Search

This article presents information on the colonial trades and industrial investments in Scotland from 1700-1815. The economic history of Scotland in the eighteenth century is dominated by the dramatic rise of the colonial trades. By far the most important of these was the importation of tobacco from Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina and its later sale in continental European markets, although in the last two decades of the century, the trade in sugar, cotton, and rum, from the West Indies, also assumed significance. In the middle decades of the eighteenth century tobacco formed just under half of all Scottish imports, by value, from outside Great Britain in 1772 accounted for 80 per cent of all imports from North America and the West Indies combined, and in 1762 contributed 52 per cent of all Scottish exports. In the perspective of Great Britain as a whole the achievement of the Scots traders was, in a sense, even more remarkable. In one year in the 1750's, Scottish imports of tobacco exceeded those of both London and the English outports combined. For most of the rest of the period up to the American War, the merchants of the north struggled with those of the capital for predominance. Especially during the golden age after about 1750, Scottish-American commerce was almost entirely controlled by the great trading houses of Glasgow.

Presents a bibliography of articles related to Scottish economic history between 1963 and 1970, published in the August 1971 issue of the journal 'The Economic History Review.'

There is growing interest in the ways in which, and the values according to which, economic activity is undertaken. For instance, mutual ownership has been identified as one means of helping to 'redeem' capitalism. This article engages with such issues by examining aspects of the behaviour of consumer cooperative societies in Scotland from the 1870s to the 1960s. It starts by discussing whether cooperatives represent a means of conceptualizing and undertaking economic activity that provides an alternative to the paradigm of investor-led (neo)liberal capitalism. From this, and an outline history of consumer cooperatives in Scotland, it identifies two variables-dividend on purchases and funds for education-as proxies for the values underpinning cooperatives' economic behaviour. Analysis of these variables indicates the existence of distinct cultures of cooperation, notably in the Glasgow and Edinburgh areas. The article concludes by offering two 'lessons from history' for those interested in alternative economic networks. The first is that cooperation can, and has, conceptualized and sustained an alternative to the dominant (neo)liberal economic paradigm. The second is that the scaling-up of such voluntaristic economic thought and behaviour is unlikely to present a macro-level challenge to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews periodical literature on economic history that was published in 2011. Topics noted include the origins of medieval common rights systems, statistics from the record-keeping text "Little Domesday Book," and gender roles in medieval Europe. Also addressed are the history of British maritime trade, the payment of compensation to British slave owners following abolition, and the history of the Scottish banking system. In addition, the history of property rights, cultural aspects of feminism, and post-World War II British politics are discussed.

This article draws on cases of public insult from the Edinburgh consistory court to explore constructions of credit and reputation during the eighteenth century. Scotland's unique legal context offers new insights into the honour of men and women, replacing the received view that female honour was almost entirely about sexual honour and complicating our understanding of male honour among the middling sort. In contrast to studies that view the credit of men and women as principally contradictory, this study instead identifies significant points of both overlap and divergence in male and female reputation and discusses honour as a family matter. Unlike in England, levels of defamation litigation in Scotland remained high through the eighteenth century, and both the social composition of defamation litigants and the types of insult they brought to court remained consistent. However, the forms and settings of disputes over honour changed, reflecting the interiorization of conflict as the eighteenth century progressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the records of nineteenth-century Scottish banks in an attempt to understand investor behaviour in the early British capital market. It presents four main findings, some of which do not conform to the basic assumptions of standard asset pricing theories. First, in an era when efficient portfolio diversification was not possible, the intrinsic risk of an equity security was an important input into investor decision-making. Second, our evidence suggests that businesspeople initially regarded bank stock as a consumption good, as being a stockholder gave them privileged access to bank finance. When bank lending practices changed in the middle of the century, this access-to-credit advantage associated with owning bank stock largely disappeared. Third, investors typically exhibited a bias towards banks that conducted business in the areas where they resided. Fourth, a sizeable proportion of investors were stockholders in more than one bank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

