The New Edinburgh History of Scotland VOLUME 9 Industry, Reform and Empire 66222_Hutchison.indd222_Hutchison.indd i 002/01/202/01/20 110:140:14 AAMM The New Edinburgh History of Scotland General editor: Roger Mason, University of St Andrews Advisory editors: Dauvit Broun, University of Glasgow; Iain Hutchison, University of Stirling; Norman Macdougall, University of St Andrews; Nicholas Phillipson, University of Edinburgh 1 From Caledonia to Pictland to 795 James Fraser, University of Edinburgh 2 From Pictland to Alba 789–1070 Alex Woolf, University of St Andrews 3 Domination and Lordship 1070–1230 Richard Oram, University of Stirling 4 The Wars of Scotland 1214–1371 Michael Brown, University of St Andrews 5 The First Stewart Dynasty 1371–1488 Steve Boardman, University of Edinburgh 6 Scotland Re-formed 1488–1587 Jane Dawson, University of Edinburgh 7 Empire, Union and Reform 1587–1690 Roger Mason, University of St Andrews 8 Nation, State, Province, Empire 1690–1790 Ned Landsman, State University of New York, Stony Brook 9 Industry, Reform and Empire: Scotland, 1790–1880 I. G. C. Hutchison, University of Stirling 10 Impaled Upon a Thistle: Scotland since 1880 Ewen A. Cameron, University of Edinburgh edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/nehs 66222_Hutchison.indd222_Hutchison.indd iiii 002/01/202/01/20 110:140:14 AAMM Industry, Reform and Empire Scotland, 1790–1880 I. G. C. Hutchison 66222_Hutchison.indd222_Hutchison.indd iiiiii 002/01/202/01/20 110:140:14 AAMM To Rose and Patrick, the Future Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © I. G. C. Hutchison, 2020 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/13 Ehrhardt MT by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 1512 4 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 1513 1 (paperback) ISBN 978 0 7486 2848 3 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 6294 5 (epub) The right of I. G. C. Hutchison to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). 66222_Hutchison.indd222_Hutchison.indd iivv 002/01/202/01/20 110:140:14 AAMM Contents Tables and Illustrations vi Acknowledgements vii Abbreviations viii General Editor’s Preface ix Introduction 1 Chapter 1 The Agrarian Economy and Society 7 Chapter 2 The Manufacturing Economy 37 Chapter 3 Urban Society 64 Chapter 4 Urban Social Conditions 95 Chapter 5 The Presbyterian Churches 122 Chapter 6 Assimilation and Acculturation 148 Chapter 7 Politics in the Era of Revolutions, c. 1780–1815 183 Chapter 8 Politics in the Last Years of the Unreformed System, 1815–32 212 Chapter 9 Politics in the Age of the First Reform Act, 1832–c. 1865 237 Chapter 10 Inching towards Democracy: Politics, c. 1865–80 267 Conclusion: Approaching Niagara? 297 Guide to Further Reading 300 Bibliography 305 Index 334 66222_Hutchison.indd222_Hutchison.indd v 002/01/202/01/20 110:140:14 AAMM Tables and Illustrations Table 4.1 Death rates per 1,000 living, 1861 and 1881 96 Table 4.2 Scottish housing stock by room size, 1861–1901 99 Table 4.3 Population in house sizes, 1861–1901 99 Table 4.4 Overcrowding in Scottish houses, 1861–1901 99 Table 7.1 General Election results, England and Scotland, 1784–1812 190 Table 9.1 Conservative MPs, Scotland and England, 1832–59 241 Table 10.1 Scottish and English Conservative MPs, 1865–80 287 Figure 1.1 Farm workers at Phantassie Farm 17 Figure 2.1 Camperdown Jute Works 40 Figure 3.1 Furnacemen at Dalmellington Iron Works 82 Figure 4.1 Close no. 80, High Street, Glasgow 98 Figure 5.1 Rev. Thomas Chalmers 127 Figure 6.1 A Premonstratensian priest with schoolchildren, Whithorn 150 Figure 7.1 Henry Dun das, 1st Viscount Melville 202 Figure 8.1 Francis Jeffrey 217 Figure 9.1 Kirriemuir weavers’ banner celebrating the repeal of the Corn Laws, 1846 248 Figure 10.1 West Calder reception committee for Gladstone, 1879 285 66222_Hutchison.indd222_Hutchison.indd vvii 002/01/202/01/20 110:140:14 AAMM Acknowledgements I am indebted to the British Academy, the Carnegie Trust for the Universi- ties of Scotland, the Strathmartine Trust and Stirling University Faculty of Arts for generous financial support of the research for this book. I wish to thank the following owners of manuscripts who kindly gave me permission to quote from their papers: Mr K. Adam (Blair Adam MSS), Mr J. H. Crawford (Naughton House MSS), Lord Mansfield (Mansfield MSS), Sir Robert Clerk (Clerk of Penicuik MSS) and Mrs P. MacNeil (Kennedy of Dunure MSS). The staff at the National Register of Archives (Scotland) are thanked for their efficiency and courtesy in dealing with my requests for permission to consult manuscripts held in private hands. Staff at various university, national and local government archives were invariably helpful and friendly. David Lonergan and Sarah Foyle at Edinburgh University Press supported and advised me with great tolerance. Professor R. A. Mason and an anonymous reader read my draft chapters, and their comments greatly improved the final version. I am, of course, responsible for all errors of fact and oddities of opinion that remain. My wife Pat has patiently borne the interminable gestation of this book, for which I owe her an incalculable debt of gratitude. 