The Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886, created legal definitions of crofting parish and crofter, granted security of tenure to crofters and produced the first Crofters Commisssion, a land court which ruled on disputes between landlords and crofters. The same court ruled on whether parishes were or were not crofting parishes. In many respects the Act was modelled on the Irish Land Acts of 1870 and 1881. A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or land which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called the tenant. ... The Scottish croft is a small agricultural land holding of a type which has been subject to special legislation in the United Kingdom since 1886. ... A parish is a subdivision of a diocese or bishopric within the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Church of Sweden, and of some other churches. ... The Irish Question British Prime Minister William Gladstone had taken up the Irish Question in part to win the general election of 1868 by uniting the Liberal Party behind this single issue. ... 1870 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... 1881 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...

The Act specified seven counties of Scotland as counties where parishes might be recognised as crofting parishes: Argyll, Inverness-shire, Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland, Caithness, Orkney and Shetland. Within these counties a crofting parish was a parish where there were year-by-year tenants of land (tenants without leases) who were paying less than £30 a year in rent and who had possessed effective common grazing rights during the 80 years since 24th June 1806. The British Isles are divided into the following traditional counties (also vice counties or historic counties). ... Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Alba) is a country in northwest Europe, occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain. ... Argyll (Earra-Ghaidheal in Gaelic), sometimes called Argyllshire, is one of the traditional counties of Scotland. ... Inverness-shire is one of the traditional counties of Scotland. ... Ross and Cromarty: administrative county (1889-1975) Ross and Cromarty: district council (1975-1996) Ross and Cromarty: lieutenancy area (1996-date) Ross and Cromarty was until 1975, an administrative county, and was originally formed in 1889 from the merger of Ross-shire and Cromartyshire. ... Sutherland (Scottish Gaelic, Cataibh), or Sutherlandshire, is a traditional county in the north of Scotland, bordering on Caithness to the north and both Ross-shire and Cromartyshire to the south. ... Caithness (Scottish Gaelic, Gallaibh) is a traditional county and former administrative county which is now within the Highland area of Scotland. ... The Orkney Islands form one of 32 unitary council regions in Scotland, and are a Lieutenancy Area. ... See Shetland (disambiguation) for other meanings. ... A tenant (from the Latin tenere, to hold), in legal contexts, holds real property by some form of title from a landlord. ... This article or section should include material from Tenancy agreement A lease is a contract conveying from one person (the lessor) to another person (the lessee) the right to use and control some article of property for a specified period of time (the term), without conveying ownership, in exchange for... The pound sterling, which strictly speaking refers to basic currency unit of sterling, now the pound, can generally refer to the currency of the United Kingdom (UK). ... Renting is an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good owned by another person or company. ... A year is the time between two recurrences of an event related to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. ... 1806 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

The Act was largely a result of crofters' agitation which had become well organised and very persistent in Skye (then in the county of Inverness-shire) and of growing support, throughout the Highlands, for the Crofters' Party, which had gained five Members of Parliament in the general election of 1885. Agitation took the form of rent strikes (withholding rent payments) and what came to be known as land raids: crofter occupations of land to which crofters believed they should have access for common grazing or for new crofts, but which landlords had given over to sheep farming and game-hunting parks (called deer forests). The Old Man of Storr, Skye The Isle of Skye, usually known simply as Skye (Scottish Gaelic: An t-Eilean Sgiathanach) is the largest and most northerly island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. ... The Scottish Highlands are considered to be the mountainous regions of Scotland north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault. ... The first Highland Land League emerged as a distinct political force in the United Kingdom during the 1880s, with its power base in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. ... A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters of an electoral district to a parliament; in the Westminster system, specifically to the lower house. ... The 1885 UK general election was from the 24th November - 18th December 1885. ... 1885 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... This article is about the animal, sheep; for other meanings of Sheep, see Sheep (disambiguation). ... Genera About 15 in 4 subfamilies. ...

The Act itself did not quell the agitation. In particular it was very weak in terms of enabling the Crofters Commission to resolve disputes about access to land. It was enough however to make much more acceptable, politically, the use of troops in confrontations with agitators. A troop is a military unit, which can have different meanings depending on the country in which it is used. ...