The Society in Scotland for Propagating
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THE SOCIETY IN SCOTLAND FOR PROPAGATING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE: ESTABLISHING IDENTITY UNDER THE UNION 1709-1715 JUSTINE ATKINSON BA (Hons) MASTER OF ARTS (HISTORY) APRIL, 2010 Statement of Originality This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. I give consent to this copy of my thesis, when deposited in the University Library, being made available for loan and photocopying subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. i Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors, Associate Professor Philip Dwyer and Professor Hilary Carey, for all their guidance and assistance. I would also like to thank my partner, Matthew Ward, and mother, Nola, for their endless patience and support; and Dr Claire Walker for her initial encouragement. Dedication For my father, Greig. ii Table of Contents Abstract iv Maps v Introduction 1 Chapter One 48 The SSPCK: negotiating Scottish identities under the Union Chapter Two 95 The Highlands and Islands: realising the imagined outer spaces of Scotland Chapter Three 140 Attitudes towards Gaelic Popular Belief: demystifying religions in the Highlands Chapter Four 185 Written versus Oral Media: controlling the power of words in the Highlands Conclusion 231 Bibliography 241 iii Abstract Established only two years after the Union between England and Scotland of 1707, the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SSPCK) sought to establish charity schools throughout the Highlands of Scotland, and eventually the New World. In recent years its efforts have been criticised as an assault on Highland culture, specifically with regard to the “language problem” that arose from its policy of teaching English to Gaelic-speaking children. However, the early SSPCK was full of contradictions. It taught with English texts while insisting on Gaelic speaking schoolmasters; warned against Catholicism while settling of schools in mainly Protestant parishes; and complained about the Highlands’ difficult terrain while sending schoolmasters to some of its most inaccessible places. This thesis examines the early years of the SSPCK in terms of its place in the newly established Union, and its contradictions in ideas of space, religion and language. In doing so we begin to understand the SSPCK as an organisation confronted by conflicting perceptions of identity, both of itself and of the new nation it aimed to serve. As a product of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, national identity for the SSPCK was inextricably linked to Calvinism. Hence, although the SSPCK was pro-Union, there were elements of the new Establishment which challenged the Society’s pro- Presbyterianism, especially with regard to perceived encroachments of Episcopalians in Scotland. The SSPCK’s reaction was to negotiate various representations of identity so as to promote a homogenous Scotland in keeping with the Society’s notions of loyalty to the Union, while at the same time ensuring the continued supremacy of the Presbyterian religion within Scotland. iv Figure 1. Earliest SSPCK Schools Source: Map adapted from Clotilde Prunier, Anti-Catholic Strategies in Eighteenth- Century Scotland (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2004), 15. v Figure 2. Early SSPCK Schools and Catholic Districts Source: Map adapted from Prunier, Anti-Catholic Strategies, 15. vi Figure 3. Early SSPCK Schools after 1715 Rising Source: Map adapted from Prunier, Anti-Catholic Strategies, 15. vii Figure 4. Italian Map, c. 1560 Source: Map adapted from Royal Scottish Geographical Society. The Early Maps of Scotland to 1850, 3rd ed. with A History of Scottish Maps by D. G. Moir. (Edinburgh: The Royal Scottish Geography Society, 1973). viii Figure 5. Scotiæ Tabula by Abraham Ortelius, 1573 Source: Map adapted from Royal Scottish Geographical Society. The Early Maps of Scotland to 1850. ix Figure 6. Æbudæ Insulæ sive Hebrides by Joan Blaeu, 1654 Source: Map from Blaeu Atlas of Scotland, 1654, National Library of Scotland, http://www.nls.uk/maps/atlas/blaeu/page.cfm?id=77 (accessed 12 March 2010). x Figure 7. L’Ecosse by Pieter van Aa, 1710 Source: Map adapted from Charting the Nation: maps of Scotland and associated archives 1550-1740. Edinburgh University Library, http://www.chartingthenation.lib.ed.ac.uk/index.html xi Introduction This thesis considers the early history of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SSPCK), along with the Western Highland and Island communities that it sought to reform, in the context of the search for a new national identity for Scotland that followed Union with England in 1707. It explores the SSPCK’s attempts to impose its own sense of identity in relation to three themes that seem to have preoccupied the Society: namely Scotland as physical space, Scotland as religious entity, and the language of Scotland. It