For Highland farmers, the period from the end of the sixteenth down to the early eighteenth century, but especially the years that formed the Maunder Minimum 1645-1715, were exceptionally difficult with phases of poor or failed harvests brought about by prolonged spells of cold or wet conditions at critical times of the year or by extreme climatic events such as exceptional storms. Studies have been published of how ordinary farmers may have been affected by such poor conditions or events but what is still needed is a greater understanding of whether landlords or estates could deploy coping strategies to help counter or mitigate the stress caused by poor or failed harvests. Using data largely for the Breadalbane estate, this paper looks at how landlords may have used four coping strategies: rests of rent, eases or abatements, the extended use of both bowgang and steelbow tenancies, and rent conversions. Examples of these various strategies are presented. However, it is argued that their use needs to be seen not just against a background of outbreaks of poor weather or extreme weather events but also against the background of Highland farm output being increasingly seen as something capable of being marketed with the capital raised helping to offset some of the losses.
This article examines the figure studies executed by Paul Sandby while based in Scotland between 1747 and 1752. It suggests that Sandby was the first artist to give extensive and detailed treatment to the appearance, activities and pastimes of ordinary Scottish people. In a large body of drawings, etchings and paintings Sandby produced an unrivalled visual record of daily life in and around Edinburgh and in the process depicted numerous occupations, entertainments and practices for the first time in a Scottish context. As a result, he provides valuable evidence to illuminate the social history of Scotland in the mid eighteenth century. Beyond this, it is argued that Sandby was a foundational figure in the making of the nation’s genre art. In his rendering of quotidian routines, festive occasions, and interiors scenes, his illustration of Allan Ramsay’s The Gentle Shepherd, and his collaborative relationship with David Allan, Sandby was a key influence on the flowering of genre studies in Scotland over the generations following.
This article examines Shetland's place within the domestic and international world of sport: as a named polity, entity, bureaucracy, or ‘nation’. Shetland sport's relationship with athletes (and governments) outside of Scotland has existed at least since 1929. In the years before the Second World War, Shetland and the Faroe Islands held regular sporting exchanges (particularly within men's football), ostensibly to celebrate the historic relationship of Shetland and Faroese cultures, but also to solidify commercial fishing relationships. Long envious of Faroese powers and amenities, the outset of the oil industry in Shetland during the 1970s, and the creation of Shetland Islands Council (SIC) and the Shetland Charitable Trust saw the construction of state-of-the-art sporting facilities and the co-option of private sporting clubs into the state sector. Meanwhile, Shetland's hosting of the 2005 Island Games, largely considered to be successful, nevertheless reflected tensions around centralised ‘branding’, devolution, and the perceived need to stress a unique identity apart from Scotland.
This article reassesses a major and controversial field, and its remit dictates its length. Firstly, it reviews the scholarship of the Highland Clearances (c.1760-1860) and Land Agitation (1870s/80s) since the 1970s. Secondly, and building on the cultural turn identified in the more recent scholarship, it argues for the primary importance not of demography or economy but ideology: the Clearances and Land Agitation as at root a clash between the political economy and a Gaelic ethical worldview or system which embodied a social contract and bears analogy with E. P. Thompson's 'moral economy'. For all that their collision is taken to explain the peculiar intensity of the Highland Clearances, political economy and Gaelic moral economy are not considered as monolithic or mutually exclusive, and allusions are made to a 'third way' never taken. Recovering and centring the Gaelic moral economy allows for a more holistic envisioning of the period from within and without, and depends upon proper engagement with Gaelic and Gaelic-derived sources: oral tradition, the evidence given to the Napier Commission (1883-4) and especially Gaelic poetry and song, the last treated here as both a living archive of Gaelic ethics maintained by the poets, and a seismograph of social change. Finally, the article draws on the cultural turn and Gaelic sources to reappraise Clearance and post-Clearance society, represented here by proprietors and tacksmen above, the middling factorial class, and 'the people below'. Human relationships within and across these social strata are reconsidered, and human behaviour evaluated to acknowledge diversity born of personality and place, and spectrums of behaviour. Acknowledgement is also made of Gaelic participation and agency at all social levels, and on both sides of the mooted ideological divide.
