title: Highland Clearances

text: The second phase involved overcrowded crofting communities from the first phase that had lost the means to support themselves, through famine and/or collapse of industries that they had relied on. This is when "assisted passages" were common, when landowners paid the fares for their tenants to emigrate. Tenants who were selected for this had, in practical terms, little choice but to emigrate. The Highland Potato Famine struck towards the end of this period, giving greater urgency to the process.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The eviction of tenants went against ', the principle that clan members had an inalienable right to rent land in the clan territory. This was never recognised in Scottish law. It was gradually abandoned by clan chiefs as they began to think of themselves simply as commercial landlords, rather than as patriarchs of their people—a process that arguably started with the Statutes of Iona of 1609. The clan members continued to rely on '. This difference in viewpoints was an inevitable source of grievance. The actions of landlords varied. Some did try to delay or limit evictions, often to their financial cost. The Countess of Sutherland genuinely believed her plans were advantageous for those resettled in crofting communities and could not understand why tenants complained. However, a few landlords displayed complete lack of concern for evicted tenants.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The definition of "clearance" (as it relates to the Highland Clearances) is debatable. The term was not in common use during much of the clearances; landowners, their factors and other estate staff tended, until the 1840s, to use the word "removal" to refer to the eviction of tenants. However, by 1843, "clearance" had become a general (and derogatory) word to describe the activities of Highland landlords. Its use was ambiguous, as for some it meant only the displacement of large numbers of people from a single place at one time. For others, the eviction of a single tenant at the end of a lease could be termed "clearance". Eric Richards suggests that current usage is broad, meaning "any displacement of occupiers (even of sheep) by Highland landlords". He adds that it can apply to both large and small evictions, and includes voluntary or forced removal and instances involving either emigration or resettlement nearby. T. M. Devine also takes the view that "clearance" has a broader meaning now than when it was used in the 19th century.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The first phase of the Highland Clearances was part of the Scottish Agricultural Revolution but happened later than the same process in the Scottish Lowlands. Scottish agriculture in general modernised much more rapidly than in England and, to a large extent, elsewhere in Europe. The growing cities of the Industrial Revolution presented an increased demand for food; land came to be seen as an asset to meet this need, and as a source of profit, rather than a means of support for its resident population.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Before improvement, Highland agriculture was based on run rig arable areas and common land for grazing. Those working in this system lived in townships or ". Under the run rig system, the open fields were divided into equivalent parts and these were allocated, once a year, to each of the occupiers, who then worked their land individually. With no individual leases or ownership of plots of land, there was little incentive to improve it (for instance by drainage or crop rotation systems). Nor, with common grazing, could an individual owner improve the quality of his stock. Enclosure of the common lands and the run rig fields was a method of improvement. More commonly, there was a greater change in land use: the replacement of mixed farming (in which cattle provided a cash crop) with large-scale sheep farming. This involved displacement of the population to crofts on the same estate, other land in the Highlands, the industrial cities of Scotland or other countries. The common view is that the shepherds employed to manage these flocks were from outside the Highlands. This is an oversimplification, as Gaelic-speaking tacksmen and drovers were to be found in the sheep trade from the 1780s. When sheep were introduced in the Sutherland Clearances, over half the leases were taken up by Sutherlanders.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Since their origin in the early Middle Ages, clans were the major social unit of the Highlands. They were headed by a clan chief, with members of his family taking positions of authority under him. The mechanisms of clanship gave protection and agricultural land to the clansmen, who in return paid with service and rent which was paid, especially in earlier periods, mostly in kind (as opposed to money). Service included military service when required. The Highlands was one of the parts of Scotland where law and order were not maintained by central government, hence the need for protection from a powerful leader.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Clan leaders controlled the agricultural land, with its distribution generally being achieved through leases to tacksmen, who sublet to the peasant farmers. The basic farming unit was the or township, consisting of a few (anything from 4 to 20 or more) families working arable land on the run rig management system, and grazing livestock on common land. Clans provided an effective business model for running the trade in black cattle: the clan gentry managed the collection of those beasts ready for sale and negotiated a price with lowland drovers for all the stock produced on the clan lands. The sale proceeds were offset against the rentals of the individual producers. The growth in the trade in cattle demonstrates the ability of pre-clearance Highland society to adapt to and exploit market opportunities—making clear that this was not an immutable social system.


title: Highland Clearances

text: James VI was one of the kings who sought to impose control on the Highlands. On becoming James I of England in 1603, he gained the military force to do this. The Statutes of Iona controlled some key aspects; this forced the heirs of the wealthier Highlanders to be educated in the Lowlands and required clan chiefs to appear annually in front of the Privy Council in Edinburgh. This exposed the top layer of Highland society to the costs of living in Edinburgh in a manner fitting to their status. Unlike their Lowland counterparts, their lands were less productive and were not well integrated into the money economy. Large financial sureties were taken from clan leaders to guarantee the good behaviour of the clan. Overall, this reduced the need for the protection provided by a clan whilst increasing the costs for the clan leaders. The clan chiefs who fully subscribed to this new system of regulation were rewarded with charters that formalised their ownership of clan lands. The combination of these initiated the demise of clanship. The process continued as clan chiefs began to think of themselves as landlords, rather than as patriarchs of their people.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The various intervals of warfare since the Statutes of Iona reined in the steady transition to landlordism because the ability to raise a band of fighting men at short notice became important again. The civil war that started in 1638 reinvigorated the military aspects. The restoration of Charles II in 1660 brought peace, but also increased taxes, restarting the financial pressure. The succession of Jacobite rebellions emphasised again the martial aspects of clanship, but the defeat at Culloden brought an end to any willingness to go to war again. The loss of heritable jurisdictions across Scotland highlighted the changed role of clan chiefs.


title: Highland Clearances

text: A tacksman (a member of the , sometimes described as "gentry" in English) was the holder of a lease or "tack" from the landowner, subletting the land to lesser tenants. They were often related to the landowner, even if only distantly. They acted as the middle stratum of pre-clearance society, with a significant role in managing the Highland economy.


title: Highland Clearances

text: They were the first sector of Gaelic society to feel the effect of the social and economic changes that included the Clearances, when landlords restricted their power to sub-let, so increasing the rental income directly to the laird; simple rent increases were also applied. This was part of a slow phasing out of this role; it accelerated from the 1770s, and by the next century, tacksmen were a minor component of society. T. M. Devine describes "the displacement of this class as one of the clearest demonstrations of the death of the old Gaelic society."


title: Highland Clearances

text: Many emigrated to America, in the words of Eric Richards: "often cocking a snook at the landlords as they departed". Emigrating tacksmen, and the larger farmers who departed at the same time, represented not only a flight of capital from Gaeldom but also a loss of entrepreneurial energy. In the opinion of T. M. Devine, tacksmen and the middle-ranked tenant farmers represented the economic backbone of the peasant communities of the Western Highlands. Devine repeats the views of Marianne McLean, that those of them who emigrated were not refusing to participate in a commercial economy; rather they rejected the loss of status that the changes of improvement gave them.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The first phase of the Clearances occurred mostly over the period 1760 to 1815. However, it started before the Jacobite Rising of 1745, with its roots in the decision of the Dukes of Argyll to put tacks (or leases) of farms and townships up for auction. This began with Campbell property in Kintyre in the 1710s and spread after 1737 to all their holdings.


title: Highland Clearances

text: First phase clearances involved break up of the traditional townships (), the essential element of land management in Scottish Gaeldom. These multiple tenant farms were most often managed by tacksmen. To replace this system, individual arable smallholdings or crofts were created, with shared access to common grazing. This process was often accompanied by moving the people from the interior straths and glens to the coast, where they were expected to find employment in, for example, the kelp or fishing industries. The properties they had formerly occupied were then converted into large sheep holdings. Essentially, therefore, this phase was characterised by relocation rather than outright expulsion.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The second phase of clearance started in 1815–20, continuing to the 1850s. It followed the collapse or stagnation of the wartime industries and the continuing rise in population. These economic effects are illustrated by the contemporary commodity prices. Kelp had been falling since 1810; in 1823 the market price in Liverpool was £9 a ton, but it fell to £3 13s 4d a ton in 1828, 41% of the 1823 price. Wool prices also shrank over a similar period to a quarter of the price obtained in 1818, and black cattle nearly halved in price between 1810 and the 1830s.


title: Highland Clearances

text: In the second phase, landlords moved to the more draconian policy of expelling people from their estates. This was increasingly associated with 'assisted emigration', in which landlords cancelled rent arrears and paid the passage of the 'redundant' families in their estates to North America and, in later years, also to Australia. The process reached a climax during the Highland Potato Famine of 1846–55.


