Famines and food scarcities in the Highlands and Islands, apart from those of the 1690s and 1847, have been under-examined in Scottish historiography. This article considers an aspect of the serious famine of 1836–7: the public response to the famine as reflected by the committees set up to solicit public subscriptions, principally in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London and by the contemporary newspaper reportage. Three themes in particular are examined: the motive and role of the proprietors in seeking subscriptions; the extent to which the evangelical ethos of the day – that the most potent weapon of God's wrathful providence was famine – influenced the public response; and the highlander as a suitable recipient of public aid. The public response was generous, driven by a strong belief in Christian charity, benevolence, divine direction and philanthropic duty. The highlanders were seen as an object of charity for the debt owed to them by the nation for war time services rendered. The proprietors never shook off the criticism that their appeals to the public were self-serving.

This article examines the dispute between private proprietors and the Crown over the ownership of the Scottish foreshore in the second half of the nineteenth century and, in particular, the work of the Association of Seaboard Proprietors of Scotland. The existence and facts of the dispute and the work of the Association have not had any attention in Scottish historiography, an omission which, this article suggests, has led to the development of a consensus in relation to the kelp industry in the highlands and islands-namely that the economic benefits of the industry accrued to the proprietors through their unchallenged exclusive ownership and control of the foreshore-being based on a shallow foundation. There is another matter which the dispute over the ownership of the foreshore discussed in this article highlights: it has not been appreciated that the work of the crofters and cottars; in the kelp industry enabled many of the proprietors to extend the legal boundaries to their estates and this article draws attention to the role which crofters and cottars had in the establishment of title to the foreshore: an aspect of the kelp industry which has not had sufficient attention. The examination of the dispute also contributes to a deeper understanding of how proprietors viewed, and acted in relation to, their property rights in the nineteenth century and of the reactions of Government when faced by institutional pressure from proprietors, and of the role of law agents who acted on behalf of the proprietors.

This paper draws on research in four communities in the Highlands and Islands, Scotland, to explore how the notion of community and community identity are re-worked in the political spaces created as communities claim collective rights to land. In the cases of the Assynt Crofters' Trust, the Bhaltos Community Trust, and Laid, this has concerned land under crofting tenure; in the case of the claim of the North Sutherland Community Forestry Trust, the land on which the Naver Forests stand is the responsibility of the Scottish Ministers and is managed by Forest Enterprise. The four case studies differ with respect to membership and institutional practices and thus provide fertile ground on which to examine, comparatively, collective struggles for the land and the search for sustainable futures.