v jiiest s 925 THE HIGHLAND COMMUNITY IN GLASGOW IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: A STUDY OF NON-ASSIMILATION. By Joan MacKenzie Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Stirling. Department of History. October, 1987. CONTENTS P Acknowledgements i Abstract Chapter 1 Aims, Sources and Method 1 Chapter 2 The Old World and the New: The Highlands and Glasgow in the Nineteenth Century 30 Chapter 3 The Pattern of Highland Settlement 69 Chapter 4 The Social and Occupational Structure of the Highland Community: Broomielaw, Kingston and Plantation, 1851-1891 104 Chapter 5 Age, Sex, Marital and Household Structure: Broomielaw, Kingston and Plantation, 1851-1891 164 Chapter 6 The Gaelic Churches in Glasgow 207 Chapter 7 Philanthropy and the Glasgow Highland Community 257 Chapter 8 The Social and Cultural organisations of the Glasgow Highlanders 291 Chapter 9 Conclusion 342 Bibliography 349 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is impossible to name the many people who have contributed in some way to the completion of this thesis. My family and friends have been generous with encouragement, advice and support. In particular, I would like to thank Professor Campbell who provided valuable advice during the initial stages of this work, and Dr. Neil Tranter whose support and constructive criticism made possible its completion. Above all, I would like to thank Ian Mitchell whose assumption of the domestic trivia provided me with the necessary time and whose confidence in the project never wavered. A special debt is owed to my parents whose awareness of and love for their Highland heritage was an inspiration, and it is to them that I dedicate this thesis. ABSTRACT In recent years a growing body of economic and social research has been directed towards studies of migration, the problem of the assimilation of immigrants and the persistence of cultural traditions in new environmental circumstances. The present study is an attempt to contribute towards this work by looking at the evolution of the Glasgow Highland community in the nineteenth century. Though the Highlanders in their homeland and overseas have attracted much attention, the study of their reaction to urban, industrial life has been subjected to less scrutiny. The work already done on this area has tended to argue that a speedy process of assimilation to the dominant cultural pattern took place. The present study looks at a wide variety of indicators, such as residential, employment and household patterns, as well as the question of cultural traditions, and argues, on the contrary, that a definite Glasgow Highland community existed,with its own institutions and patterns of social relationships, within the wider Glasgow society. In contrast to assimilation models, the Glasgow Gaels showed a preference for distinct settlement areas, as well as a predilection to "clustering" in certain employment opportunities. In addition, they demonstrated a loyalty to specific Highland institutions of a cultural and religious nature which marked them off from the non-Gael. These features in turn encouraged strong intra-group social and domestic relationships. -1- CHAPTER ONE. AIMS, SOURCES AND METHOD. In the present period, when there is a growing awareness that Britain is now a multi-cultural society, an historical exploration of immigrant communities and their relationship to the host society has an undeniable relevance. Although it is only in recent decades that detailed investigations of immigrant communities have been carried out in Britain (1), in the United States the settlement of ethnic minorities and their assimilation into urban populations have occupied the attention of historians and sociologists since the early years of the twentieth century. It is, therefore, in the historical and sociological writings of the U.S.A. where the most impressive theoretical models of the immigration process and the methods of measuring assimilation are to be found. Much of the early work on the settlement of ethnic minorities in urban areas focussed on the alienation suffered by the immigrants as a result of their removal from a traditional society with its emphasis on kin and community. (2) More recent studies, however, have demonstrated (1) J.A. Jackson, The Irish in Britain (London, 1963);L.H. Lees, Exiles of Erin: Irish Migrants in Victorian London (Manchester, 1979); R.D. Lobban, The Migration of Highlanders into Lowland Scotland, Ph.D thesis, Edinburgh University, 1969 (2) Robert Park, "Human Migration and the Marginal Man" American Journal of Sociology 33 (1928); Louts Wirth, "Urbanism as a Way of Life" American Journal of Sociology 44 (1938). -2- how some ethnic minorities have recreated, in the urban environment, the kinship networks and community solidarity usually associated with rural communities. (1) Oscar Lewis, for example, argues that the process of disorganisation and the weakening of kinship bonds described by Wirth were not apparent from his researches into the peasant settlers in Mexico City in the 1950s. There he found that the