Editing Shetland (section)

=== 18th and 19th centuries ===
The trade with the North German towns lasted until the [[Acts of Union 1707|Act of Union 1707]], after which high salt duties prevented the German merchants from trading with Shetland. Shetland then went into an economic depression, as the local traders were not as skilled in trading salted fish. However, some local merchant-lairds took up where the German merchants had left off, and fitted out their own ships to export fish from Shetland to the Continent. For the independent farmers of Shetland this had negative consequences, as they now had to fish for these merchant-lairds.<ref name="Visit.Shetland.org history page">[http://visit.shetland.org/history "History"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110722122101/http://visit.shetland.org/history |date=22 July 2011 }}, visit.shetland.org, Retrieved 20 March 2011</ref>

Population increased to a maximum of 31,670 in 1861. However, British rule came at a price for many ordinary people as well as traders. The Shetlanders' nautical skills were sought by the [[Royal Navy]]. Some 3,000 served during the [[Napoleonic wars]] from 1800 to 1815 and [[impressment|press gangs]] were rife. During this period 120 men were taken from Fetlar alone, and only 20 of them returned home. By the late 19th century 90% of all Shetland was owned by just 32 people, and between 1861 and 1881 more than 8,000 Shetlanders emigrated.<ref>[http://shetlopedia.com/Ursula_Smith Ursula Smith"] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716054848/http://shetlopedia.com/Ursula_Smith|date=16 July 2011}}, Shetlopedia, Retrieved 12 October 2008</ref><ref name="Sch16">Schei (2006) pp. 16–17, 57</ref> With the passing of the [[Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886]] the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal]] prime minister [[William Ewart Gladstone|William Gladstone]] emancipated crofters from the rule of the landlords. The Act enabled those who had effectively been landowners' serfs to become owner-occupiers of their own small farms.<ref>[http://visit.shetland.org/history "A History of Shetland"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110722122101/http://visit.shetland.org/history |date=22 July 2011 }}, Visit.Shetland.org, Retrieved 16 January 2013</ref> By this time fishermen from [[Holland]], who had traditionally gathered each year off the coast of Shetland to fish for [[herring]], triggered an industry in the islands that boomed from around 1880 until the 1920s when stocks of the fish began to dwindle.<ref>Hutton Guthrie, (2009), ''Old Shetland'', Catrine Ayrshire, Stenlake Publishing, {{ISBN|9781840334555}} p. 3</ref> The production peaked in 1905 at more than a million barrels, of which 708,000 were exported.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.scottishherringhistory.uk/statistics/AnnualExport.html|title=Annual Statistics|website=scottishherringhistory.uk|access-date=28 April 2016|archive-date=8 May 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160508173546/http://www.scottishherringhistory.uk/statistics/AnnualExport.html|url-status=live}}</ref>