Andrew Carnegie: The Richest Man at Skibo

Driving north around Tain, you begin to notice Carnegie’s name on hotels, buildings and old libraries, and if your journey takes you into Dornoch Cathedral, you will find it again beneath stained-glass windows. For a name so closely associated with American steel and a famous New York concert hall, it has quite a presence in this quiet corner of the North Highlands, where Andrew Carnegie chose to establish his home at nearby Skibo Castle. He called it his “Heaven on Earth”, although the effect of his arrival extended well beyond making an immensely wealthy man comfortable in his Highland surroundings.

Carnegie had begun life in a poor weaving family in Dunfermline, emigrating to the United States as a child before building a fortune through railways, investment and steel. By the time he sold his company, he was among the wealthiest people in the world, with the means to transform Skibo and pursue his belief that dying rich was a disgrace. Much of that fortune went into libraries, education and cultural institutions, alongside organisations working towards peace, but living here also gave his generosity a local expression. Libraries in Tain and Dornoch, support for the cathedral and employment on the estate brought him into the life of the district in ways that were rather more immediate than the distant fame of Carnegie Hall.

One of my favourite glimpses of that influence comes from the early days of motoring, when owning a car did not necessarily mean being able to find fuel for it in the north. Contemporary reports suggest that petrol was available at Skibo, giving motorists and their chauffeurs a reason to divert towards the castle while travelling to places such as Dunrobin. I rather enjoy the incongruity of one of the richest men alive having what amounted to an early Highland fuel station at his home, where a caller’s most pressing concern might have been less about meeting the celebrated owner than obtaining enough petrol to reach the next destination. It also suggests how an enthusiasm for new technology could make itself useful beyond the estate.

Today, Skibo is an exclusive private club, largely concealed from those of us passing through the district, while Carnegie’s name remains in places open to everyone. We can walk into the cathedral, notice a former library or read a familiar name above a doorway without immediately connecting it to the man who made his home nearby. Knowing a little about him allows those scattered encounters to come together, so that the journey through Easter Ross and Sutherland reveals something of the life Carnegie built here alongside the much better-known story of his American fortune.

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