seeks a more holistic result than might otherwise be achieved if one were to consider the Society purely in the context of its mission of religious reform. In doing so, discrepancies emerge between the ideas of identity (both its own and that of Highlanders) which the Society projected into the public arena and those that accompanied its members into the field. Hence it becomes necessary to reconsider the accepted agenda of the SSPCK and challenge stereotypes that have evolved concerning the Society. Indeed, one can detect amongst some of its members a subtle differences in attitude towards those groups with which the Society professed to share little or no identity, that is, Highlanders and Catholics; tolerances that were soon quashed by the events of 1715. However, perhaps most telling of the Presbyterian SSPCK’s struggle with identity in this new era is its interaction with Episcopalian Protestants, both Scottish and English, with whom Calvinist Scots were now partners under the banner of Union. The SSPCK was formed in 1709 by Royal Charter, with subscribers from all over Scotland, at the instigation of William Carstares (chaplain to the late William II and III) 1 and other members of a society in Edinburgh for the reformation of manners. The terms of the Charter stated that the SSPCK was to be an “Incorporation, Society and Body Politic,” with its own seal, legally empowered to receive funds in order to establish schools to teach reading, writing and arithmetic, using “good and pious Books”, so as to bring Christian knowledge to the Highlands, Islands and “remote corners” of Scotland and “Popish and Infidel Parts of the World.”1 Subscribers and contributors were to be Protestant.2 The Society’s teachers were to be “Men of Piety, Loyalty, Prudence, Gravity, competent Knowledge and Literature, and other Christian and Necessary Qualifications”, in accordance with the laws of Scotland and to the satisfaction of the Church of Scotland judicatories.3 Essentially a product of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, many of the SSPCK’s committee members were also active members of the Assembly. As such, the “Christian Knowledge” which it hoped to promote was that of the Presbyterian or “Reformed” faith. Set up in order to establish charity schools in the Highlands of Scotland, the curriculum it prescribed for its students was one of indoctrination, consisting entirely of Presbyterian tracts. The SSPCK has long been recognised for its educational achievements throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the Highlands of Scotland and in North America. Its charity schools have been deemed the first successful attempts to “civilise” the Highlanders through education. This had long 1 Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge [SSPCK], An Account of the Rise, Constitution and Management, of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: William Brown and Company, 1720), 12-14. 2 SSPCK, An Account, 15. 3 SSPCK, An Account, 17-18. 2 been an item on the General Assembly’s agenda — “education” as a means of spreading the Reformed religion — and the SSPCK was part of an ongoing process of previously passed Acts that aimed to improve “education” in the Highlands, Islands and North of Scotland. Indeed, the objectives of the SSPCK, sitting alongside campaigns of the General Assembly to fill empty parishes with ministers and libraries, can be seen as part of an overall mission to (re-)establish “true religion” throughout Scotland.4 However, its formation coincided with debate within the General Assembly, not only regarding the control of Catholics within Scotland, but also dealing with uniformity within Protestant ranks and the abolition of such heresies as Atheism and Deism.5 An Episcopalian presence in the Highlands and the continued insistence of Episcopalians to take an active interest in Protestant affairs in Scotland cannot be underestimated as a motive for decisions and policies of the SSPCK. Actions of the Society that otherwise seem contradictory, begin to fall into place when seen in the light of trying to counteract Episcopalian influences. The Act of Union had won Presbyterians religious authority as the official Church of Scotland, but at the same time tied their hands as to how freely they could enforce their own form of Protestantism upon others within Northern Britain. With its endorsement of Anglicanism as the official Church of England, Union had certainly dashed any hopes of Calvinism rising to dominance throughout the rest of the British Isles. As Presbyterian Scots now found themselves in partnership with Anglican England, open criticism or attack of 4 The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, “Acts: 1703,” IV, V.9, IX, in Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 1638-1842, ed. Church Law Society (1843), 316-324; “Acts: 1709,” VI, X, XI, 432-440. 5 General Assembly, “Acts: 1695-6,” VIII-X, XXI, XXIII, 245-256.