In the ongoing scholarly debate about the secularisation of Scottish (and British) society, churchgoing is one of the few metrics for which longitudinal data exist, albeit fragmentarily. This article assembles and analyses the evidence about levels of church attendance in Dundee, Scotland's fourth largest city, during the nineteenth to early twenty-first centuries. It draws upon quantitative data (twelve religious censuses, six with varying methodologies between 1836 and 1901, and six with standardised methodology between 1980 and 2016) and some qualitative sources (chiefly local newspapers). Relative to population, churchgoing in Dundee appears to have declined continuously since the mid-nineteenth century, when at least two fifths of Dundonians worshipped on an average Sunday, the equivalent figure c.2023 being just 3.76 per cent. Possible explanations for this decrease are briefly explored.
This article will assess the assumption that women lacked ‘political agency’ in instances of treason or lesser rebellion against the Scottish crown. The trials and sentencing of the countess of Strathearn and the countess of Douglas, as well as the extra-judicial imprisonments of the countess of Ross and the duchess of Albany provide us with an opportunity to assess contemporary attitudes toward women and their culpability for the crime of treason in late medieval Scotland. While there was a gendered difference between the punishment for treason in the Middle Ages, the leniency afforded female accomplices through imprisonment rather than execution was by no means an indicator of their lack of ‘political agency’. The discussion adapts new approaches to narratives of imprisonment in order to show the active, latent, and potential power of women convicted or implicated in plots of rebellion in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Scotland. This article will show the significance of elite women's imprisonment through the cases studies of the countess of Strathearn, the countess of Douglas, the countess of Ross, the duchess of Albany. In doing so, it will emphasise that women's culpability was tied to their legal status as widow or female heir. The article argues that we can use evidence of imprisonment as an indicator of ‘public’ female political agency in the later Middle Ages.
John Mair is regarded as the first unionist thinker because of his advocacy of dynastic union between Scotland and England in his ‘History of Greater Britain’ (1521). In this article his ‘History’ is reread in a new context as part of a late-medieval Scottish identification of Britain as Scottish. The idea of England as Britain is more than a millennium old; identifying Britain as an extension of the Scottish kingdom, and of Scottish independence as compatible with British identity, is much less familiar. It is traced in this article in John of Fordun's work (written in the mid-1380s), Thomas Barry's poem on the Battle of Otterburn (1388), and in an unpublished compendium of king-list, chronicle and origin-legend material in a recently discovered booklet from the early sixteenth century. It is proposed that, rather than ‘banal unionism’, there was ‘banal Britishness’ based ultimately on sharing the same island. Not only does this suggest that there was even less of an inherent contradiction between Scottish independence and being British than is apparent within the spectrum of unionism delineated by Colin Kidd; it also raises the question of whether there are only Scottish, English and Welsh British identities, each with their own spectrum which have only occasionally intersected as a common Britishness.
Since at least the 1970s, rape, and male sexual violence against women more generally, has been a recurring focus of feminist historiography. While this body of scholarship has provoked criticism, it has had the profoundly important effect of situating the crime of rape as a feature of, rather than an aberration from, the society that hosts it. Scotland has been substantially overlooked in this discussion. This article explores the ideas, assumptions, and procedures involved in the criminal prosecution of rape in Scotland, taking the seventeenth century as its focus.
The Argyll Commission was set up in 1864 with Alexander Nicolson as assistant commissioner reporting back on education provision in the Hebrides. The Education (Scotland) Act of 1872 followed this, aiming to bring continuity to education in Scotland by creating a common countrywide system to replace the parish schools and (dis)array of different private and charitable provision. This article explores what, if any, effect this legislation had on schools in the small Inner Hebridean island of Lismore. The study utilises school logbook entries made at the main school during the relevant period, and it contextualises these alongside parallel school logs preserved from other Hebridean island and rural communities. The study is framed with attention to the historiography of spatial history and as such it also draws on other local documentary sources to identify specific features of island life on Lismore which influenced education during the period. The article concludes that the social history of the period was the dominant factor to affect education, alongside the influence and longevity of a particular schoolteacher. Thus, despite greater bureaucratic accountability, the article concludes that there was evidence of significant continuity in Lismore schooling as it moved from the parish to the board system.