title: Highland Clearances

text: In general terms, the transformation of the Highlands resulted in two different types of rural economy. In the southern and eastern part of the region, as land was enclosed, it was let to fewer tenants, with larger individual holdings. These larger units employed farm servants and labourers and also provided work for cottars and crofters. This workforce included former tenants from the old system. Whilst there were large pastoral farms, there were also mixed and arable farms—both of which needed labour. The population of the south and east Highlands only grew slightly from 1755 to 1841. This is explained by migration to the accessible Lowlands to find work and the relative unavailability of small tenancies. This gave this part of the Highlands some similarities to the Lowland clearances. Together with the better climate of the southern and eastern Highlands, the more diverse agricultural system gave a reasonable level of prosperity to the area.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Agricultural change in the Hebrides and the western coastal areas north of Fort William produced a different economic and social structure. This area is termed the "crofting region"; crofting communities became the dominant social system here, as land was enclosed and the run rig management of the multi-tenant replaced. The major part of the land was given over to large-scale pastoral sheep farming. This provided few jobs, compared to the arable and mixed farms in the south and east Highlands. The main industries intended for those displaced to crofting communities were fishing and kelp. Initially, this seemed, to the landlords and their advisors, an ideal way of providing profitable employment for those made redundant by competition for farm leases by the higher-rent-paying sheep farms. Over time, crofts were subdivided, allowing more tenants to live on them (but with less land per person). Crofting communities had a high proportion of cottars—those with the least access to land and without any formal lease to document what they did hold. Population growth was rapid, due to both subdivision and the lower rate of migration to the Lowlands. When the kelp market collapsed a few years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the deficiency of the crofting model was exposed: overcrowded communities with limited or no ability to grow enough food for subsistence and now without the industry on which their community relied. This is the area that was most reliant on the potato, and therefore severely hit by the Highland Potato Famine.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The census of 1841 recorded 167,283 people living in the crofting region (as per T. M. Devine's definition of the term), whilst the "farming" south and east Highlands contained 121,224 people.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Agriculture in the Highlands had always been marginal, with famine a recurrent risk for pre-clearance communities. Nevertheless, population levels increased steadily through the 18th and early 19th centuries. This increase continued through nearly all of the time of the clearances, peaking in 1851, at around 300,000. Emigration was part of Highland history before and during the clearances, and reached its highest level after them. During the first phase of the clearances, emigration could be considered a form of resistance to the loss of status being imposed by a landlord's social engineering. Different landowners decided to introduce the improvements that required clearance at different times and for different reasons. The common drivers of clearance are as follows:


title: Highland Clearances

text: Replacement of the old-style peasant farming with a small number of well-capitalised sheep farmers allowed land to be let at much higher rents. It also had the advantage, for the landowner, that there were fewer tenants to collect rent from, thus reducing the administrative burden of the estate.


title: Highland Clearances

text: In some areas, land remained in arable use after clearance but was farmed with more intensive modern methods. Some of the earliest clearances had been to introduce large-scale cattle production. Some later clearances replaced agriculture with sporting estates stocked with deer. There were instances of an estate being first cleared for sheep and later being cleared again for deer. The major transition, however, was to pastoral agriculture based on sheep.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The most productive sheep were the Cheviot, allowing their owners to pay twice as much rent as if they had stocked with Blackfaces. The Cheviot's disadvantage was that it was less hardy and needed low-level land on which to overwinter. This was usually the old arable land of the evicted population, so the choice of sheep breed dictated the totality of clearance in any particular Highland location.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Some of those carrying out clearances believed that this was for the benefit of those affected. Patrick Sellar, the factor (agent) of the Countess of Sutherland, was descended from a paternal grandfather who had been a cottar in Banffshire and had been cleared by an improving landlord. For the Sellars, this initiated a process of upward mobility (Patrick Sellar was a lawyer and a graduate of Edinburgh University), which Sellar took to be a moral tale that demonstrated the benefits to those forced to make a new start after eviction.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The provision of new accommodation for cleared tenants was often part of a planned piece of social engineering; a large example of this was the Sutherland Clearances, in which farming tenants in the interior were moved to crofts in coastal regions. The intent was that the land allotted to them would not be enough to provide all of their needs, and they would need to seek employment in industries like fishing or as seasonal itinerant farm labourers. The loss of status from tenant farmer to crofter was one of the reasons for the resentment of the Clearances.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The planned acts of social engineering needed investment. This money often originated from fortunes earned outside Scotland, whether from the great wealth of Sir James Matheson (the second son of a Sutherland tacksman, who returned from the Far East with a spectacular fortune), the more ordinary profits from Empire of other returning Scots, or Lowland or English industrialists attracted by lower land values in the Highlands. Large amounts of capital were used to start industrial and commercial enterprises or build infrastructure like roads, bridges and harbours, but the return on this capital was very low by contemporary standards. This wasted investment is described by Eric Richards as "a loss to the national economy to be set beside any gains to be tallied."


title: Highland Clearances

text: Some of this expenditure was used to build new towns, such as Bettyhill, which received tenants cleared from Strathnaver. This displacement has been compared to the movement of Glaswegians to Castlemilk in the 1950s—with a similar distance from the original settlement and a comparable level of overall failure of the project to produce the anticipated social benefits.


title: Highland Clearances

text: In the second phase of the clearances, when population reduction was the primary intention, the actions of landlords can be viewed as the crudest type of social engineering with a very limited understanding of the likely consequences.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The kelp trade was badly affected by the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and had collapsed totally by 1820. Kelp (or seaweed) was harvested from the seashore at low tide, dried and burnt to yield an alkali extract used in the manufacture of soap and glass. It was a very labour-intensive industry. Production had steadily grown from the 1730s to a peak level in 1810, and was mostly located in the Hebrides. The end of war reintroduced competition from Spanish barilla, a cheaper and richer product. This, combined with the reduction of duty on the foreign import, and the discovery that cheaper alkali could be extracted from common salt, destroyed the seasonal employment of an estimated 25 to 40 thousand crofters. There was little prospect of alternative employment; the only possibility was fishing, which was also in decline at the same time.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The overall population of the Western Isles had grown by 80 per cent between 1755 and 1821. The economic collapse of an industry that was a major employer in a greatly over-populated region had an inevitable result. Not only did the level of poverty increase in the general population, but many landlords, failing to make prompt adjustments to their catastrophic fall in income, descended into debt and bankruptcy.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The Highlands, as an agriculturally marginal area, was the last part of mainland Britain to remain at risk of famine, with notable instances before the 19th century in 1680, 1688, the 1690s, 1740–1, 1756 and 1782–3. The history of the trade in meal suggests that the region balanced this import with exporting cattle, leading to a substantial reliance on trade for survival that was greater than anywhere else in Britain.


title: Highland Clearances

text: There was near-contemporaneous dispute as to the severity of famines in the pre-clearance Highlands: in 1845, the Sutherland estate management argued over the level of famine relief that had been needed in the past, including this opinion: "The cattle on Sutherland were that Spring dying from scarcity of provender... and this is the condition to which your morbid Philanthropists of the present day refer as the days of comfort for the wretched Highlanders." (11 June 1845 letter to James Loch). Even accepting the level of debate on the subject among historians and the incomplete body of evidence, there is a clear case that, for example, pre-clearance Strathnaver (in Sutherland) experienced recurrent famine in a society operating at the margin of subsistence.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Crofting communities became more common in the early part of the 19th century. Particularly in the West Highlands and the Isles, the residents of these small agricultural plots were reliant on potatoes for at least three quarters of their diet. Until 1750, potatoes had been relatively uncommon in the Highlands. With a crop yield four times higher than oats, they became an integral part of crofting. After partial crop failures in 1836 and 1837, a severe outbreak of potato blight arrived in Scotland in 1846. Blight continued to seriously affect the Highland potato crop until about 1856. This was famine of a much greater scale and duration than anything previously experienced. By the end of 1846, the north-west Highlands and the Hebrides had serious food shortages, with an estimated three quarters of the population with nothing to eat.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The Highland Potato Famine started a year after potato blight had first struck Ireland. The knowledge of the Irish catastrophe helped mobilise a response to the Highland crisis, with government action, the establishment of a large charitable fund (the Central Board for Highland Destitution) and much more responsible landlord behaviour than seen in Ireland. The richer landlords, such as the Duke of Sutherland, were able to fund their own famine relief for their tenants. Some, already overstretched by large debts, were bankrupted by providing the necessary relief. The landlord of most of Islay, Walter Frederick Campbell, was a spectacular example. Another whose benevolence during the crisis brought bankruptcy was Norman Macleod of Macleod, owner of one of the two major estates in Skye. Conversely, some landlords were criticised for using the voluntarily raised relief funds to avoid supporting their tenants through the crisis. A few were recipients of strongly critical letters from senior civil servants, with threats that the government would recover the cost of famine relief from those who could provide it, but chose not to.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Clearance and emigration were an integral part of the Highland potato famine; the length and severity of the crisis seemed to leave little alternative. The choice faced by the government was between indefinitely continuing with charitable efforts and public works, or removing the excess population permanently. Rumours circulated, from 1849, that the government planned to introduce an 'able-bodied Poor Law', so formally putting the potentially crippling burden of famine relief on each parish (and hence on the landlord); the Central Board made clear that they would wind up their relief effort in 1850. The new Highland landowner class (who had bought financially failing estates) and the remaining wealthier hereditary landlords had the funds to support emigration of their destitute tenants. The result was that almost 11,000 people were provided with "assisted passages" by their landlords between 1846 and 1856, with the greatest number travelling in 1851. A further 5,000 emigrated to Australia, through the Highland and Island Emigration Society. To this should be added an unknown, but significant number, who paid their own fares to emigrate, and a further unknown number assisted by the Colonial Land and Emigration Commission.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Many Highland landlords were in debt, despite rising commodity prices and the associated farm incomes which allowed higher rents to be charged. The origin of some of this debt went back to the Statutes of Iona, when some lairds were forced to live part of the year in Edinburgh much more expensive than living on their own lands. Profligate spending was a significant cause. The costs of involvement in political activity was a factor for some. The landed classes of the Highlands socialised with southern landowners, who had more diverse sources of income, such as mineral royalties and windfall income from urban expansion. The low productivity of Highland lands made this a financial trap for their owners. In other cases, spending on famine relief depleted the financial resources of landowners—so even the prudent and responsible could ultimately be forced to increase the income from their estates. Lastly, investments in an estate, whether on roads, drainage, enclosure or other improvements might not realise the anticipated returns. The major financial pressure, though, was the end of the Napoleonic Wars, which had supported high prices for the small range of commodities produced in the Highlands.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The extent of indebtedness among Highland landowners was enormous. The evidence of this is the very high number of hereditary lands that were sold, especially in the first half of the 19th century. Over two-thirds of Highland estates had changed hands in this way by the end of the 1850s. Eric Richards describes this as a "financial suicide" by an entire class of people. Debt was not a new problem for Highland landowners in the 19th century—it had been equally prevalent in the 17th and 18th. The change was in the lender. The further development of the banking system at the beginning of the 19th century meant that landowners did not need to look to family members or neighbours as a source of finance. The downside to this was a greater readiness of the lender to foreclose—and an increased willingness to lend in the first place, perhaps unwisely.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Debt had three possible consequences, all of which were likely to involve the eviction of tenants. The landlord could try to avoid bankruptcy by introducing immediate improvements, putting up rents, clearing tenants to allow higher-paying sheep farmers to be installed. Alternatively, the estate could be sold to wipe out the debts. A new owner was highly likely to have plans for improvement which would include clearance. They also had the money to fund assisted passages for cleared tenants to emigrate, so putting into practice ideas suggested in the 1820s and 1830s. As most purchasers were from outside the Highlands or from England, they neither understood nor followed the Gaelic principle of ", so removing a potential level of protection for tenants. Finally, the landlord might enter bankruptcy, with the estate passing into the hands of administrators whose legal obligation was to protect the financial interests of the creditors. This last case was often the worst outcome for tenants, with any considerations of them having no relevance whatsoever under the law.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The 18th century was a time of population growth, almost continuous from the 1770s onwards. This was not initially seen as a problem by landlords as people were considered to be an asset—both to provide a pool for military recruitment and as an economic resource. Landowners and the government sought to discourage emigration, an attitude that resulted in the "Passenger Vessels Act 1803", which was intended to limit the ability of people to emigrate.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The role of the Highlands in providing a source of recruitment for the army and navy was, in the words of T. M. Devine, "quite remarkable". Starting in the Seven Years' War (1756–63) and increasing during the American War of Independence, by the time of the Napoleonic Wars, one estimate put the Highland contribution to regiments of the line, militia, Fencibles and Volunteers at 74,000. This was out of a population of about 300,000. Even allowing for this estimate overstating the case, in time of war, the Highlands was seen as a significant recruiting resource.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The attitude towards increasing population was altered in the first half of the 19th century. First, the kelp trade collapsed in the years immediately following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. Those working in the kelp trade were crofters, with not enough land to make a living, or cottars, the very poorest in society with the least access to land on which to grow food. Without alternative employment, which was not available, destitution was inevitable. The landlords (or in some cases the trustees of their bankrupt estates) no longer tried to retain their tenants on their land, either encouraging or assisting emigration, or, in the more desperate circumstances, virtually compelling those in substantial rent arrears to accept an assisted passage (i.e., to emigrate), with the alternative of simple eviction.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The potato famine followed shortly after the collapse of the kelp industry. Faced with a severe famine, the government made clear to any reluctant landlords that they had the primary responsibility of feeding their destitute tenants, whether through employment in public works or estate improvement, or simply by the provision of famine relief. The threat of full application, and possible reform, of the Poor Laws (that would have had the effect of formalising the obligation to feed all the destitute in each parish) was the final impetus to the various assisted emigration measures.


