ABSTRACT
In 1842 an anonymous writer in the Quarterly Review scrutinized the progress of the improvement policies of the House of Sutherland which had been in operation during the previous thirty-five years in the Northern Highlands of Scotland. He observed that ‘it was in consequence of the Scotch estates being connected with a command of English capital that these northern regions have been, within living memory, advanced in productiveness beyond, we may safely say, any other example that could be pointed out in the history of British territorial expansion.’ 1 He was right. The English wealth of the Leveson-Gowers was the sine qua non of the Sutherland clearances and improvements.