At the height of Cold War nuclear tensions in the early 1980s, the British government's decision to renew civil defence met widespread opposition from local authorities in Scotland. Many councils refused to comply with statutory civil defence planning regulations introduced by the Scottish Office in 1983. This article focusses on two differing regional case studies - the Highlands and Lothians - to consider the impact of the 1983 regulations and the technocratic rationale underlying them. It will argue that technocratic civil defence was the corollary of a deindustrialising society, incompatible with communal mobilisation and a touchpaper for political conflict.
In June 1940, from somewhere in Scotland, a radio station named Radio Caledonia began to broadcast Scottish nationalist, anti-government and anti-war propaganda to Britain, on behalf of an organisation called the Scottish Peace Front. Its objective was to bring about Scotland's exit from the war, an end to the capitalist system, and the creation of an independent, socialist Scotland. The speaker and scriptwriter behind Radio Caledonia was Donald Grant, a Scot, since dubbed Scotland's Lord Haw-Haw. But Radio Caledonia was only superficially a Scottish nationalist station. In reality, the Scottish Peace Front was an entirely fictitious group, and Radio Caledonia's programmes were made in and broadcast from Berlin under the direction of Joseph Goebbels, as one element of his propaganda campaign against Britain. Radio Caledonia, like other similar 'secret stations' commissioned by Goebbels, was conceived of by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, and its broadcasts written and produced by British renegades. This paper looks at Grant's background and political beliefs, the Nazi propaganda organisation within which he worked in Berlin, and the broadcast output of Radio Caledonia. It concludes that far from being an authentically nationalist or socialist enterprise, Radio Caledonia was devised by German Nazis and British fascists as a tool to achieve their shared aim of bringing about an end to Britain's involvement in the war.
The eighteenth century saw an increasing interest in oral narrative ballad poetry, whose perceived decline prompted major efforts among antiquarians and collectors to find and preserve all that remained of the old popular songs. Women, long associated with oral tradition, were seen as the preservers of ballad poetry, transmitting their songs orally across generations. Yet while male collectors acknowledged female singers' contributions, they obscured the broader realities of women's engagement with print ballad culture. This article revisits the ballad traditions of Scottish women, exploring how the male-dominated scholarly discourse of the era shaped perceptions of women's involvement in ballad culture. While collectors emphasised the role of female singers as preservers of purely oral tradition, they downplayed women's broader engagement with ballads as printed literature, including their participation in the commercial broadside industry as sellers and consumers. This study reveals a more nuanced picture of women's involvement in balladry, challenging traditional narratives that align women singers exclusively with oral ballad tradition. By acknowledging the diverse ways in which women participated in ballad culture, this research sheds light on the complexities of gender dynamics within the ballad tradition, highlighting the need for a re-evaluation of women's reception and transmission of ballads historically.
While historians have frequently depicted Scottish roles in the East India trade from peripheral viewpoints, they have tended to overlook the direct contributions of merchants and manufacturers engaged in the East India trade from Scotland. This article examines the activities of Glasgow-based James Finlay & Co. in the China trade during the 1820s and early 1830s. It demonstrates that the firm already had more than a decade of experience engaging in the China trade before the complete abolition of the East India Company’s monopoly in 1834. It also argues that the Glasgow firm had a strong connection with London and extended its trading network to Manchester, where the firm outsourced its production for its consignments to the East. This research also contributes to broader East India and China trade issues at that time. Firstly, Finlay’s China operations by the East Indiamen suggest that the legality gave the Company’s vessels an advantage even after the partial opening of the East India trade in 1814. Secondly, this article highlights the significance of the roles of agency houses in the early phase of the China trade. Thirdly, the case of James Finlay & Co. demonstrates that the opening of the China trade in 1834 was not as significant an episode as conventional scholarship made it out to be. In addition, this research argues that Kirkman Finlay and other Glasgow East India interests leveraged their connection with the Canton house, which they acquired through their trial operations, to advocate for free trade with China.
A case study of a land-based journey around the Baltic coast in 1817 by two young middle-class merchants from Fisherrow (Musselburgh) and Shetland primarily illustrates the diversity of Grand Tours by the early nineteenth century. It also argues that exploring the dynamics of diversity can further understanding of the role of agency in transition and change, beyond class and status alone. On the one hand, the men's journey extended their commercial education, using family trading networks to build functional skills and knowledge ('cultural' capital), rather than accumulating social status ('symbolic' capital) as had been the case for many aristocratic Grand Tourists. On the other, they instigated and planned the journey themselves, travelling without supervision, individualising their journey and making it more imaginative, characteristics encapsulated in a specific understanding of the German term Bildungsreise. Finally, their socioeconomic circumstances and their expectations, as well as those of their parents and mentors, differed considerably, so they were forced to negotiate the ratio of business to pleasure and personal development, each man to a differing degree. The resulting compromise not only made their journey different to earlier, aristocratic Grand Tours, but made the two men's experiences themselves unique. Their case demonstrates how focusing on diversity, and exploring the interplay of the processes, forces and contexts involved, can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of nineteenth-century transformations in continental travel.