title: Highland Clearances

text: In the decades following 1815, the ideological and political consensus changed. Surplus population slowly became thought of as a liability; their need to be fed could not be ignored in a philanthropic age. Therefore, large-scale expatriation was considered as a solution to the social crisis in the Highlands. The ideas of Malthus were adopted by many in a position to influence policy. The "Passenger Vessels Act" was repealed in 1827 and in 1841 a select committee of the House of Commons concluded that the crofting parishes had a surplus population of 45,000 to 60,000.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The primary motivation for clearance was economic. Associated with this was the suggestion by some theorists that the Celtic population were less hardworking than those of Anglo-Saxon stock (i.e. Lowlanders and, in some instances, English), so giving an economic element to a racial theory. James Hunter quotes a contemporary Lowland newspaper: ‘Ethnologically the Celtic race is an inferior one and, attempt to disguise it as we may, there is ... no getting rid of the great cosmical fact that it is destined to give way ... before the higher capabilities of the Anglo-Saxon.' These views were held by people like Patrick Sellar, the factor employed by the Countess of Sutherland to put her plans into effect, who often wrote of his support for these ideas, and Sir Charles Trevelyan, the senior government representative in organising famine relief during the Highland Potato Famine. (Trevelyan regarded himself as a "reformed Celt", having a Cornish Celtic heritage.) There is little doubt that racism against the Gael formed some part of the story.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Roman Catholics had experienced a sequence of discriminatory laws in the period up to 1708. Whilst English versions of these laws were repealed in 1778, in Scotland this did not happen until 1793. However, religious discrimination is not considered, by some historians, to be a reason for evicting tenants as part of any clearance, and is seen more as a source of voluntary emigration by writers such as Eric Richards. There is one clear (and possibly solitary) case of harassment of Catholics which resulted in eviction by Colin MacDonald of Boisdale (a recent convert to Presbyterianism). This temporarily stalled when the risk of empty farms (and therefore loss of rent) became apparent when voluntary emigration to escape persecution was possible. However, in 1771, thirty-six families did not have their leases renewed (out of some 300 families who were tenants of Boisdale); 11 of these emigrated the next year with financial assistance from the Roman Catholic church.


title: Highland Clearances

text: In 1792 tenant farmers from Strathrusdale led a protest by driving more than 6,000 sheep off the land surrounding Ardross. It was the first large protest over clearances. It started when land was let to sheep farmers who repeatedly impounded the cattle of neighbouring tenants, alleging that they had strayed onto the sheep grazing. Eventually the owners of the cattle obtained the help from tenants of a nearby estate, and went and recovered their stock after an angry confrontation. Emboldened by this success, a few days later, at a wedding celebration, a plan was developed to round up all the sheep and drive them south over the River Beauly. It was put into effect in a highly organised manner, gathering all the sheep in the area (except that of Donald Macleod of Geanies, the Sheriff Depute of Ross - perhaps out of either fear or respect for him). The first flocks were gathered on the 31 July and by 4 August many thousand sheep had been collected.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The protest was seen by local landowners and law officers in the context of revolution in France, and caused alarm. As Sheriff Depute, Donald Macleod reported events to the Lord Advocate, Robert Dundas, in Edinburgh, asking for military help. The request was forwarded to London, where Henry Dundas (Robert's uncle) gave orders for the Black Watch to be sent north to assist. Until they arrived, Macleod avoided the risk of any action against the protestors that might not be successful. In the early hours of 5 August, Macleod, a large party of the gentry from the region, and three companies of soldiers moved to where the sheep had been gathered. Most of the protestors fled, but eight were captured in the vicinity and a further four were taken in their homes. The protest rapidly faded away. Eight of the captives were tried on charges of assaulting the sheep farmers who had impounded their cattle, but were acquitted on the grounds that the violence was self defence. Seven of the prisoners were tried on charges of insurrection and found guilty. The penalties, at a time when the death penalty was frequently used, were mild. The most severe was seven years transportation to Australia for two of the protestors. This was not carried out, because they escaped from the prison at Inverness tollbooth. No serious attempt was made to track the escapees down.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Two of the best documented clearances are those from the land of the Duchess of Sutherland, carried out by, among other people, her factor Patrick Sellar, and the Glencalvie clearances which were witnessed and documented by a "London Times" reporter.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The Sutherland estate was inherited by Elizabeth Sutherland when she was one year old. It consisted of about half of the county of Sutherland, and purchases between 1812 and 1816 increased it to around 63%, as measured by rental value. On 4 September 1785, at the age of 20, Lady Sutherland married George Granville Leveson-Gower, Viscount Trentham, who was known as Earl Gower from 1786 until he succeeded to his father's title of Marquess of Stafford in 1803. In 1832, just six months before he died, he was created Duke of Sutherland and she became known as Duchess-Countess of Sutherland.


title: Highland Clearances

text: When Lady Sutherland inherited the estate, there were many wadsets (a type of mortgage) on much of the land; like many Highland estates, it had substantial debts. Some removals were made in 1772 while Lady Sutherland was still a child and the estate was managed by her tutors. They tried to dislodge many of the tacksmen on the estate. Many tenants had emigrated, and new fishing villages were planned to provide employment for tenants moved from the interior. But these plans did not proceed because the estate was short of money.


