1755

Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia

• Population of Shetland estimated to be 15,000 souls

October

• 20th
  Scalloway grammar school master William Brown described an ash fall that occured on this date "between the hours of three and four in the afternoon the sky being very hazy, as it uses to be before a storm of thunder and lightening, there fell a black dust over all the country, tho' in greater quantities in some places than in others. It was very much like lamp-black, but smelled strongly of sulphur. People in the fields had their faces, hands, and linen blackened by it. It was followed by rain. -- Some people assign the cause of it to some extraordinary eruption of Hecla."

1754<->1756