Poaching and Game Preservation on the Breadalbane Estates c.1603- 1850

Abstract

Illegal hunting was a feature of tenant behaviour on the estates of the Campbells of Glenorchy throughout the period from the Union of the Crowns until the Victorian period. Game laws established in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries established seasons and restricted hunting with firearms. These laws were expanded to create a land qualification for hunting which remained in force alongside developing body of legislation targeting poaching. The Glenorchy and Breadalbane estates applied these laws or alternative bylaws during the early seventeenth century the franchise court. Through the court the Laird controlled the use of natural resources by the tenentry and dealt with a significant volume of poaching cases, which were usually assoilzied or received small fines. Poaching cases are absent from later court records though it can be assumed from other evidence that poaching was likely to have continued, though there may have been a decline in deer population after the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the so-called ‘Little Ice Age’. After 1715 the Disarming acts may have resulted in a reduction in poaching for a time though there is no evidence of adoption of alternative methods. The predominant poaching method remained firearms throughout the period, with relative remoteness reducing fear of detection. Red and Roe Deer were targeted throughout, as were wildfowl, but hares are mentioned only in material from the late eighteenth century. Despite the decline of heritable jurisdictions after 1748, successive lairds continued to hold core influence over the treatment of poaching and are likely to have exercised non-judicial sanctions against all but the most persistent offenders amongst their tenants. Throughout the period there is evidence of significant tolerance of low-level poaching, either because of the difficulty of enforcement or through a desire to maintain an appropriate balance of social control.