title: Highland Clearances

text: In 1803 Leveson-Gower inherited the huge fortune of the Duke of Bridgewater, and the estate now had the money for improvements. Many of the estate's leases did not end until 1807, but planning was started to restructure the estate. Despite the conventions of the day and the provisions of the entailment on Lady Sutherland's inheritance, Leveson-Gower delegated overall control of the estate to his wife; she took an active interest in its management. As the major part of the Sutherland Clearances began, Lady Sutherland and her advisors were influenced by several things. First, the population was increasing. Second, the area was prone to famine; and it fell to the landlord to organise relief by buying meal and importing it into the area. How bad the famine was is debated, both among modern historians and also within the Sutherland Estate management soon after the clearances in 1845. The third driving force was the whole range of thinking on agricultural improvement. This took in economic ideas expressed by Adam Smith as well as those of many agriculturalists. For the Highlands, the main thrust of these theories was the much greater rental return to be obtained from sheep. Wool prices had increased faster than other commodities since the 1780s. This enabled sheep farmers to pay substantially higher rents than the current tenants.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Now that capital funding was available, the first big sheep farm was let at Lairg in 1807, involving the removal of about 300 people. Many of these did not accept their new homes and emigrated, to the dissatisfaction of the estate management and Lady Sutherland. In 1809, William Young and Patrick Sellar arrived in Sutherland and made contact with the Sutherland family, becoming key advisors to the owners of the estate. They offered ambitious plans which matched the wish for rapid results. Lady Sutherland had already dismissed the estate's factor, David Campbell, in 1807 for lack of progress. His replacement, Cosmo Falconer found his position being undermined by the advice offered by Young and Sellar. In August 1810 Falconer agreed to leave, with effect from 2 June 1811, and Young and Sellar took over in his place.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Young had a proven track record of agricultural improvement in Moray and Sellar was a lawyer educated at Edinburgh University; both were fully versed in the modern ideas of Adam Smith. They provided an extra level of ambition for the estate. New industries were added to the plans, to employ the resettled population. A coal mine was sunk at Brora, and fishing villages were built to exploit the herring shoals off the coast. Other ideas were tanning, flax, salt and brick manufacturing.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The first clearances under the factorship of Young and Sellar were in Assynt in 1812, under the direction of Sellar, establishing large sheep farms and resettling the old tenants on the coast. Sellar had the assistance of the local tacksmen in this and the process was conducted without unrest—despite the unpopularity of events. However, in 1813, planned clearances in the Strath of Kildonan were accompanied by riots: an angry mob drove prospective sheep farmers out of the valley when they came to view the land, and a situation of confrontation existed for more than six weeks, with Sellar failing to successfully negotiate with the protesters. Ultimately, the army was called out and the estate made concessions such as paying very favourable prices for the cattle of those being cleared. This was assisted by landlords in surrounding districts taking in some of those displaced and an organised party emigrating to Canada. The whole process was a severe shock to Lady Sutherland and her advisers, who were, in the words of historian Eric Richards, "genuinely astonished at this response to plans which they regarded as wise and benevolent".


title: Highland Clearances

text: Further clearances were scheduled in Strathnaver starting at Whitsun, 1814. These were complicated by Sellar having successfully bid for the lease of one of the new sheep farms on land that it was now his responsibility, as factor, to clear. (Overall, this clearance was part of the removal of 430 families from Strathnaver and Brora in 1814—an estimated 2,000 people.) Sellar had also made an enemy of the local law officer, Robert Mackid, by catching him poaching on the Sutherland's land. There was some confusion among the tenants as Sellar made concessions to some of them, allowing them to stay in their properties a little longer. Some tenants moved in advance of the date in their eviction notice—others stayed until the eviction parties arrived. As was normal practice, the roof timbers of cleared houses were destroyed to prevent re-occupation after the eviction party had left. On 13 June 1814, this was done by burning in the case of Badinloskin, the house occupied by William Chisholm. Accounts vary, but it is possible that his elderly and bedridden mother-in-law was still in the house when it was set on fire. In James Hunter's understanding of events, Sellar ordered her to be immediately carried out as soon as he realised what was happening. The old lady died 6 days later. Eric Richards suggests that the old woman was carried to an outbuilding before the house was destroyed. Whatever the facts of the matter, Sellar was charged with culpable homicide and arson, in respect of this incident and others during this clearance. The charges were brought by Robert Mackid, driven by the enmity he held for Sellar for catching him poaching. As the trial approached, the Sutherland estate was reluctant to assist Sellar in his defence, distancing themselves from their employee. He was acquitted of all charges at his trial in 1816. The estate were hugely relieved, taking this as a justification of their clearance activity. (Robert Mackid became a ruined man and had to leave the county, providing Sellar with a grovelling letter of apology and confession.)


title: Highland Clearances

text: Despite the acquittal, this event, and Sellar's role in it, was fixed in the popular view of the Sutherland Clearances. James Loch, the Stafford estate commissioner was now taking a greater interest in the Northern part of his employer's holdings; he thought Young's financial management was incompetent, and Sellar's actions among the people deeply concerning. Both Sellar and William Young soon left their management posts with the Sutherland estate (though Sellar remained as a major tenant). Loch, nevertheless, also subscribed to the theory that clearance was beneficial for the tenants as much as for the estate.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Lady Sutherland's displeasure with events was added to by critical reports in a minor London newspaper, the Military Register, from April 1815. These were soon carried in larger newspapers. They originated from Alexander Sutherland, who, with his brother John Sutherland of Sciberscross, were opponents of clearance. Alexander, after serving as a captain in the army had been thwarted in his hopes to take up leases on the Sutherland estate and now worked as a journalist in London. He was therefore well placed to cause trouble for the estate.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The (effective) dismissal of Sellar placed him in the role of scapegoat, thereby preventing a proper critical analysis of the estate's policies. Clearances continued under the factorship of Frances Suther and the overall control of James Loch. Through 1816 and 1817, famine conditions affected most of the inland areas and the estate had to provide relief to those who were destitute. This altered policy on emigration: if tenants wanted to emigrate, the estate would not object, but there was still no active encouragement.


title: Highland Clearances

text: In 1818 the largest part of the clearance program was put into effect, lasting until 1820. Loch gave emphatic instructions intended to avoid another public relations disaster: rent arrears could be excused for those who co-operated, time was to be taken and rents for the new crofts were to be set as low as possible.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The process did not start well. The Reverend David Mackenzie of Kildonan wrote to Loch on behalf of the 220 families due to be cleared from his parish. He categorically challenged the basic premise of the clearance: that the people from an inland region could make a living on their new coastal crofts. Loch was adamant that the removals would go ahead regardless of objections. Yet, at the same time, Suther and the local ground officer of the estate were pointing out to Loch that few of the new crofts were of an acceptable quality. Some tenants were considering moving off the estate, either to Caithness or emigrating to America or the Cape of Good Hope, which Suther encouraged by writing off their rent arrears. More positively for those with eviction notices, cattle prices were high in 1818. Ultimately, that year's clearances passed without serious protest.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Over the next two years the scale of clearance increased: 425 families (about 2,000 people) in 1819 and 522 families in 1820. Loch was anxious to move quickly, whilst cattle prices were high and there was a good demand for leases of sheep farms. There was no violent resistance in 1819, but Suther, despite precise instructions to the contrary, used fire to destroy cleared houses. This came after a spell of dry weather, in which the turf and stone walls of the houses had dried out, so that even the turf in the walls ignited, adding to the blaze of the thatch and roof timbers. Multiplied over the large number of properties that were cleared, this made a horrific impression on those who observed it. The public relations disaster that Loch had wished to avoid now followed, with "The Observer" newspaper running the headline: "the Devastation of Sutherland". 1819 became known as "the year of the burnings" ().


title: Highland Clearances

text: In the autumn of 1819, the Sutherland Estate management received reports of growing hostility to further clearances. The Sutherland family were sent anonymous threatening letters to their house in London. The Transatlantic Emigration Society provided a focus for resistance to the clearances planned in 1820, holding large meetings and conducting extensive correspondence with newspapers about the situation of Sutherland tenants. This publicity caused great concern to Loch, and the comment in the press increased as Whitsun 1820 approached. Lady Sutherland felt that her family was being particularly targeted by critics of the clearances, so she asked Loch to find out what neighbouring estates had done. The answer was that Lord Moray in Ross-shire had, on occasion, bought the cattle owned by evicted tenants, but otherwise had made no provision for them: they had simply been evicted with no compensation or alternative tenancies offered. The tenants of Munro of Novar were also simply evicted, with many of them emigrating. As the 1820 Sutherland clearances approached, there was notable rioting at Culrain on the Munro of Novar estate, protesting at their clearance plans. Loch worried that this would spread to the Sutherland tenants, but no violent physical resistance occurred, with those cleared demonstrating (in the words of Eric Richards) "sullen acquiescence". In June there was serious resistance to clearance in another nearby estate, at Gruids. Richards attributes the lack of violence in the Sutherland Estate to the resettlement arrangements in place there, stating: "In this sense the Sutherland estate was, despite its reputation, in strong and positive contrast to most other clearing proprietors."


title: Highland Clearances

text: 1819 and 1820 represented the main clearance activity on the Sutherland Estate. The much smaller clearance in the spring of 1821 at Achness and Ascoilmore met with obstruction and the military had to be called in to carry out evictions by force. Complaints were made against the estate of cruelty and negligence, but an internal enquiry absolved the factor of any wrongdoing. However, it is highly likely that this conclusion glossed over the suffering experienced by those evicted.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Figures gathered by the estate give some information on where tenants, sub-tenants and squatters went after the evictions in 1819. For tenants, 68% became tenants elsewhere on the estate, 7% went to neighbouring estates, 21% to adjoining counties and 2% emigrated. The remaining 2% were unaccounted for. The sub-tenants and squatters were divided up into 73% resettled on the coast, 7% in neighbouring estates, 13% to nearby counties and 5% emigrated. Two per cent were unaccounted for. This survey does not pick up information on those who subsequently travelled elsewhere.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Loch issued instructions to Suther at the end of 1821 that brought the major clearance activity of the estate to an end. Some small-scale clearance activity continued for the next 20 years or so, but this was not part of the overall plan to resettle the population in coastal settlements and engage them in alternative industries.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The flamboyant Alexander Ranaldson MacDonell of Glengarry portrayed himself as the last genuine specimen of the true Highland chief while his tenants (almost all Catholic) were subjected to a relentless process of eviction. He abandoned his disbanded regiment; its Catholic chaplain (later bishop), Alexander Macdonell led the men and their families to settle in Glengarry County, eastern Ontario, Canada.


