PAPA WESTRAY - Key Persons

John D. Mackay (1909, Maeback, Papa Westray, Orkney), Orcadian school-teacher, taught on Stronsay and North Ronaldsay before working as headmaster of Sanday School between 1946 to 1970. He is remembered locally for writing to The Times in 1967 suggesting that Orkney and Shetland be returned to Norway after five centuries in pawn to Scotland. His letter brought publicity to Orkney and boosted some residents' morale, at a time when absorption into the administrative structure of the Scottish Highlands seemed destined to cause a reduction in the powers of the local authorities. A stream of local publicity efforts followed.

LAND ART - PAPA WESTRAY (L.A.P.W.) was established in August 2007 as an artists' run, not-for-profit, independent, international art project working on research and development of place-specific art and curatorial practice.

Thomas Traill purchased the estate of Holland in Papa Westray and by the eighteenth century Traills were the sole landowners on the island