Diary 1851

John Munro Mackenzie, Chamberlain of the Lews. 
Acair 1994. 
ISBN 0 86152 908 1/86152 923 5.

John Munro Mackenzie (grandson of Hugh Munro, minister at Uig from 1778) was Chamberlain of the Lews, under Sir James Matheson, from 1848 to 1854 and was therefore a key player in several significant events in Lewis, including the relotting of crofts, the organisation of assisted passages to Canada for some 1771 emigrants (many of them unwilling) and the prosecution of numerous schemes of improvement.  His published diary of 1851 gives a very detailed account of his busy daily round of accounts, meetings, letters and inspections, and charts the progress of the emigration plan from discussions with the Parochial Board on 7 January, through the reckoning of the poverty of the inhabitants to be removed from each township, and the procurement of the ships and provisions, to the sailing of the Marquis of Stafford on 20 May, and of the Barlow a month later.