title: Highland Clearances

text: It has frequently been asserted that Gaels reacted to the Clearances with apathy and a near-total absence of active resistance from the crofting population. However, upon closer examination this view is at best an oversimplification. While troops intervened on at least 10 occasions, Richards notes that not a single death has been directly attributed to the physical act of the clearances themselves. Michael Lynch suggests that there were more than 50 major acts of resistance to clearance. Even before the Crofters' War of the 1880s, Gaelic communities had staved off or even averted removals by accosting law enforcement officials and destroying eviction notices, such as in Coigach, Ross-shire, 1852–3. Women took the front line in opposing the authorities, with their male relatives backing them up. Lowland shepherds imported to work the new sheep farms were subject to intimidating letters and maiming or theft of the sheep. More than 1,500 sheep were stolen on the Sutherland estate in a single year in the early 19th century. Many forms of resistance were practiced under the table, such as poaching. After the introduction of watermills at Milton Farm, South Uist, in the early nineteenth century, the tenants continued to hand-grind their grain with querns. As this was considered undesirable, the landlord had the querns broken; similar episodes were recorded in Skye and Tiree. After the Disruption of 1843, many Gaelic-speaking areas deserted the Church of Scotland in favour of the Presbyterian Free Church, which refused to take money from landlords and was often overtly critical of them.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Richards describes three attempts at large-scale resistance before the Crofters' War: the Year of the Sheep, protests against Patrick Sellar's clearance of Strathnaver in 1812–4, and the "Dudgeonite agitation" in Easter Ross in 1819–20, sparked by a local tacksman's organization of an emigration fund.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The Highland Land League eventually achieved land reform in the enactment of the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886, but these could not bring economic viability and came too late, at a time when the land was already suffering from depopulation. However, the Crofters' Act put an end to the Clearances by granting security of tenure to crofters.


title: Highland Clearances

text: However, the Crofters' Act did not grant security of tenure to cottars or break up large estates. As a result, the Scottish Highlands continues to have the most unequal distributions of land in Europe, with more than half of Scotland owned by fewer than 500 people. Land struggles occurred after the First and Second World Wars as returning servicemen could not get crofts.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The clearances continue to be debated between historians and others who approach the subject with different analysis of sources and determination of causes. As such, there are significant differences between the understanding of the Highland clearances held by historians and the popular view of these events. Furthermore, the historical analysis is complicated by political views, including an ongoing debate about who should possess and exercise control over land in Scotland.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The clearances were condemned by many writers at the time, and in the late 19th century they were invoked in opposition to the enormous power of landlords under Scottish law and calls for land reform related to crofting, notably in Alexander Mackenzie's 1883 "History of the Highland Clearances". The effects of the clearances were evoked in fictional works by authors including Neil M. Gunn and Fionn MacColla in the 1930s and 1940s. The subject was largely ignored by academic historians until the publication of a best-selling history book by John Prebble in 1963 attracted worldwide attention to his view that Highlanders had been forced into tragic exile by their former chieftains turned brutal landlords. Though some historians have disputed this work as an over-simplification, other authors went further and stated that it promoted misconceptions that the clearances were equivalent to genocide or ethnic cleansing and/or that British authorities in London played a major, persistent role in carrying them out. In particular, popular remembrance of the Highland clearances is sometimes intertwined with the comparatively short-lived reprisals that followed the failed Jacobite rebellion of 1745. However, a large body of thoroughly researched academic work now exists on the subject, differing significantly from the accounts of Prebble and his successors. Importantly, as there are so many historical works now focused on the Highlands, there is even an argument that the balance of journals and books in all Scottish history is now excessively tilted toward the Highlands, despite the clearances that took place in the Lowlands as well.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Many Gaelic poets were heavily influenced by the Clearances. Responses varied from sadness and nostalgia, which dominated the poetry of Niall MacLeòid, to the anger and call to action found in the work of Mary MacPherson. The best-known Scottish Gaelic poem of the 20th century, , was written by Sorley MacLean about a cleared village near where he grew up on Raasay; many of his other poems deal with the effects of the Clearances.


title: Highland Clearances

text: Many songs were in the form of satire of the landlord class. Perhaps the most famous of these is "" (Mackay Country or Northern Sutherland, a region hit hard by the Clearances), written by Ewen Robertson, who became known as the "Bard of the Clearances." The song mocks the Duke of Sutherland, his factor, Patrick Sellar, James Loch, James Anderson, and others involved in the Sutherland Clearances. Similar sentiments were expressed with regard to the Ardnamurchan Clearances by a local doctor, Iain MacLachlainn.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The clearances were an influential theme in Scottish literature, with notable examples such as "Consider the Lilies", a novel by Iain Crichton Smith.


title: Highland Clearances

text: On 23 July 2007, the Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond unveiled a bronze "Exiles" statue, by Gerald Laing, in Helmsdale, Sutherland, which commemorates the people who were cleared from the area by landowners and left their homeland to begin new lives overseas. The statue, which depicts a family leaving their home, stands at the mouth of the Strath of Kildonan and was funded by Dennis Macleod, a Scottish-Canadian mining millionaire who also attended the ceremony.


title: Highland Clearances

text: An identical three-metre-high bronze "Exiles" statue has also been set up on the banks of the Red River in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.


title: Highland Clearances

text: In Golspie, Sutherland, a statue of George Granville Leveson-Gower, the first Duke of Sutherland, has been subject to vandalism due to his controversial role in the Sutherland Clearances.


title: Highland Clearances

text: The diaspora was worldwide, but emigrants settled in close communities on Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia (Antigonish and Pictou counties and later in Cape Breton), the Glengarry and Kingston areas of Ontario and the Carolinas of the American colonies. Canadian Gaelic was widely spoken for some two centuries. One estimate of Nova Scotia's population has 50,000 Gaels immigrating from Scotland between 1815 and 1870. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were an estimated 100,000 Gaelic speakers in Cape Breton.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: St. Vincent is a 2014 American comedy-drama film written, directed, and co-produced by Theodore Melfi. The film stars Bill Murray as the title character and features Melissa McCarthy, Jaeden Lieberher, Naomi Watts, Chris O'Dowd, and Terrence Howard.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: The film had its premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival where it was voted second runner-up for the People's Choice Award. It received a limited theatrical release on October 10, 2014, and expanded to a wide release on October 24. The same day, it was released on Netflix in France. The film was a moderate commercial success, grossing $54.8 million against its $13.5 million budget, and received positive reviews from critics.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: Vincent MacKenna is a retired, grumpy, alcoholic Vietnam War veteran living in Sheepshead Bay, who smokes and gambles regularly. His wife, Sandy, has Alzheimer's and no longer recognizes him, but he poses as a doctor to visit her and does her laundry. Vincent's only close friends are his cat Felix and a pregnant Russian sex worker named Daka. Despite his aggression toward strangers, Vincent has acquaintances who admire and care about him.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: Vincent's 30-year-old Chrysler LeBaron gets hit by a branch felled by his new neighbors' moving van. Maggie Bronstein, a radiology tech in the midst of an acrimonious divorce, and her son Oliver, meet Vincent, who demands payment for the injury. Maggie does her best to provide for Oliver, who is ostracized and bullied at his Catholic school, but is a knowledgeable, friendly boy, warmly welcomed by his new teacher. On his first day at his school, Oliver's phone, wallet, and house keys are stolen by his classmate Robert. Oliver asks Vincent if he can stay at his home until his mother comes home from work. Vincent offers to continue "babysitting" for a fee.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: Vincent picks up Oliver daily after school because Maggie often has late shifts. Vincent's ideas of after-school activities involve visits to racetracks and bars. The mismatched pair begin to help each other mature. Vincent teaches Oliver how to defend himself from bullies, resulting in Oliver breaking the nose of a bully who later apologizes and gives back what he stole. Oliver befriends the boy, who introduces himself as Robert. Vincent and Oliver win a high-odds bet on the horses, enabling Vincent to pay off some of his debts. After staff in Sandy's nursing home have told him he is behind on fees and Sandy will be moved, Vincent steals money from Oliver's bank account when his own accounts are overdrawn, and takes it to the racetrack. He gambles this money away hoping for a big win.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: Vincent is confronted in his home by loan sharks Zucko and Antwan who attempt to take Sandy's jewelry. Vincent suddenly falls to the ground, and Zucko and Antwan leave him on the floor. Oliver finds him and calls emergency services. Vincent is hospitalized, told he has had a stroke, and has to undergo physical therapy. Oliver, Maggie, and Daka help Vincent recover, but his language remains stilted.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: Oliver's father, a lawyer, finds out about Vincent and uses the information on gambling, introducing Oliver to a prostitute, etc. to get joint custody with Maggie. Having been unaware of Vincent’s activities, Maggie tells Vincent that he can no longer see Oliver.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: Vincent becomes depressed after finding out that Sandy died while he was hospitalized. He is given a box containing her few belongings, and her ashes.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: For his "Saints Among Us" school project, Oliver asks around the neighborhood about Vincent's past. Later, he nominates Vincent at the school's assembly, publicly declaring him “St. Vincent of Sheepshead Bay” and presenting him with a medal. Oliver's rationale comes from his teacher's definition of sainthood as a person showing 'commitment and dedication' and some sacrifice. Vincent fits this in terms of his wife; he also saved two fellow soldiers during the Vietnam War. The rest seems debatable, as gambling and theft don't seem the best course of action to raise money for nursing home fees. However, the school audience is impressed by Oliver's speech and applaud Vincent, who has been tricked into attending the event by Daka.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: Some time later, Daka gives birth to a baby girl and she, along with Maggie, Oliver and Robert, go to Vincent's house, where they eat and happily talk.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: The screenplay, originally titled "St. Vincent de Van Nuys", was written in 2011 by Melfi, and was included on the Hollywood Black List (the best unproduced scripts) of 2011.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: Jack Nicholson was rumored to star in the film, but Murray signed on in July 2012. On March 11, 2013, Melissa McCarthy was offered the lead female part and joined the cast. On March 22, Chris O'Dowd joined the cast as a Catholic priest. Naomi Watts joined the cast on April 22 in the role of a Russian prostitute. On July 19, Scott Adsit joined the cast to play McCarthy's character's ex-husband.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: Filming began the first week of July 2013, with scenes filmed in Brooklyn, New York and at Belmont Park in Elmont, Long Island, New York.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: On December 26, 2013, Theodore Shapiro was hired to score the film. Sony Classical Records released the soundtrack album on October 27, 2014.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: The Weinstein Company released the film on October 10, 2014, in limited engagements, before making an expansion into wide release on October 24, 2014.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 77% based on 193 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The consensus reads, ""St. Vincent" offers the considerable pleasure of seeing Bill Murray back in funny form, but drifts into dangerously sentimental territory along the way." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100 based on 40 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: St. Vincent (film)

text: Richard Roeper gave the film a grade of "A", saying Murray's performance could "mean a Golden Globe".


