Truck in Shetland: : being the Truck Commissioners' Report; evidence led before them; extracts of the opinions of the press thereon: and letter to the labouring classes of Shetland. /
Walker, John,1835-1916.
Aberdeen: : Printed by Leslie and Russell, Crown Court, Union Street.,
M D C C C L X X I. [1871]
John Walker was a farmer in Bressay in Shetland in the 1860s who was factor of the estates of Major Cameron of Garth. He became very unpopular due to his forced eviction of several crofters in the area as part of his efforts to clear land for sheep farming. In 1871/1872 he was bought out of his tenancy and returned to his home town of Aberdeen. This pamphlet deals with the iniquities of the truck system in Shetland whereby labourers were paid in commodities or some currency substitute instead of cash.
Additional material pasted in to rear of volume: a letter to Walker by an Edinburgh-based correspondent dated 6.9.[19]11, Walker's manuscript summary of a further letter by the same correspondent, a [4]-page pamphlet entitled "Truck in Shetland" which reproduces the text of a letter of 1820 by a former owner of the Garth estate, William Mouat.
Truck system
Scotland Aberdeen.