process of urbanisation had strengthened family ties, that religious life had become more organised, and that the village system of compadrazgo and the use of village remedies and beliefs had survived. (2) With the recognition that some immigrant communities retained much of their ethnicity came attempts to find a satisfactory measure of assimilation. (3) Stanley Lieberson addresses this , problem in his research into ten immigrant groups in ten different cities in the United States. (4) He defines assimilation in terms of residential and occupational dispersal, the extent of marriage outside the ethnic group, the ability to - speak English and the adoption of American citizen-2, ship. (5) But his conclusion,based on census data to plot residential patterns and occupational status, is that the key to assimilation lies in the extent of residential segregation: (1) H.J.Gans, The Urban Villagers (Glencoe, 1962); Oscar Lewis, "The Folk-Urban Ideal Type", The Study of Urbanisation, Hauser, P. and Schnore, L. (eds.) (New York, 1966) (2) 0.Lewis, op.cit. pp.494-495 (3) For a review of the various works on assimilation, see C.Price, "The Study of Assimilation" in Migration, Jackson (ed.) (Cambridge, 1969) (4) S.Lieberson, Ethnic Patterns in American Cities (Glencoe, 1963). (5) Ibid., p.12 -3- u ...the greater the degree of differentiation of a group residentially, the greater their differentiation from other aspects of the general social structure." (1) The question of measuring the assimilation of immigrants was also taken up by Milton Gordon. (2) In discussing the relationship of the immigrant group to the host community, Gordon draws a useful distinction between primary and secondary group relations. Primary group relations he defines as those on the most intimate and informal level (such as the family., the social club or clique, the child's play group); secondary group relations as those maintained on the formal and impersonal level and which bring the individual into contact with the institutional arms of civic and state authority. (3) _ Gordon argues that it is possible for the ethnic group to become assimilated on the secondary group level, thus fulfilling the criteria of full citizenship, while maintaining primary group relations within the ethnic sub-society. (4) Only when primary group relations are carried out between the immigrants and the host society, he hypothesises, can full assimilation be said to have occurred. (5) The study of the Irish in London in the nineteenth century by Lynn Lees indicates that the urban sub-society created by the Irish not only (1) Ibid., p.190 (2) M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life, (New York, 1964). Gordon draws up seven variables in the assimilation process - change of cultural patterns to those of the host society, large scale entrance into the primary groups of the host society (termed structural assimilation), large scale inter-marriage, development of a sense of people-hood based on host society, absence of prejudice, absence of discrimination and the absence of value and power conflict. p.71 (3) Ibid. pp. 33-34 (4) Ibid., p. 37 (5) Ibid., p. 80 -4- ensured that primary relations were carried out within the ethnic group,but also,that, to a certain extent, these precluded relationships outside the group on a secondary level. (1) Lees based her study on an empirical invest- igation of three areas of concentrated Irish settlement, using census data to determine the socio-economic and socio-demographic status of the Irish community. She discovered that the Irish had maintained their identity largely through a life-style based on primary group relations with other members of the Irish community. Close kinship relations had survived the urban experience and the immigrants' sense of "Irishness" had been strengthened through adherence to the Catholic Church which contained a strong Irish motif, and through the various L;ocial aid political organisations which were closely bound up with Irish nationalism and Catholicism: "They developed a cultural shield against much of the outside world. Their ethnic loyalties separated them from much English cultural and social life. Some migrants worked within heavily Irish trades or for Irish employers. Irish pubs, political groups, friendly societies, and other organisations kept migrants from mixing with English peers and fostered their emerging ethnic identity. Their marriages kept the Irish within the community while they created an environment in which an Irish identity could be transmitted to the next generation. Religion, politics, work, and the family thus mutually re-inforced an Irish sub-culture resistant to middle class messages praising self-control and assimilation." (2) (1) Lees, Exiles of Erin, op.cit. (2) Ibid., p.246. -5- A study of Highland settlement in Greenock by Lobban came to -a very different conclusion. (1) Lobban, using census data for the period 1851-1891, compared the relative socio-economic status and some aspects.of the socio-demographic status of the Highlanders in the town with other groups.