title: Packard

text: Packard or Packard Motor Car Company was an American luxury automobile company located in Detroit, Michigan. The first Packard automobiles were produced in 1899, and the last Packards were built in South Bend, Indiana in 1958.


title: Packard

text: One of the "Three Ps" alongside Peerless Motor Company, and Pierce-Arrowthe company was known for building high-quality luxury automobiles before World War II. Owning a Packard was considered prestigious, and surviving examples are found in museums, car shows, and automobile collections.


title: Packard

text: Packard vehicles featured innovations, including the modern steering wheel, air-conditioning in a passenger car, and one of the first production 12-cylinder engines, adapted from developing the Liberty L-12 engine used during World War I to power warplanes.


title: Packard

text: During World War II, Packard produced 55,523 units of the two-stage/two-speed supercharger equipped Merlin V-12s engines under contract with Rolls-Royce. Packard also made the versions of the Liberty L-12 V-12 engine. This updated engine powered United States Navy PT boats.


title: Packard

text: After the Second World War, Packard struggled to survive as an independent automaker against the domestic Big Three (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler). Packard merged with Studebaker in 1953 and formed the Studebaker-Packard Corporation. This merger was intended to be temporary while an eventual merger with American Motors Company (AMC) was planned. Disagreements among the firms' executives thwarted the consolidation with AMC, so Studebaker-Packard remained a separate company. The Packard brand was phased out in 1959 after two years of declining sales of the Studebaker-built 1957 and 1958 model year Packards.


title: Packard

text: Packard was founded by James Ward Packard, his brother William and their partner, George Lewis Weiss, in Warren, Ohio, where 400 Packard automobiles were built at their factory on 408 Dana Street Northeast, from 1899 to 1903. A mechanical engineer, James Packard believed they could build a better horseless carriage than the Winton cars owned by Weiss, an important Winton stockholder, after Packard complained to Alexander Winton and offered suggestions for improvement, which were ignored. Winton replied to the suggestions by essentially telling Packard to "go build your own car". Packard's first car was built in Warren, Ohio, on November 6, 1899.


title: Packard

text: Henry Bourne Joy, a member of one of Detroit's oldest and wealthiest families, bought a Packard. Impressed by its reliability, he visited the Packards and soon enlisted a group of investors, including Truman Handy Newberry and Russell A. Alger Jr. On October 2, 1902, this group refinanced and renamed the New York and Ohio Automobile Company as the Packard Motor Car Company, with James Packard as president. Alger later served as vice president. Packard moved operations to Detroit soon after, and Joy became general manager (later chairman of the board). An original Packard, reputedly the first manufactured, was donated by a grateful James Packard to his "alma mater", Lehigh University, and is preserved there in the Packard Laboratory. Another is on display at the Packard Museum in Warren, Ohio.


title: Packard

text: While the Black Motor Company's Black went as low as $375, Western Tool Works' Gale Model A roadster was $500, the high-volume Oldsmobile Runabout went for $650, and the Cole 30 and Cole Runabout were $1,500, Packard concentrated on cars with prices starting at $2,600. The marque developed a following among wealthy purchasers in the United States and abroad, competing with European marques like Rolls-Royce, Renault, Isotta Fraschini, and Mercedes Benz.


title: Packard

text: The Packard plant on East Grand Boulevard in Detroit was located on over of land. Designed by Albert Kahn Associates, it included an early use of reinforced concrete for an automotive factory when building #10 opened in 1906. Its craftsmen practised over 80 trades. The dilapidated plant stood until demolition commenced in September 2022, despite repeated fires. The factory is in close proximity to the current General Motors Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly, which was the former site of the Dodge Vehicle factory from 1910 until 1980. Architect Kahn also designed the Packard Proving Grounds in Shelby Township, Michigan.


title: Packard

text: From this beginning, through and beyond the 1930s, Packard-built vehicles were perceived as highly competitive among high-priced luxury American automobiles. The company was commonly referred to as being one of the "Three Ps" of American motordom royalty, along with Pierce-Arrow of Buffalo, New York, and Peerless of Cleveland, Ohio. For most of its history, Packard was guided by its President and General Manager James Alvan Macauley, who served as President of the National Automobile Manufacturers Association. Inducted into the Automobile Hall of Fame, Macauley made Packard the number one designer and producer of luxury automobiles in the United States. The marque was also competitive abroad, with markets in 61 countries. Gross income for the company was $21,889,000 in 1928 ($ in dollars ). Macauley was also responsible for the iconic Packard slogan, "Ask the Man Who Owns One".


title: Packard

text: The Packard Six was initially introduced as a senior-level luxury platform for three years starting in 1913, then upgraded to the Packard Twin Six starting in 1916. The first appearance of the Packard "Goddess of Speed" hood ornament was in 1925 on the Single Eight and soon adorned all models, while the Cormorant or Swan appeared in the 1930s. The Adonis hood ornament was briefly used in the late 1920s.


title: Packard

text: In the 1920s, Packard exported more cars than any other in its price class, and in 1930, sold almost twice as many abroad as any other marque priced over ). In 1931, 10 Packards were owned by the Imperial House of Japan. Between 1924 and 1930, Packard was also the top-selling luxury brand.


title: Packard

text: In addition to excellent luxury cars, Packard built trucks. A Packard truck carrying a three-ton load drove from New York City to San Francisco between July 8 and August 24, 1912. The same year, Packard had service depots in 104 cities.


title: Packard

text: The Packard Motor Corporation Building at Philadelphia, also designed by Albert Kahn, was built in 1910-1911. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.


title: Packard

text: Entering the 1930s, Packard attempted to beat the stock market crash and subsequent Great Depression by manufacturing ever more opulent and expensive cars than it had prior to October 1929, and began offering different platforms that focused on different price points allowing the company to offer more products and remain competitive. While the Eight five-seater sedan had been the company's top-seller for years, the Twin Six, designed by Chief engineer Jesse G. Vincent, was introduced for 1932, with prices starting at ; in 1933, it would be renamed the Packard Twelve, a name it retained for the remainder of its run (through 1939). Also in 1931, Packard pioneered a system it called Ride Control, which made the hydraulic shock absorbers adjustable from within the car. For one year only, 1932, Packard fielded an upper-medium-priced car, the Light Eight, at a base price of $1,750 ($ in dollars ), or $735 ($ in dollars ) less than the Standard Eight.


title: Packard

text: Packard rivals Cadillac and Lincoln benefited from the huge support structure of GM and Ford. Packard could not match the two new automotive giants for resources. The 1920s had proven extremely profitable for the company and it had assets of approximately $20 million in 1932 ($ in dollars ) while many luxury car manufacturers were almost broke. Peerless ceased production in 1932, converting the Cleveland manufacturing plant automobile production to brewing for Carling Black Label Beer. By 1938, Franklin, Marmon, Ruxton, Stearns-Knight, Stutz, Duesenberg, and Pierce-Arrow had all closed.


title: Packard

text: Packard had one advantage that some other luxury automakers did not: a single production line. By maintaining a single line and interchangeability between models, Packard was able to maintain low costs. Packard did not change models as often as other manufacturers. Rather than introducing new models annually, Packard began using its own "Series" formula for differentiating its model changeovers in 1923 borrowing a strategy from GM called planned obsolescence. The new model series did not debut on a strictly annual basis, with some series lasting nearly two years, and others lasting as brief as seven months. In the long run, Packard averaged approximately one new series per year. By 1930, Packard automobiles were considered part of its Seventh Series. By 1942, Packard was in its Twentieth Series. The "Thirteenth Series" was omitted due to the western superstition about the number 13.


title: Packard

text: To meet the challenge of the Depression, Packard started producing more affordable cars in the medium price range. This was a necessary step as the demand for hand-built luxury cars had diminished sharply and people who could afford such vehicles were reluctant to be seen in them when unemployment was over 20%. In 1935, the company introduced its first car under $1000, the 120. Sales more than tripled that year and doubled again in 1936. To produce the 120, Packard built a separate factory. By 1936, Packard's labor force was divided nearly evenly between the high-priced "Senior" lines (Twelve, Super Eight, and Eight) and the medium-priced "Junior" models, although more than 10 times more Juniors were produced than Seniors. This was because the 120 models were built using thoroughly modern mass production techniques, while the senior Packards used a great deal more hand labor and traditional craftsmanship. Although Packard almost certainly could not have survived the Depression without the highly successful Junior models, they did have the effect of diminishing the Senior models' exclusive image among those few who could still afford a luxury car. The 120 models were more modern in basic design than the Senior models. For example, the 1935 Packard 120 featured independent front suspension and hydraulic brakes, features that did not appear on the Senior Packards until 1937.


