Orcadians

Orcadians are the indigenous inhabitants of the Orkney islands of Scotland.[2] Historically, they are descended from the Picts,[3][Notes 1] Norse[5] and Scots.

Orcadians

Total population
21,349 currently resident population of Orkney
Regions with significant populations
Mainland, Orkney	17,162[1]
South Ronaldsay	909[1]
Westray	588[1]
Languages
Insular Scots, Scottish English; historically Norn and Pictish
Religion
Presbyterianism
Related ethnic groups
Shetlanders, Scots, Britons, Ulster Scots, Falkland Islanders, Norwegians, Faroese, Icelanders and Anglo-Metis

Well-known Orcadians

• Jim Baikie British comics artist, who is best known for his work with Alan Moore on Skizz
• William Balfour Baikie (1825–1864), explorer and naturalist
• George Mackay Brown (1921–1996), poet, author, playwright
• Mary Brunton (1778–1818), author of Self-Control, Discipline and other novels
• Dr David Clouston (1871–1948), author and agriculturalist
• J. Storer Clouston (1870–1944), author and historian
• Thomas Clouston (1840–1915), psychiatrist, Superintendent of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum
• James Copland (1791–1870), physician and prolific medical writer
• Stanley Cursiter (1887–1976), artist
• William Towrie Cutt (1898–1981), author
• Walter Traill Dennison (1826–1894), Orcadian folklorist
• Kris Drever, folk singer and guitarist
• Magnus Erlendsson (Saint Magnus) (c.1070–c.1117), Earl of Orkney c.1105–1117
• John Flett (geologist) (1869–1947) and his son William Roberts Flett FRSE (1900–1979) also a geologist
• Matthew Forster Heddle (1828–1897), mineralogist, author of The Mineralogy of Scotland
• Colonel Henry Halcro Johnston (1856–1939), botanist, physician, rugby union international and Deputy Lieutenant for Orkney
• Lt.Col. James Johnston (1724–1800), early and principal Scottish merchant at Quebec following the fall of New France
• Malcolm Laing (1762–1818), author of the History of Scotland from the Union of the Crowns to the Union of the Kingdoms
• Samuel Laing (1780–1868), author of A Residence in Norway, and translator of the Heimskringla, the Icelandic chronicle of the kings of Norway
• Samuel Laing (1812–1897), chairman of the London, Brighton & South Coast railway, and introducer of the system of "parliamentary" trains with fares of one penny a mile.
• Kristin Linklater, born 1946, voice teacher, actor, director and author
• Magnus Linklater (b. 1942), journalist, son of Eric Linklater
• John D. Mackay (1909–1970), headmaster and Orkney patriot
• Ernest Marwick (1915–1977), a writer noted for his writings on Orkney folklore and history
• Murdoch McKenzie (d.1797), hydrographer
• F. Marian McNeill (1885–1973) folklorist, best known for writing The Silver Bough
• Edwin Muir (1887–1959), author and poet
• Dr. John Rae (1813–1893), Arctic explorer
• Robert Rendall (1898–1967), poet, and amateur naturalist
• Rognvald Kali Kolsson (Saint Rognvald) (c.1103–1158), Earl of Orkney 1136–1158
• Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney (c.1345–c.1400), Earl of Orkney
• Julyan Sinclair, television presenter
• Bessie Skea aka Bessie Grieve (1923–1996), writer of prose and poetry about nature and Orkney life
• Thomas Stewart Traill (1781–1862), professor of medical jurisprudence at the University of Edinburgh and editor of the 8th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Cameron Stout (b. 1971) winner of Big Brother in 2003, brother of Julyan Sinclair
• Margaret Tait (1918–1999),filmmaker and poet
• Thorbjorn Thorsteinsson (died 1158), known as Thorbjorn the Clerk, Viking
• James Wallace (fl. 1684–1724), physician and botanist
• William Walls (1819–1893), lawyer and industrialist
• Thomas Webster (1772–1844), geologist and architect
• Sylvia Wishart (1936–2008), landscape artist
• The Wrigley Sisters Jennifer and Hazel, international folk duo

People associated with Orkney

• Rev. Matthew Armour (1820–1903), Sanday's radical Free Kirk Minister[6]
• Sweyn Asleifsson or Sveinn Ásleifarson (c. 1115 – 1171), Viking, born in Caithness, who appears in the Orkneyinga Saga
• V. Gordon Childe (1892–1957), Australian archaeologist and philologist who excavated Maeshowe
• Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (1934–2016), composer and Master of the Queen's Music
• John Gow (c.1698–1725), a notorious pirate
• Andrew Greig (b. 1951), writer
• Jo Grimond (1913–1993), Liberal Party leader and MP for Orkney and Shetland 1950–1983
• David Harvey (b. 1948), footballer
• Ingibiorg Finnsdottir (died c 1069), wife of Thorfinn the Mighty, mother of Paul and Erlend Thorfinnsson, subsequently queen of Scotland
• Eric Linklater (1899–1974), novelist, playwright, journalist, essayist and poet
• Margaret, Maid of Norway (1283–1290, Orkney), Queen of Scots and a Norwegian princess
• Robert Shaw (1927–1978), English actor and novelist
• William Sichel (b. 1951), ultra distance runner
• Luke Sutherland (b. 1971), writer of novels Jelly Roll, Sweetmeat and Venus as a Boy
• Jim Wallace, Baron Wallace of Tankerness (b. 1954), former MP for Orkney and Shetland (1983–2001), MSP for Orkney (1999–2007), Deputy First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats

See also

• Earldom of Orkney
• Prehistoric Orkney, for the ancient Orcadians

References

Footnotes

1. Ritchie notes the presence of an Orcadian ruler at the court of a Pictish high king at Inverness in 565 AD.[4]

Citations

1. National Records of Scotland (15 August 2013). "Appendix 2: Population and households on Scotland's Inhabited Islands" (PDF). Statistical Bulletin: 2011 Census: First Results on Population and Household Estimates for Scotland Release 1C (Part Two) (PDF) (Report). SG/2013/126. Retrieved 14 August 2020.
2. "The Orcadians – The people of Orkney" Orkneyjar. Retrieved 19 September 2009.
3. Thomson (2008) pp. 4–6.
4. Ritchie, Anna "The Picts" in Omand (2003) p. 39
5. Genetic study reveals 30% of white British DNA has German ancestry. The Guardian.
6. "Centenary of a radical kirk minister" Archived 8 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine The Orcadian. Retrieved 4 October 2008.

General references

• Omand, Donald (ed.) (2003) The Orkney Book. Edinburgh. Birlinn. ISBN 1-84158-254-9
• Thomson, William P. L. (2008) The New History of Orkney. Edinburgh. Birlinn. ISBN 978-1-84158-696-0