The Oracle of Neo-clanship: Robert Macpherson of Benchar, Improvement and the Figure of the Tacksman in the Eighteenth-Century Highlands

Highland tacksmen have left behind a controversial legacy. Positioned just below chiefs in the traditional clan hierarchy, these middlemen held a tack or lease directly from the clan chief for whom they performed services. In the eighteenth century, the tacksman class rapidly disappeared as the Highland landed estate was repurposed into a production-driven unit, shaped by the forces of the market rather than the traditional structures of clanship. Alternatively portrayed as victims of agrarian improvement or as the oppressors of the tenantry, the role played by tacksmen in early modern globalisation, the imperial economy and large-scale improvements has only recently started to be uncovered by historians. Building on such studies, this article explores the career of Robert Macpherson of Benchar (1731–91), a tacksman from Badenoch, to understand how Highland tacksmen could operate as crucial societal and cultural mediators in a society in transition and, in so doing, mould clanship into a vehicle for commercial improvement at the local, regional and imperial scales.