Highland Potato Famine

The Highland Potato Famine refers to a period of 19th century Highland and Scottish history (1846 to roughly 1856) over which the agricultural communities of the Hebrides and the western Scottish Highlands saw their potato crop (upon which they had become over-reliant) repeatedly devastated by potato blight. It was part of the wider food crisis facing Northern Europe caused by potato blight during the mid-1840s, whose most famous manifestation is the Great Irish Famine, but compared to its Irish counterpart it was much less extensive (the population at risk was never more than 200,000) and took many fewer lives (prompt and major charitable efforts by the rest of Scotland ensured that there was relatively little starvation). The terms on which charitable relief was given, however, led to destitution and malnutrition amongst its recipients. A government enquiry could suggest no short-term solution other than reduction of the population of the area at risk by emigration to Canada or Australia. Highland landlords organised the emigration of about 16,000 of their tenants (chiefly to Canada); many highlanders made their own way to other destinations in the Scottish Lowlands or further afield and it is estimated that about a third of the population of the western Highlands and the Hebrides (and therefore c. 90,000) migrated from the area between 1841 and 1861.