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Opium, Soap and Big Plans for Lewis. |
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It appears that there has been a castle nestling on the hill above Stornoway since time immemorial, there was certainly a castle present there when James VI sent the "Fife Adventurers" to invade Lewis, and although it may have survived this encounter with the outside world, it succumbed to the guns of Oliver Cromwell in 1653.
In 1844 came a new laird of the island - the first of two men who were to radically alter the island. James Matheson, a Highlander by birth, had achieved great fortune in the Orient. With fellow-Scot, William Jardine, Matheson's company (still the largest Asian-based conglomerate today) became the foremost foreign merchants in China.
However, Matheson's fortune was not built on innocent trading but on illicit opium smuggling. In fact, Matheson's smuggling was one of the main causes of the Opium War between Britain and China. For health reasons, Matheson retired back to Britain in 1842 and two years later purchased the Isle of Lewis from the Mackenzie family for £190,000.
Lewis at that time could well be described as primitive by modern standards; there was just one wheeled vehicle on the whole island and no proper roads as such. Matheson took it upon himself to order the construction of 200 miles of proper roads. He viewed himself as a progressive laird, who would bring progress to a backward island, and in many respects he did bring improvements to the island.
Aside from these transport links, he opened schools, formed gas and water companies, built an enhanced port at Stornoway, and undertook to pay for a daily mail steamer to the island. In an even more benevolent gesture, he also purchased potatoes and meal to the value of £33,000, to ward off the effects of the famine that gripped the island in 1845-6.
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