title: Packard

text: During this time, Packards were built in Windsor, Ontario by the Packard Motor Company of Canada to benefit from Imperial Preference as well as to build right-hand-drive cars for export. Production started in 1931, with the best year being 1937, with just over 2,500 cars built. Parts manufactured in Canada included tires, upholstery, radiator cores, headlamps, springs, wheels, while the engines were locally assembled. Production ended in 1939, although the company maintained an office in Windsor for many years.


title: Packard

text: Packard was still the premier luxury automobile, even though the majority of cars being built were the Packard One-Twenty and Super Eight model ranges. Hoping to catch still more of the market, Packard issued the Packard 115C in 1937, powered by a Packard six-cylinder engine. The decision to introduce the "Packard Six", priced at around $1200 ($ in dollars ), was in time for the 1938 recession. This model also tagged Packards as something less exclusive than they had been in the public's mind and in the long run hurt Packard's reputation of building some of America's finest luxury cars. The Six, redesignated 110 in 1940–41, continued for three years after the war.


title: Packard

text: In 1939, Packard introduced Econo-Drive, a kind of overdrive, claimed able to reduce engine speed 27.8%; it could be engaged at any speed over . The same year, the company introduced a fifth, transverse shock absorber and made column shift (known as Handishift) available on the 120 and Six.


title: Packard

text: A new body shape was introduced for the 1941 the Packard Clipper. It was available only as a four-door model on the wheelbase of the 160, but powered by version of straight-8 engine used the 120.


title: Packard

text: In 1942, the Packard Motor Car Company converted to 100% war production. During World War II, Packard again built airplane engines, licensing the Merlin engine from Rolls-Royce as the V-1650, which powered the P-51 Mustang fighter, ironically known as the "Cadillac of the Skies" by GIs in WWII. Packard also built 1350-, 1400-, and 1500-hp V-12 marine engines for American PT boats (each boat used three) and some of Britain's patrol boats. Packard ranked 18th among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts.


title: Packard

text: By the end of the war in Europe, Packard Motor Car Company had produced over 55,000 combat engines. Sales in 1944 were $455,118,600. By May 6, 1945, Packard had a backlog on war orders of $568,000,000.


title: Packard

text: By the end of World War II, Packard was in excellent financial condition with assets of around $33 million, but several management mistakes became more apparent with time. Like other US automobile companies, Packard resumed civilian car production in late 1945, labeling them as 1946 models by modestly updating their 1942 models. As only tooling for the Clipper was at hand, the Senior-series cars were not rescheduled. One version of the story is that the Senior dies were left outdoors to rust and were not usable. Another tale is that Roosevelt gave Stalin the dies for the Senior series, but the ZiS-110 state limousines were a separate design.


title: Packard

text: The Clipper became outdated as the new envelope bodies started appearing, led by Studebaker and Kaiser-Frazer. Although Packard was in good financial condition as the war ended, they had not sold enough cars to pay the cost of tooling for the 1941 design. While most automakers were able to introduce new vehicles for 1948–49, Packard could not until 1951. Hence they updated by adding sheet metal to the existing body (which added of curb weight). Six-cylinder cars were dropped for the home market, and a convertible was added. These new designs hid their relationship with the Clipper. Even that name was dropped for a while.


title: Packard

text: The design chosen was a "bathtub" type. While this was considered futuristic during the war and the concept was taken further with the 1949 Nash, and survived for decades in the Saab 92-96 in Europe, the 1948–1950 Packard styling was polarizing. To some, it was sleek and blended classic with modern. Others nicknamed it the "pregnant elephant". Test driver for "Modern Mechanix", Tom McCahill, referred to the newly-designed Packard as "a goat" and "a dowager in a Queen Mary hat" in the January 1948 issue. Packard sold 2,000 vehicles for 1948 and 116,000 of the 1949 models. In the early post-WWII years, the demand for new cars was extremely high, and nearly any vehicle would sell. Attempting to maintain strong sales beyond this point would prove more problematic.


title: Packard

text: Cadillac's new 1948 cars had sleek, aircraft-inspired styling that immediately made Packard's "bathtub" styling seem old-fashioned. Cadillac also debuted a brand-new OHV V8 engine in 1949 whereas Packard's lack of a modern engine became an increasing liability.


title: Packard

text: Packard outsold Cadillac until circa 1950; most sales were the midrange volume models. During this time, Cadillac was among the earliest US makers to offer an automatic transmission (the Hydramatic in 1941). Packard caught up with the Ultramatic, offered on top models in 1949 and all models from 1950 onward, but its perceived market reputation now had it as a competitor to Buick.


title: Packard

text: Designed and built by Packard, the Ultramatic featured a lockup torque converter with two speeds. Early Ultramatics normally operated only in "high", with "low" having to be selected manually. Beginning in late 1954, it could be set to operate only in "high" or to start in "low" and automatically shift into "high". "High" was intended for normal driving and "Low" mainly for navigating hills.


title: Packard

text: The Ultramatic made Packard the only American automotive manufacturer other than GM to develop an automatic transmission completely in-house. Ford had chosen to outsource their design to Borg-Warner (Ford had attempted to purchase Ultramatics from Packard to install in Lincolns, but bought Hydramatics until Lincoln developed its own automatic transmission a few years later). Ultramatic did not compare to GM's Hydramatic for smoothness of shifting, acceleration, or reliability. The resources spent on Ultramatic deprived Packard of the opportunity to develop a modern V8 engine. Also, when a new body style was added in addition to standard sedans, coupes, and convertibles, Packard introduced a station wagon instead of a two-door hardtop in response to Cadillac's Coupe DeVille. The Station Sedan, a wagon-like body that was mostly steel, with a good deal of decorative wood in the back. A total of 3,864 were sold over its three years of production. The Packards of the late 1940s and early 1950s were built in the old tradition with craftsmanship and the best materials, but the combination of the lower-priced Packards leading sales and impacting the prestige of their higher-end models and some questionable marketing decisions, Packard's crown as "king" of the luxury car market was at risk. In 1950, sales dropped to 42,000 cars for the model year. When Packard's president George T. Christopher set the course for an evolutionary styling approach with a facelift for 1951, others wanted a radical new design. Christopher resigned and Packard treasurer Hugh Ferry became president and demanded a new direction. Ferry, who had spent his career at Packard in the accounting department, did not want the job and quickly made it clear that he was serving on a temporary basis until a permanent company president could be found.


title: Packard

text: The 1951 Packards were redesigned. Designer John Reinhart introduced a high-waisted, more squared-off profile fitting the contemporary styling trends — very different from the traditional flowing design of the postwar era. New styling features included a one-piece windshield, a wrap-around rear window, small tailfins on the long-wheelbase models, a full-width grille (replacing the traditional Packard upright design), and blunt "guideline fenders" with the hood and front fenders at the same height. The wheelbase was used on the 200-series standard and Deluxe two- and four-doors, 250-series Mayfair two-door hardtops (Packard's first), and convertibles. The higher-end 300 and Patrician 400 models were built on a wheelbase. The 200-series models were low-end models and now included a business coupe. The new appearance had similarities to Oldsmobiles, which were more moderately priced and sold in greater numbers.


title: Packard

text: The 250, 300, and 400/Patricians were Packard's flagship models and comprised the majority of the production for that year. The Patrician was now the premium Packard, replacing the Custom Eight line. Original plans were to equip it with a engine, but the company decided that sales would not be sufficient to justify producing the larger, more expensive engine, and so the de-bored (previously the middle engine) was used. While the smaller engine offered nearly equal performance in the new Packards to that of the 356, the move was seen by some as further denigrating Packard's image as a luxury car.


title: Packard

text: Since 1951 was a quiet year with little new from other manufacturers, Packard's redesigned lineup sold nearly 101,000 cars. The 1951 Packards were a quirky mixture of the modern (automatic transmissions) and antique (using flathead inline eights when OHV V8 engines were becoming the norm). No domestic car lines had OHV V8s in 1948, but by 1955, every car line offered a version. The Packard inline eight, despite being an older design that lacked the power of Cadillac's engines, produced no vibration. When combined with an Ultramatic transmission, the drivetrain made for a quiet and smooth experience on the road. Packard struggled to keep pace with the horsepower race, which was increasingly moving to high compression, short stroke engines capable of sustained driving at speeds above .


title: Packard

text: Packard's image was increasingly seen as dowdy and old-fashioned, unappealing to younger customers. Surveys found that nearly 75% of Packard customers had owned previous Packards and few new buyers were attracted to the make. Compounding this problem was the company's geriatric leadership. The Packard board of directors by the early 1950s had an average age of 67 and younger executives with a fresher approach to running the company were badly needed. In 1948, Alvin Macauley, born during the Grant Administration, had stepped down as chairman. Hugh Ferry decided to hire an outsider as president. He recruited James Nance from appliance manufacturer Hotpoint. At 52, Nance was more than a decade younger than the youngest Packard executive.


