Hoswick Whale Case

Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia that anyone can edit

On 14 September 1888 men from Sandwick and the surrounding districts drove ashore 340 pilot whales on the beach of Hoswick.

During the previous 150 years or so Shetland landlords had been in the habit of claiming a half or latterly a third of the value of all whales driven on their property. John Bruce junior of Sumburgh therefore claimed a third of the Hoswick whales.

On this occasion, however, the captors were in a better situation than their predecessors. The Crofters Act of 1886 meant that Bruce couldn't evict them from his property. So they decided to fight the landlord's claim.

Led by the charismatic shopkeeper Sinclair T. Duncan, and abetted by Rev. George Clark, the saintly Free Church minister of Cunningsburgh, they defended Bruce's claim in the sheriff court. Shetlanders at home and abroad contributed money to the campaign.

In July 1889 Sheriff Mackenzie found in their favour, on the grounds that the landlords' alleged right wasn't ‘sufficiently inveterate, uniform, or uninterrupted’ to be genuine.

Bruce appealed to the Court of Session in Edinburgh. In June 1890 the case was heard, and three of the four judges decided in the captors' favour. They said that there was a custom whereby landlords had claimed part of the value of whales, but that it wasn’t ‘just or reasonable’, and that it didn’t have the force of law. The captors got their whale money, or what was left of it, and there were no more such claims by Shetland landlords.