred resulting in the deaths of both of them. It is thought that Hector suffered a heart attach while they were pulling the dinghy aboard. They both then landed in the water and Johnny was drowned.

Hugh then acquired in 1961 the lease from Inverness County Council of the Fort William to Treslaig ferry which he ran using his own two boats, with only a short break in 1964, until he retired aged 63 in 1974. Even then he worked at sea part-time as pilot for ships entering Loch Linnhe for the Corpach pulp mill. Often Hugh ferried ashore the crews from East Coast fishing boats as they anchored for the weekend in the Linnhe.

Hugh and Mary were devoted members of the Church of Scotland, and Hugh became an elder in the church and has on numerous occasions undertaken lay preaching in the Lochaber area. His annual summer holiday coincides with the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh where he meets long-standing colleagues and friends.

Mary died in 1985, and she was buried in Kilmallie Church graveyard, close to “Mingary”, Hugh’s home.

The Hugh Mackinnon Collection is a group of photographs, mostly of Muck, which Hugh has passed on to Barbara Barrie. They have been identified by Hugh and Barbara. Photos 116 to 130 in Barbara’s collection come from the same source

16. Peggy Kirk Collection

Peggy is the widow of the late Donnie Kirk, shepherd on the Eigg estate from 1959 to 1962 and then tenant of Laig Farm until his death in 1975. Donnie was the third generation of Kirk to be shepherd on the island, following his father Angus and his grandfather Donald in the same position. Before moving to Eigg, Donnie’s father Angus had been shepherd on the Glen Lyon Estate in Perthshire, where Donnie was born in 1932. The family moved to Eigg in 1939 when Donnie was seven and they lived on a croft in Cleadale. Donnie had a younger brother Frankie and a...
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17. Catherine Kirkton Collection

Catherine Kirton is the daughter of Dugald MacDonald of Sandabheag, who was born in 1879 and died in 1932. Her mother was Henny Ross from Lewis. Dugald and Henny married c.1912. Catherine married Bill Kirton from Glasgow. Dugald MacDonald was the brother of Kate MacDonald (the mother of Dugald MacKinnon of Bayview) and the son of John MacDonald (Iain “Muilleach” – from Mull). Dugald MacKinnon (Bayview) was actually named after his uncle. Catherine’s mother, Henny Ross, came from Lewis to Eigg in the early 1900s to be housekeeper for her sister Naomi Ross who was Eigg school teacher. Naomi married Alex Campbell...
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About the photographic collections

The Collections