66222_Hutchison.indd222_Hutchison.indd vviiii 002/01/202/01/20 110:140:14 AAMM Abbreviations BL British Library CSU Complete Suffrage Union GCA Glasgow City Archives IRSS International Review of Scottish Studies JSHS Journal of Scottish Historical Studies MOH Medical Officer of Health NAVSR National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights NLS National Library of Scotland NRS National Records of Scotland NSA New Statistical Account NSWS National Society for Women’s Suffrage NYRO North Yorkshire Record Office PP Parliamentary Papers RSCHS Records of the Scottish Church History Society Scot. Trad. Scottish Tradition SCRAN Scottish Cultural Resources Network SESH Scottish Economic & Social History SGM Scottish Geographical Magazine SHR Scottish Historical Review SLHSJ Scottish Labour History Society Journal SPBA Scottish Permissive Bill Association SWTA Scottish Women’s Temperance Association UFC United Free Church UP(C) United Presbyterian (Church) USC United Secession Church 66222_Hutchison.indd222_Hutchison.indd vviiiiii 002/01/202/01/20 110:140:14 AAMM General Editor’s Preface The purpose of the New Edinburgh History of Scotland is to provide up-to- date and accessible narrative accounts of the Scottish past. Its authors will make full use of the explosion of scholarly research that has taken place over the last three decades, and do so in a way that is sensitive to Scotland’s regional diversity as well as to the British, European and transoceanic worlds of which Scotland has always been an integral part. Chronology is fundamental to understanding change over time and Scot- land’s political development will provide the backbone of the narrative and the focus of analysis and explanation. The New Edinburgh History will tell the story of Scotland as a political entity, but will be sensitive to broader social, cultural and religious change and informed by a richly textured understanding of the totality and diversity of the Scots’ historical experience. Yet to talk of the Scots – or the Scottish nation – is often misleading. Local loyalty and regional diversity have more frequently characterised Scotland than any perceived sense of ‘national’ solidarity. Scottish identity has seldom been focused primarily, let alone exclusively, on the ‘nation’. The modern discourse of nationhood offers what is often an inadequate and inappropriate vocabulary in which to couch Scotland’s history. The authors in this series will show that there are other and more revealing ways of capturing the distinctiveness of Scottish experience. The astonishingly rapid and wide-ranging changes that Scotland experi- enced in the century after 1790 were not only without precedent, but trans- formed the country beyond all recognition. What was in the late eighteenth century a relatively under-populated rural society was by the 1880s densely populated, highly urbanised and heavily industrialised. The first part of Iain Hutchison’s compelling study of these decades charts the demographic, economic and social changes that lay at the heart of these seismic develop- ments, capturing the experience of Scots of all backgrounds – Lowlanders and Highlanders, landowners, tenants, artisans and entrepreneurs – as they were buffeted by the revolutionary changes that were taking place around them, 66222_Hutchison.indd222_Hutchison.indd iixx 002/01/202/01/20 110:140:14 AAMM x INDUSTRY, REFORM AND EMPIRE and analysing the high social costs that so often accompanied them. As with the New Edinburgh History of Scotland in general, however, the politics of the period – broadly conceived – lies at the heart of the volume. Thus issues of political identity within an expanding imperial framework come under the author’s close and insightful scrutiny, while the extension of the franchise and the emergence of class politics, the great schism in the established kirk known as the Disruption and the impact of Catholic emancipation all fall under his purview. Covering an era that witnessed the rise of revolutionary nationalism across Europe, this volume engages with Scotland’s self-perceptions as at once a historic nation and a ‘partner’ in British imperial expansion in ways that are as nuanced as they are enlightening.