Looking for Catholics: Using Protestant Missionary Society Records to Investigate Nineteenth-Century Highland Catholicism (original) (raw)

There is a delightful anticipation the first time one eases a document from its plastic sheet or coaxes open a musty volume: the catalogue has given a hint, but it really could contain anything. It can also be both fascinating and frustrating when one recognises that the information which an item contains could be very important for a fellow researcher, but is tangential to one's own work. One might read it out of curiosity, or take a few notes, before being obliged by the constraints of time to leave it aside and refocus on the research topic in hand. Such experiences can be a little unsettling, since essential evidence for one's own research might be hidden within a source whose title gives away no indication of its usefulness. For students of a subject like the Jacobites or the Clearances this is not a serious problem, since a wealth of sources is a mere 'request' away in major and minor repositories across Scotland and abroad. For those who wish to analyse less tumultuous subjects, the clues secreted in documents that are not obviously related to the topic in hand can be critical. With the notable exception of Alasdair Roberts, the paucity of researchers examining the nineteenth-century Catholic Highlands suggests that sources are an issue. The purpose of this present research note is to encourage Catholic historians to read Protestant sources against the grain in order to reassess the changing lives of Gaelicspeaking Roman Catholics. One such set of sources is the reports produced by Protestant educational organisations. These often include inspectors' accounts, the letters of teachers and the petitions of local inhabitants. Although Protestant, such societies were active in regions populated by Catholics. One such body, the Edinburgh Society for the Support of Gaelic Schools (ESSGS), was founded in 1811. Most of their voluminous reports can be found in Edinburgh's National Library of Scotland, although there are some in the Special Collections of Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Guelph University Libraries. Examining them for data about areas such as Barra, South Uist, Moidart, Knoydart and Strathglass has exposed a wealth of material. Naturally the reports discuss educational and religious 4 RITCHIE: Page 2 of 27 matters among Highland Catholics, but they also speak to how priests and people interacted; how different faith communities negotiated with each other; and about the social and economic lives of ordinary people. What follows will therefore focus on the material produced and collated by the ESSGS, in order to demonstrate the research possibilities of such records. (Detailed work on the papers of other Protestant educational and missionary societies is likely to be equally productive.) I shall introduce the ESSGS and discuss how historians can approach the annual reports. I shall also give a sample of the letters sent from predominantly Catholic parts of the Highlands and Islands, illustrating the nature of the material and suggesting possibilities for further research. Most of the transcribed extracts have been selected from the 1810s, 1820s, and 1830s, when the annual reports were at their fullest. In addition, this a significant period for historians of Highland Catholicism in three ways: it covers Catholic emancipation, the rise of Evangelical Presbyterianism in the north west, and the Clearances. The final section shows how such determinedly Protestant sources can be used by Catholic historians. At the most basic level they can provide new information. A case-study of the Small Isles shows how they can complement and question the sources most commonly used. A second case-study, of the central Highlands, demonstrates how they can provide new insights into how Catholic families and communities interacted with the religious and philanthropic agencies who intended to modify their culture. Despite the increasing poverty and political powerlessness of the sub-tenant classes, reading these sources against the grain shows how ordinary Catholic Highlanders exercised considerable agency in education and in religion.