Northern Isles No More? The Story of Emigration from Orkney and Shetland since 1700
Thursday, March 19th 2026 7:30pm - 9:00pm
Shetland Museum & Archives
Professor Marjory Harper will talk about her latest book release - "Northern Isles No More? The story of emigration from Orkney and Shetland since 1700".
The book outlines the emigrants' motives; the decision-making process; the role of sponsorship; the experience of the voyage, arrival and settlement; issues surrounding identity; and the negative side of the emigrant experience - misfortune and anguish.
"Marjory Harper’s remarkably wide-ranging and centuries-spanning account of emigration from Orkney and Shetland is made all the more gripping by its extensive use of emigrants’ own words. This is groundbreaking history with a human face" - James Hunter.
Marjory Harper is Professor of History at the University of Aberdeen, and Visiting Professor at the Centre for History, University of the Highlands and Islands. Her research focuses on British (particularly Scottish) emigration since 1800. Two of her monographs have won international prizes, and she has published around 100 articles and book chapters. Her monograph, Testimonies of Transition (an oral history of twentieth-century Scottish emigration) was published in 2018, and a revised version was published as an audio book in 2020. She contributes regularly to radio and television programmes such as Digging Up Your Roots and Who Do You Think You Are?
Photo: Jeremiah Williamson Smith and family, image courtesy of Shetland Museum & Archives.
Tickets: £5
Category: Lectures, Community Events
