108360: The Reef Raiders

The Reef Raiders hit the headlines of the National Press in December 1913. The Proprietor of Lewis, Major Matheson, opposed the conversion of farm lands in Uig into individual holdings. The men who had applied the previous year for holdings on  Reef Farm took the law into their own hands and gathered the sheep and cattle, driving them through the march dyke and up Valtos Glen. The raiding continued into 1914. The raiders were charged with breach of the peace and sentenced to six weeks imprisonment in Calton Jail, Edinburgh. Rev Malcolm Maclennan, Kneep, then in Edinburgh, and John Macpherson secured their early release. 

Their actions did not give the desired result. After the Great War there was again agitation, before Reef was finally recrofted in 1921.