Across the Bressay Sound is the ancestral home of Thomas Bolt
Thomas Bolt, Merchant and Agent James' heir, Thomas Bolt, a prosperous merchant in his own right married Barbara Inns in 1763; daughter of Alexander Inns of Fracafield (an important merchant-laird in Tigwall). The 1762 accounts of his uncle, Arthur Nicolson, recorded that in that year Thomas Bolt supplied to him 98 cans of oil, 1167 ling and 1376 lasts of tusk, and that they were party to the smuggling of German gin and Dutch brandy in which Cruister played a key role.
Arthur Anderson lived from 19 February 1792 to 27 February 1868. A native of Shetland, he went on to found the Peninsula and Oriental Steam Navigation Company: which has since become P&O. Arthur Anderson was the eldest son of the manager of a fish curing station at the Böd of Gremista, just north of Lerwick. The family lived in the Böd, and Arthur was born there. He was one of the small proportion of Shetland children to receive an education at the time. From the age of 12 he was employed on Bressay, curing and drying fish on the shingle beach. Most of his contemporaries went on to crew the traditional Shetland fishing boats, sixerns, but Anderson's education and ability led him to be singled out to work in the office of the estate factor, Thomas Bolt.
In 1807 Anderson was caught by a Navy press gang, but released when Thomas Bolt told the Navy that Anderson proposed to volunteer the following year at the age of 16. He did so, becoming a Midshipman on HMS Ardent. Anderson quickly realised that holding down a post as an RN officer required more money than he had available, so on 8 March 1810 he transferred to become the captain's clerk aboard HMS Bermuda. Anderson served on HMS Bermuda for most of the next five years, leaving the Navy after Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo. He was one of 3,000 men from Shetland to serve in the Navy during the Napoleonic Wars.
ling n.,pl. (esp.collectively) ling, (esp.forkinds or species) lings. 1. an elongated,codlikemarinefoodfish,Molvamolva, of Greenlandand N Europe. 2. theburbot. 3. any of variousotherelongatedfoodfishes.
[1250–1300;MiddleEnglishling,lenge;akin to earlyDutchlinghe,lenghe,OldNorselanga,and to long]