1842
Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia
- Year of 'the Herring Crash'
- MA, MD and writer Robert Cowie was born.
- A visiting Inspector of Prisons for Scotland wrote about the impact of the penny post:The Zetlanders are delighted with cheap postage. The postmaster told me that the increase in the number of letters is astonishing. Another gentleman who is well acquainted with the people told me, that although the desire of parents to keep their offspring at home is unusually strong in Zetland, yet that cheap postage has had the effect of reconciling families to the temporary absence of their members, and has thus opened to the islanders the labour-market of the mainland.
February
- 23rd
Richard Bempde Johnstone Honyman, MP for Orkney and Shetland, died.
March
- 15th
Catharine Hunter, widow of Rev. John Inches, died at the Nesting Manse at age 102. Rev. Inches had passed away in 1826 and his successor, the bachelor Rev. McGowan, pitying her advanced years and infirm state and believing she would not survive long, had invited her to stay on at the Manse in 1827.
June
- 30th
Writer Jessie M. E. Saxby was born.
July
- A fishing vessel, registered in Out Skerries is recorded as having wrecked at Out Skerries with the loss of twelve souls. Despite the factual differences between the two records, there is a strong possibility that this is a duplicate record of the Woodlark wreck of August 12th (below).
August
- 12th
The Woodlark, a sail lugger of Lerwick laden with a cargo of peats and eleven passengers, from Whalsay and for Out Skerries wrecked or foundered in the South Mouth, Out Skerries. All aboard perished.
October
- 15th
John Balfour, MP of Orkney and Shetland, died nearly 92 years old.
