Scotland in the Nineteenth Century (review)

Scotland in the Nineteenth Century, by John F. McCaffrey; pp. viii + 149. Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998, £35.00, £13.50 paper, $49.95.

The 1990s was a fruitful decade for research on nineteenth-century Scottish history and John McCaffrey's short volume, which incorporates much of the recent material, provides a welcome overview of the period. The author took on a daunting remit to produce the book--part of Macmillan's series "British History in Perspective"--condensing the complex and sometimes convoluted history of Scotland into five comprehensive chapters. Moreover, although the title specifies the nineteenth century, the narrative extends to 1914. Understandably, McCaffrey had to be selective in his approach, and focuses overwhelmingly on political and administrative developments. Teachers of modern Scottish history are well aware that this can be a notoriously unfriendly area for students, largely because of the seemingly arcane debates that surrounded issues such as religion and the reform ethos. However, McCaffrey has a grasp of the intricacies of the nineteenth-century political process, which he uses to illuminate the continuities and changes that underpinned Scottish society at this time. Anyone seeking a concise explanation of the significance of the 1843 Disruption of the Church of Scotland, or an assessment of the multi-faceted qualities of late-Victorian Scottish liberalism, should start by looking here.

Indeed, liberalism and its ideological impact on Scotland is a strong linking strand in McCaffrey's book. The movement had political roots in the early-nineteenth century, a pivotal transition period due to industrial expansion. McCaffrey vividly conveys the demographic impact of economic change, from the populous, frontier-like boom towns which emerged in the mineral-rich hinterland of west-central Scotland to the phenomenon of suburban growth, as the middle classes created their own residential enclaves. For all the romanticisation of Scotland and its misty historic roots, which contemporaries buoyantly (and pervasively) projected, Scotland was already one of the most urbanised societies in Europe by 1800. As McCaffrey tellingly points out, by 1900 the four industrialised counties of Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Dunbartonshire, and Ayrshire contained forty-four percent of all the people living in Scotland. The technological climate of the times, embodied in the innovative dynamism of steam power, had special resonance for Scotland, given the much-vaunted success of heavy engineering by the end of the century. Liberalism emerged from this background, the free-trade sentiments and forthright individualism of entrepreneurs coalescing with the radical emphasis on education and self-reliance as a means of community betterment. McCaffrey shows that despite political challenges, especially by the 1900s, these distinctive liberal values remained strong.

Politics and power are, of course, inextricably connected and McCaffrey is especially revealing about the controlling influence of elites in Scotland throughout the nineteenth century. His careful focus on the reform era of the 1830s explains how far tensions had emerged between traditional landed interests and the new industrial middle classes. Yet the electoral changes engendered by reform were less extensive in Scotland than south of the Border, largely because the landed interests managed to ensure that the political weight of numbers was skewed disproportionately in their favour. Not surprisingly, the concentration of land ownership remained an emotional subject in Scotland, of enormous importance to the vexed question of the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. McCaffrey's thorough investigations into Irish immigration, based on his personal research interests, also relate directly to the land issue, as it was a politicising influence on the significant Irish presence in Scotland. Here the author manages to convey a fluid sense of political continuity, from the Corn Law debates of the 1830s to the impact of Henry George and the land restoration movement during the 1880s, which in turn had a profound impact on the fledgling Labour party. Despite striking generational changes, key influences thus remained deeply ingrained in the popular consciousness, and the advantage of McCaffrey's short book (which covers only 128 pages of narrative) is...