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Bangor University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Politics, government and society in Edinburgh, 1780-1833 Brydon, William Award date: 1988 Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 04. Oct. 2021 Politics, Government and Society in Edinburgh, 1780-1833. William Brydon University College of North Wales 'University of Wales Ph. D Thesis October 1988 Politics, Government and Society in Edinburgh, 1780-1833. William Brydon University College of North Wales University of Wales Ph. D Thesis October 1988 I The aim of this thesis is to analyse the development and impact of popular political consciousness in Edinburgh during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Particular attention is drawn to the growing political assertiveness of the middling orders in Edinburgh and to the threat which this posed both to the traditional political establishment in the city and to the established political constitution. The first section of the thesis examines some of the mechanisms by which popular political consciousness was nurtured and expressed. The structure, membership and influence of the myriad clubs and societies which flourished in Edinburgh are examined in Chapter Two. The role and influence of the press in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are examined in Chapter Three. The second section of the thesis (Chapter Four) looks at the Town Council of Edinburgh, the lynchpin of government in the city. The third section of the thesis examines the impact which growing popular political consciousness had on the pattern of politics and government in Edinburgh. Chapter Five examines the municipal and parliamentary elections of 1780, in which disputes within the political establishment helped fuel growing politicisation out-of-doors. Chapter Six examines the radical Friends of the People reform movement of the 1790s and the reaction to it within the community. Chapter Seven discusses the origins and development of the Edinburgh Police Commission, which was set up in 1805. The role of the Commission is discussed in depth, as are the social and political themes which the controversies surrounding the Commission helped develop. Chapters Eight and Nine chart the course of reform in Edinburgh between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the coming of the great reforms of the 1830s. III Contents Section 1: Introduction. Chapter 1: The City of Edinburgh. 1 Section 2: Public Opinion and Popular Organisation in Edinburgh. Chapter 2: Clubs and Societies in Edinburgh. 21 Chapter 3: The Edinburgh Press in the Eighteenth Century. 53 Section 3: Government in Edinburgh. Chapter 4: The Town Council of Edinburgh. 79 Section 4: The Progress of Reform. Chapter 5: Insider Politics and the Emergence of Reform: The General and Municipal Elections of 1780, in Edinburgh. 101 Chapter 6: Reform and Reaction in Edinburgh in the 1790s. 129 Chapter 7: The Edinburgh Police Commission, 1805-1833.178 Chapter 8: The Re-emergence of Reform in Edinburgh, 1815- 1830.217 Chapter 9: The Crisis of Reform in Edinburgh, 1830-33.245 258 Appendix. Bibliography. IV I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr Alan Dyer, for his guidance and for the steadfast support which he has given me during the course of this research. I would also like to thank Professor David Loades, the Head of the History Department at U. C. H. W. Thanks are also due to Dr. John Brims, of St. Andrews University, and Mr David Brown, of the Scottish Register Office. I would like to acknowledge the great debt of gratitude which I owe to Professor Harry Dickinson, of Edinburgh University, whose advice and encouragement have been invaluable. Thanks are due to the staff of the Scottish Register Office, the National Library of Scotland, the Edinburgh University Library, the Edinburgh Public Library, the Company of Merchants of Edinburgh and the North Yorkshire County Records Office. I would also like to thank Mr. Arnott Wilson, the City Archivist of Edinburgh. I would like to record my gratitude to my parents for their support and understanding. Chapter 1: The City of Edinburgh 1 A visitor to Edinburgh in the mid-eighteenth century would have found a city still remarkably redolent of the original settlement which had grown up in the shadow of Edinburgh castle. Edinburgh castle itself stands on a two hundred feet high volcanic rock, close to the Forth estuary, and is protected by a sheer drop to the north, south and west. To the east of the castle, however, a narrow ridge slopes away from the rock, running for over a mile (now the 'Royal Mile') down to the plain below. It was on this ridge, under the protection of the castle, that the town of Edinburgh first took shape (see Figure 1, at the end of this chapter). Quite when the first settlement took place remains obscure, but in Y Gododdin, a poem by the sixth century Welsh poet, Aneirin, reference is made to a community at Dineidin or 'fortress of the hill- slope'. ' The first reference to Edinburgh in a royal charter appears to be in the charter granted in the early twelfth century by King David I to the monks of Holyrood (which is situated at the eastern base of the ridge). The charter makes clear that by this time Edinburgh was a well established market town with its own merchants, traders and craftsmen. By the middle of the fifteenth century Edinburgh castle was one of the main strongholds of the Stewart monarchy. Some of the principal residences of the royal family were in or near Edinburgh and the presence of the royal court and government probably added much to the prosperity of the city. There is certainly no doubt that by this time Edinburgh was being marked with increasing favour by the Crown. In a charter of 1452, for instance, James II conferred on the town the privilege of being the sole seat of the Court of the Four Burghs, a tribunal which regulated the affairs of the leading burghs of Scotland. 2 Vith royal support and approval the city began to assume a preponderant influence over the surrounding communities. As early as 1329 Robert I granted to the city the port and mills of Leith, which lies on the coast about a mile to the north-east of the centre of Edinburgh (see Figure 1). In 1454 James I gave the city the right to the customs and duties levied on merchandise brought to the port of Leith, and, in 1565, by a charter of Henry and Mary, the town of Leith itself was brought under the authority of the Town Council of Edinburgh. " By the middle of the seventeenth/ 2 seventeenth century the Town Council had also gained control of the burghs of Portsburgh and Canongate, which were adjacent to the Royal Burgh of Edinburgh itself. The accession of James VI to the English throne, in 1603, resulted in the removal of the royal court from Edinburgh and, with it, much of the lustre which it had brought to the city. None the less, with the Scottish Parliament continuing to meet in Edinburgh during the following century, the city remained a centre of government in Scotland. Even after the Union of the Parliaments, in 1707, Edinburgh retained much of its former importance. The city continued to be the annual meeting place of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the convocation of the established clergy of Scotland. During the sixteenth century Edinburgh had become the seat of the Scottish high courts. These continued to meet in the city and Edinburgh supported a sizeable legal establishment. The city still remained an administrative centre for government in Scotland. Edinburgh continued to be a magnet for the cream of Scottish society. The journey to London was still a long and difficult one in the mid-eighteenth century. As late as 1763 there was only one stage-coach per month between London and Edinburgh, and the journey took between twelve and sixteen days-4 Consequently, many of the Scottish nobility and gentry continued to spend their social season in Edinburgh. The city continued to possess much of the glitter and show associated with the amusement of the wealthy. There were dances and balls. The Edinburgh Theatre Royal was licensed in 1767 and Saint Cecilia's Concert Hall opened in 1769. By the middle of the eighteenth century, moreover, Edinburgh was beginning to be noted for the remarkable intellectual renaissance which was taking place in the city. By the latter part of the century the so- called Scottish Enlightenment was at its zenith and Edinburgh had taken its place as one of the foremost centres of learning in Europe. During this period Edinburgh University reached the height of its fame. In the course of the century the number of students being taught there grew from about 400 to around 2000.6 They were instructed by many of the most brilliant figures of the age; men such as the chemists, William Cullen and/ 3 and Joseph Black (the latter of whom discovered 'latent heat'), the cleric and historian, William Robertson, and Adam Ferguson, the father of modern sociology.