HOME

"I started baking bread for D�mhnall an ‘Ic Tharmoid in Lionel around 1912 when I was about fourteen years of age. We would start work at 5 o'clock in the morning and continue until six o'clock in the evening. We made the dough before we went home at night so that it would be ready for the morning. The dough was made in a large tub by combining some water with about half a bag of flour. We would then cover this with cloth sacks to keep the dough reasonably warm until morning.

"When we arrived at work the following morning we would break the dough up. We would then put some yeast in a little warm water to dissolve it and pour the liquid into a large pail of water. The water and yeast mixture would then be added to the dough, together with additional flour. This was then combined into a workable dough.  Next, the three of us would roll up our trouser legs, remove our socks - if we had socks to wear - and wash our feet thoroughly in separate basins of water. When our feet were washed we would stand in the baking tubs and knead the dough with our feet - one person at either end and one in the middle.  We would continue kneading the dough for about fifteen minutes - Iain Ruadh T�illeir was our ‘gaffer’ and when he thought the dough was ready he would tell us when to stop. We would then climb out of the tub, wash our feet, and have a cup of tea and a biscuit. We would then take out the dough and cut it into 2lb 2oz pieces. You would then roll these out, one in each hand until the dough was used up. There were about eight dozen to the batch.  We would place the loaves on a tray in pairs, cover them and leave them to rise for about half an hour. The bread would then be placed in the oven. The baking time was two and a quarter hours with the bread being about two ounces lighter when it eventually came out of the oven.

"Then the hard work began - the deliveries. You had to visit every house to deliver bread and take orders for the next day - sometimes having to return to the bakery three or four times when you ran short of bread. A loaf cost about three pence each in those days.  The other bakers in the shop at the time were Iain Ruadh T�illeir, and Uilleam Damh, from Stornoway, who was a fully certificated baker. Dolaidh Aonghais an 'Ic Le�id and Mac Ruairidh Alasdair Oig also worked there. There were five people working there altogether. D�mhnall an 'Ic Tharmoid was a very good boss, he never said a wrong word to you. I remember once when a visitor from the mainland came into the shop. He bought a loaf of bread there and took it with him. Later, in Stornoway, he compared the quality of bread from the various island bakeries - D�mhnall an 'Ic Tharmoid won first prize and received a gold watch for his bread.

"We always got plenty of biscuits and butter from our boss and we were allowed to take some food with us when we went home. Our pay was six shillings which I gave to my mother every Saturday. It was a lot of money then. That was all the income our family had.  When I first started working I didn't have any shoes to wear. I got my first pair of shoes from my boss and he kept two shillings out of my wages until the shoes were paid for. I only took home four shillings for the first while. When we finished work at the end of the day we had to go for water to the ‘pump’ in Port or to the Schoolhouse. Sometimes we took water from a barrel at ‘An Fiosaich's house. We would then scrub the floor and equipment so it would be clean and ready to use in the morning.

"The ovens were made of brick with the fire at the bottom. They would take eight dozen loaves at a time. The oven heat was tested by shaking some flour into the oven; if the flour went brown the oven was hot enough. When there was a wedding on we went to the house with a special delivery of two dozen loaves. They didn't invite us to the wedding but we got some bread and jam.

"I left the job when I was called up for the First World War. And that was how they made D�mhnall an 'Ic Tharmoid's loaves."

Leverhulme realised that improvements in the Island's infrastructure were crucial to his development plans for Lewis. He knew that the seas around the Hebrides were abundant in marketable fish. Consequently, he embarked on ambitious plans to develop the island's economy via the processing and marketing of fish. Distance from the market place and the perishable nature of fish had long been a problem for local merchants. Lord Leverhulme hoped to resolve this through improved transport systems, new harbour facilities and a general scheme of industrialisation. He intended to acquire a number of refrigerated ships which would carry quality fresh fish from Lewis to mainland markets. What fish he could not sell immediately would be processed and canned on the island. He envisaged producing up to 120,000 tins of fish per week (herring, when in season, and whitefish when they became available) which he estimated would realise about �25,000 net profit, per annum. He was convinced that this imperishable and relatively unrivalled product would provide a sustainable industry within the Western Isles. His plans, at least initially, also received strong support from the Scottish Office and the Fishery Board.

Although Stornoway was to be his main operational base, Leverhulme intended to build satellite canning factories in some of the island's more rural communities. These would be run as autonomous companies managed from within these communities: "I want to interest the people in the locality where the industry will be carried on. The Stornoway people will have their Company at Stornoway, but there will be another Company with a canning factory at Port of Ness, and a third at Carloway, and so on, a final number of possibly a score of Companies with canning factories all over the Island."

