One of the most extensive and best documented series of removals occurred on the Island of Lewis in three phases between 1851 and 1855. The wealthy owner, Sir James Matheson, the China opium magnate of Jardine, Matheson & Co., decided to ‘emigrate’ many of his destitute tenants and cottars through a huge programme of eviction and ‘assisted’ transportation to Canada. No fewer than 2,327 men, women and children were eventually given the bleak choice of being cleared and left destitute or of boarding the emigrant ships for supported passage across the Atlantic.