title: Packard

text: One reason for the aged leadership of Packard was the company's lack of a pension plan for executives (rank-and-file workers had a pension plan per their UAW contract). As a result, Packard executives were reluctant to retire with no source of income other than a Social Security payment, thus blocking younger men from coming to power in the company. One of James Nance's first actions as president was creating a pension plan to induce Packard executives to retire. Nance worked to snag Korean War military contracts and turn around Packard's badly diluted image. He declared that Packard would cease producing midpriced cars and build only luxury models to compete with Cadillac. As part of this strategy, Nance unveiled a low-production (only 750 made) glamor model for 1953, the Caribbean convertible. Competing directly with the other specialty convertibles marketed that year, (Buick Skylark, Oldsmobile 98 Fiesta, Cadillac Eldorado, and Chrysler New Yorker Deluxe), it was equally well-received and outsold its competition. Nevertheless, overall sales declined in 1953. While the limited edition luxury models such as the Caribbean convertible and the Patrician 400 Sedan, and the Derham custom formal sedan brought back some prestige from past Packards, the "high pocket" styling introduced two model years prior was no longer drawing buyers for Packer's volume models. Furthermore, Packard's build quality also began slipping during this period as employee morale decreased.


title: Packard

text: While American independent manufacturers like Packard did well during the early postwar period, supply had caught up with demand and by the early 1950s they were increasingly challenged as the domestic "Big Three"—General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler—battled intensely for sales in the economy, medium-priced, and luxury markets. Those independents that remained alive in the early '50s, merged. In 1953, Kaiser merged with Willys to become Kaiser-Willys. Nash and Hudson became American Motors Corporation (AMC). The strategy for these mergers included cutting costs and strengthening their sales organizations to meet the intense competition from the Big Three.


title: Packard

text: In 1953–54, Ford and GM waged a brutal sales war, cutting prices and forcing cars on dealers. While this had little effect on either company, it damaged independent automakers. Nash president George W. Mason thus proposed that the four major independents (Nash, Hudson, Packard, and Studebaker) merge into one firm American Motors Corporation (AMC). Mason held informal discussions with Nance to outline his strategic vision, and an agreement was reached for AMC to buy Packard's Ultramatic transmissions and V8 engines. They were used in 1955 Hudsons and Nashes.


title: Packard

text: It did not help that Chrysler and Ford waged a campaign of "stealing" Packard dealerships during the early 1950s. Consequently, Packard's dealer network became smaller and more scattered which made it even more difficult to sell Packard vehicles.


title: Packard

text: Although Korean War defense contracts brought in badly-needed revenue, the war ended in 1953 and the new Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson began cutting defense contracts from all automotive manufacturers other than GM, where he had been president.


title: Packard

text: Packard's last major development was the Torsion-Level suspension by Bill Allison. The front and rear suspension on each side of the car side are interconnected by a long torsion bar. This design reduced pitching while allowing for low spring rates, which imbued Packards with a ride that was soft yet controlled. Additionally, this suspension featured an electro-mechanical compensator or "levilizer" that kept the car level regardless of passenger or trunk loading.


title: Packard

text: As of October 1, 1954, Packard Motor Car Company bought the failing Studebaker Corporation to form America's fourth-largest automobile company, but without full knowledge of their circumstances or consideration of the financial implications. Studebaker-Packard's Nance refused to consider merging with AMC unless he could take the top command position (Mason and Nance were former competitors as heads of the Kelvinator and Hotpoint appliance companies, respectively), but Mason's grand vision of a Big Four American auto industry ended on October 8, 1954, with his sudden death from acute pancreatitis and pneumonia.


title: Packard

text: A week after the death of Mason, the new president of AMC, George W. Romney, announced "there are no mergers under way either directly or indirectly". Romney continued with Mason's commitment to buy components from SPC. Although Mason and Nance had previously agreed that SPC would purchase parts from AMC, it did not do so. Packard's engines and transmissions were comparatively expensive, so AMC began development of its own V8 engine, and replaced the outsourced unit by mid-1956. Although Nash and Hudson merged, the four-way merger Mason had hoped for, which would have joined Nash, Hudson, Studebaker and Packard, did not materialize. The S-P marriage (really a Packard buyout) proved to be a crippling mistake. Although Packard was in fair financial condition, Studebaker was not, struggling with high overhead and production costs and needing the impossible figure of 250,000 cars annually to break even. Due diligence was placed behind "merger fever", and the deal was rushed. It became clear after the merger that Studebaker's deteriorating financial situation put Packard's survival at risk.


title: Packard

text: Nance had hoped for a total redesign in 1954, but the necessary time and money were lacking. Packard that year (total production 89,796) comprised the bread-and-butter Clipper line (the 250 series was dropped), Mayfair hardtop coupes and convertibles, and a new entry-level long-wheelbase sedan named Cavalier. Among the Clippers was a novelty pillared coupe, the Sportster, styled to resemble a hardtop.


title: Packard

text: With time and money lacking, 1954 styling was unchanged except for modified headlights and taillights, essentially trim items. A new hardtop named Pacific was added to the flagship Patrician series and all higher-end Packards sported a bored-out 359-cid engine. Air conditioning became available for the first time since 1942. Packard had introduced air conditioning in the 1930s. Clippers (which comprised over 80% of production) got a hardtop model, Super Panama, but sales fell to 31,000 cars.


title: Packard

text: The revolutionary new model Nance hoped for was delayed until 1955, partially because of Packard's merger with Studebaker. Packard stylist Dick Teague was called upon by Nance to design the 1955 line, and to Teague's credit, the 1955 Packard was indeed a sensation when it appeared. Not only was the body completely updated and modernized, but the suspension was new, with torsion bars front and rear, along with an electric control that kept the car level regardless of load or road conditions. Crowning this stunning new design was Packard's brand new ultra-modern overhead-valve V8, displacing , replacing the old, heavy, cast-iron side-valve straight-eight that had been used for decades. In addition, Packard offered a variety of power, comfort, and convenience features, such as power steering and brakes as well as electric window lifts. But air conditioning was an anomaly. Although available on all makes by the mid-1950s, it was installed on only a handful of cars in 1955 and 1956 despite Packard's status as a luxury car. Model year sales only climbed back to 55,000 units in 1955, including Clipper, in what was a very strong year across the industry.


title: Packard

text: As the 1955 models went into production, an old problem flared up. Back in 1941, Packard had outsourced its bodies to Briggs Manufacturing Company. Briggs founder Walter Briggs had died in early 1952 and his family decided to sell the company to pay estate taxes. Chrysler promptly purchased Briggs and notified Packard that they would cease supplying bodies after Packard's contract with Briggs expired at the end of 1953. Packard was forced to move body production to an undersized plant on Connor Avenue in Detroit. The facility proved too small and caused endless tie-ups and quality problems. Bad quality control hurt the company's image and caused sales to plummet for 1956, though the problems had largely been resolved by that point. Additionally, a "brain drain" of talent away from Packard was underway, most notably John Z. DeLorean.


title: Packard

text: For 1956, the Clipper became a separate make, with Clipper Custom and Deluxe models available. Now the Packard-Clipper business model was a mirror to Lincoln-Mercury. "Senior" Packards were built in four body styles, each with a unique model name. Patrician was used for the four-door top-of-the-line sedans, Four Hundred for the hardtop coupes, and the Caribbean for the convertible and vinyl-roof two-door hardtop. In the spring of 1956, the Executive was introduced. In a four-door sedan and a two-door hardtop, the Executive was aimed at the buyer who wanted a luxury car but could not justify Packard's pricing. It was an intermediate model using the Packard name and the Senior models' front end, but using the Clipper platform and rear fenders. This was to some confusion and went against what James Nance had been attempting for several years to accomplish, the separation of the Clipper line from Packard. As late as the cars' introduction to the market was, there was reasoning for in 1957 this car was to be continued. It then became a baseline Packard on the all-new 1957 Senior shell. Clippers would share bodies with Studebaker from 1957.


title: Packard

text: Despite the new 1955/56 design, Cadillac continued to lead the luxury market, followed by Lincoln, Packard, and Imperial. Reliability problems with the automatic transmission and all electrical accessories further eroded the public's opinion of Packard. Sales were good for 1955 compared to 1954. The year was also an industry banner year. Packard's sales slid in 1956 due to the fit and finish of the 1955 models, and mechanical issues relating to the new engineering features. These defects cost Packard millions in recalls and tarnished a newly-won image in its infancy.


title: Packard

text: For 1956, Teague kept the basic 1955 design and added more styling touches to the body such as then−fashionable three-toning. Headlamps hooded in a more radical style in the front fenders and a slight shuffling of chrome distinguished the 1956 models. "Electronic Push-button Ultramatic", which located transmission push buttons on a stalk on the steering column, proved troublesome, adding to the car's negative reputation, possibly soon to become an orphan. Model series remained the same, but the V8 was now enlarged to for the Senior series, the largest in the industry. In the top-of-the-line Caribbean, that engine produced . Clippers continued to use the 352 engine. There were plans for an all−new 1957 line of Senior Packards based on the show car Predictor. Clippers and Studebakers would also share many inner and outer body panels. (A private presentation of this 1957 new-car program was made to Wall Street's investment bankers at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York in January 1956.) These models were in many ways far advanced from what would be produced by any other automaker at the time, save Chrysler, which soon felt public wrath for its poor quality issues after rushing its all−new 1957 lines into production. Nance was dismissed and moved to Ford as the head of the new Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln division. Although Nance tried everything, the company failed to secure funding for retooling, forcing Packard to share Studebaker platforms and body designs. With no funding to retool for the advanced new models envisioned, Studebaker-Packard's fate was sealed. The large Packard was effectively dead in an executive decision to kill "the car we could not afford to lose". The last fully Packard-designed vehicle, a Patrician four-door sedan, rolled off the Conner Avenue assembly line on June 25, 1956.