In 1919, London-based MacFisheries was established by Leverhulme to market Lewis fish. However, as the company experienced rapid growth, circumstances led to the island becoming less important to MacFisheries’ plans, as Lewis was no longer able to meet the daily volumes of fish required by the rapidly expanding company. MacFisheries soon operated in all the main British markets, and within 5 years of its creation, it was a major holding company with a number of shops under its control. Although this venture was initially designed to market Lewis fish, woefully inadequate supply levels - rather than demand - led to another missed opportunity for the people of Lewis.

Leverhulme's commercial ambitions for the island were constrained by a number of inhibiting factors which were largely outwith his control: the important East European markets were sluggish; there was an unexpected economic slump; Britain was consuming less herring; marketing the canned produce was more difficult than expected; the disadvantages of being island based was becoming more apparent as costs rose; and the recent war had resulted in both Russia and Germany buying less expensive (though inferior) herring from the Dutch and Scandinavians who had remained neutral during the war.

The proposed Ness-Tolsta road was aimed at providing the necessary road links for his ambitious plans. The construction work was to have commenced simultaneously at Skigersta and in Tolsta - thereby providing some work for both communities. However, as the route would only have reduced the overall distance from Ness to Stornoway by a few miles, the cost effectiveness of the project was, arguably, questionable. It may well be the case that the project was partly philanthropic, rather than a purely commercial consideration. In any case, the continuing drain on his resources - allied with increasing disillusionment over resistance to his ambitions - halted progress on the road at the early stages of construction. On 12 May 1920 the men working on the road were paid-off.

His plans for the development of the island’s infrastructure were not restricted to road transport. He also gave very serious consideration to constructing a railway network within the island: a line was planned for Harris; another was designated to link Stornoway (via Barvas) with the west coastal harbours of Carloway and Callanish; and a third was intended to run through Barvas, to Ness - continuing along the east coast to Stornoway, via Tolsta.

In 1922, Lord Leverhulme's dreams of creating a dynamic and prosperous industrial base within the Hebrides were finally ended. Although he had invested heavily in the island's economy, insurmountable human and natural obstacles had prevented his ambitions from being realised. The development of his road and rail programmes were limited and the canning and ice-making factories, intended to support the local fishing industry, never managed to go into production.

The circumstances of Leverhulme's demise were complex and remain controversial. The individuals and agencies involved in the events of the time sought desperately to disassociate themselves from being blamed, or accused of hampering progress. Leverhulme remained convinced that his plans were both practical and feasible. However, they were constantly thwarted by political considerations and resistance from minority interest groups and individuals within the island. A key element in Leverhulme's plans to develop Stornoway was the use of two large farms within the parish. He had intended to develop them as dairy farms to supply the expanding town with fresh milk. However, the Scottish Office and the Board of Agriculture were, at the time, under considerable political pressure. Land agitation - in the form of raids on farms and private land by dissatisfied crofter folk - had occurred in a number of locations within the Highlands and Islands, including Lewis. Some servicemen, returning from war, had expected to be allocated croft land for themselves and their families. A large parcel of the proposed new crofting apportionments for the returning servicemen happened to be the farm lands which Leverhulme had intended to use. Following talks with the Board of Agriculture and the Scottish Office regarding the sites, Leverhulme resigned himself to the fact that the Government's support lay with the crofters rather than with his dairy project.

Although there was opposition from some quarters within Lewis, the majority of the island's people were generally in favour of Leverhulme's industrialisation scheme. For many, it represented the only discernible escape from the inherent poverty that prevailed throughout much of Lewis at that time. Indeed, when Leverhulme subsequently announced that he was going to halt all investment and cease operations, a number of meetings were hurriedly convened throughout Lewis, urging him to reconsider. However, by that time, the expense and difficulties incurred by Lord Leverhulme during his Hebridean ventures had taken their toll. The dream was finally over and the harsh realities of island life would persist for generations to come.

Lord Leverhulme founded his Sunlight Soap empire in a small, undeveloped part of Merseyside called Port Sunlight. It would be impossible in these brief notes on Leverhulme to do any real justice to his attempts to develop the Hebrides. However, one must inevitably wonder what might have been if he had managed to re-create a Port Sunlight in the outer Hebrides. Over the years, Leverhulme’s company, Sunlight Soap, has developed into the giant multi-national conglomerate Unilever which now owns a host of well known consumer products such as Domestos and Jif. It is also possible to imagine that, if Leverhulme’s fisheries project had been succesful, some of that processing work might have been done on Lewis today by another Unilever company, Bird’s Eye.