On 7 September 1921 a meeting of the United Kingdom’s Cabinet took place outside London for the first time. Besides being remarkable for that reason, the session at Inverness in Scotland was also significant for the future of relationships between Britain and Ireland. Prime Minister Lloyd George was at the height of his career and convened it largely in an effort to advance negotiations with the Irish. He hoped that a peace conference might begin at Inverness later that month. Crowds converged on Inverness Town House for the historic and dramatic Cabinet meeting. Republican couriers ferried messages to and from Éamon de Valera, president of the revolutionary Sinn Féin parliament in Dublin. Some UK government ministers complained about the long round trip from London to Scotland by train. The article analyses the significance of what happened that month, and how an ambiguous form of words that Lloyd George dubbed the ‘Inverness formula’ avoided deadlock and allowed a full Irish peace conference to begin in London in October. This led to the signing of an agreement for a proposed Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921.
The present article draws together two seemingly irreconcilable threads: firstly, the perceived and stereotyped violent, retrograde and inward-looking northern Scot and, secondly, the lettered world of humanist Europeans on the move as encapsulated in the tradition of alba amicorum (friendship albums). By reconciling these seemingly antinomic worlds of northern Scotland and humanist, scholarly culture, alba help redefine and nuance these Highlanders' and northern Scots' identity, culture, and character, which are more in line with these qualities associated with the world of alba, attesting to this group of Scottish northerners' integration into the intellectual and humanist networks then present in Europe. For these individuals, theirs was a Gaelic and/or Scots culture and its appreciation which was complemented with an awareness of and a thirst for a Latinate and Classical culture and an openness to a European and word culture, by playing tourist on the Continent and being receptive to this new and foreign environment. Far from being impervious to other cultures, they opened themselves to these and welcomed foreign visitors. The roles were reversed and, in turn, they acted as guides to these tourists visiting Scotland and their communities. Through alba, it is possible to gain a better understanding of early tourism in Scotland and of tourist sites in northern Scotland, putting them not only in a national context but also an international framework.
Drawing on extensive newspaper accounts of reform processions this article seeks to analyse the portraits, caricatures and other representations of political leaders carried on such occasions. By emphasising the respectability of their leaders through formal portraits, radicals lent a respectable air to proceedings, as if their public actions were sanctioned by these respected men. These portraits also created connections between the marchers and parliament, with captions below portraits cementing the national focus of these local activities. Equally, though, these formal portrayals of political leaders were drawn into wider ideologies of freedom, unity, and resistance to tyranny. Consistent through each of these representations was an attempt to draw upon the gentleman leader for legitimacy, relating local acts to a unified national political movement. Less formal images in the form of cartoons also drew political leaders into these ideologies, placing them in sometimes quite elaborate and highly symbolic situations.
While the importance of closer, wider communications to Scotland and Scots adaptation to life within the Union, and the development of Britishness, has been commonly acknowledged, the role of the Post Office within these processes has never been systematically examined. This article charts the increasingly rapid development of postal services within Scotland and linking Scotland to London and the rest of England and Wales from the mid eighteenth century. It demonstrates the sheer extent and scope of growth of postal services in Scotland, and explores their use by different sections of Scottish society, by the mid nineteenth century. While commerce and manufacturing, as well as banking, together with the landed classes, account for the main sources of growth in use of the post, they were far from the sole beneficiaries of expanding, more efficient services. Scotland participated fully in the democratization of letter writing which was a feature of the Georgian period. The article then reflects on the consequences of these developments for the enfolding of Scotland within Britain and the rise of the latter as a salient framework within which people lived their lives. It underlines, in this context, the contemporary importance of letter writing and transmission of printed information to sustaining and forging connections and relationships between people and businesses, and overcoming frictions of distance within Britain.