James VI (1567–1625) was chronically indebted, and this caused him frequent problems. This article presents two series of systematic data that together indicate the main contours of his indebtedness: (1) end-of-year deficits, and (2) hived-off debts which the Crown left unpaid for long periods (sometimes permanently). The hived-off debts, reconstructed individually, constitute a narrative of fiscal policy-making. Instead of a large and catastrophic bankruptcy, James in effect had numerous small bankruptcies. He benefited from an emerging structure of Scottish domestic credit. He eventually repaid many of his debts after succeeding to the English throne in 1603. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of vital registration has attracted substantial attention from both social historians and historical demographers. While much of that research has touched upon issues of fertility and mortality, the contentious issue of the stillborn child—which falls somewhere between the two—has been largely neglected. Although civil birth and death registration was introduced to Scotland in 1855, stillbirth registration did not begin until 1939. Using a range of legal, medical, and statistical evidence, this article explores the history of stillbirth registration in Scotland from a social history perspective. It outlines the problems associated with lack of stillbirth registration, the processes that eventually led to registration of the stillborn child, and the wider significance of that registration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the findings of an analysis of the salaries and the career earnings of several members of the staff employed in the head office of the Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh between 1730 and 1880. The Bank of Scotland wage data make available a (nearly) continuous wage series for a wide range of privately employed white collar workers in a key industry in the private sector of the British economy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The analysis of this data show that in spite of some important short-term disturbances, salary differentials in the Bank were robust throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The most important new development between 1730 and 1880 was the emergence of age-related salary differentials for tellers and clerks. The emergence of age-related salaries resulted in a considerable extension of the range within which the salary of a teller or clerk could fall. This extension was achieved mainly by raising the salaries of older (more experienced) workers, but meant that the youngest clerks gained little if any long-run improvement in current income between 1760 and 1880. Nevertheless, the introduction of age-related salaries led to significant improvement in the current incomes and lifetime earnings of clerks and tellers after 1790.

This article reports the findings of an attempt to measure illegitimacy in various regions of Scotland between the later seventeenth and the later eighteenth centuries. Illegitimacy came to the fore as a subject for social concern in Scotland with the start of civil registration in 1855, when figures were produced indicating both sharp regional variation in the percentage of births out of wedlock, and a level for Scotland as a whole for 1858-60 of 9.1 per cent, which appeared shockingly high to contemporary commentators. However, illegitimacy was a matter of concern to the disciplinary courts of the church, and the records of the lowest of the church courts, the kirk sessions, give evidence of the systematic handling of cases of sexual irregularity. In view of the sheer numbers involved in the larger urban centres a separate study would be necessary. The population of Scotland was, and is, small, but it contains much cultural variety, sustained into the eighteenth century by difficulties in communication and the scale of the country, and persisting into modern times.

The article focuses on the education system in Scotland during nineteenth century. The author remarks that Scotland has a special significance for West because it had a public system of education at an early stages, comparison with England, and investigation of how successfully Scottish education responded to the challenge of industrialization, therefore provide a controlled test of the hypothesis that educational progress did not depend on legislation. One line of argument is that Scotland's superiority over England was not as great as has been claimed, but the main point which West seeks to prove is that the majority of the Scottish schools, as in England, were unendowed and unsubsidized private establishments at which fees were being paid by large sections of the poor. Economic theory played practically no part in contemporary educational debates, which were notoriously dominated by questions of religion and Church-state relations. The parish schools were established by statute and financed by an assessment on land levied by the heritors, the principal landowners in each parish.

The article assesses the economics of the Scottish gate-money football industry from 1890 to 1914. The late nineteenth century was a period of rapid commercialization of sport in Great Britain. As has been shown, however, not all the entrepreneurs involved were motivated primarily by the profit motive. Whereas it is clear from their prospectuses that many companies concerned with cycling, horse-racing, and ice-rinks were looking to deliver dividends to their shareholders, the committeemen and directors of most Scottish soccer clubs changed their sports organizations into business enterprises and adopted company status with the intention of winning matches and championships rather than making money. Whether utility-maximization was more common to team than to other sports remains to be investigated. Recent research has suggested that cricket also belongs to the utility end of the motivational spectrum. Why the degree of profit/utility mix varied both between and within sports is also a subject for future research, although the work on Scottish Football suggests that the occupational composition of the shareholders and directors may have had a role to play.

This article presents information on issues related to the English and Scottish Tobacco trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The study presented in this article provides an analysis of the volume and organization of tobacco smuggling into England and Scotland in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The importance of these smuggling trades has been made clear in a number of studies, but no quantitative estimates have been made of their probable pattern and extent. It is informed that the seventeenth-century expansion of the English tobacco trade reached a peak in the late 1680s. In the next fifty years, until the early 1730s, legal imports stagnated, and then picked up once more, increasing at a moderate rate until mid-century. Nevertheless, though the rate of expansion was slow, there were important changes in the structure of the trade: specifically a nearly threefold increase in the volume of re-exports accompanied by a fall in both the absolute level and per capita rate of home consumption.

This article examines the development and performance of the economy of Scotland during wartime. This article seeks to remedy the lack of documentation on Scotland between the wars by examining in the following two sections the development and performance of its economy. These reveal the relatively poor growth achieved and emphasize the extent of "the Scottish problem" after the First World War. Section three examines the conflicting arguments which have developed over the role of industrial structure and its influence on Scottish economic performance. Both this and the following section challenge the popular view that there was no great difference between the industrial pattern in Scotland and Great Britain as a whole, that rather than structural weaknesses. Scotland's relatively poor performance can be attributed to the failure, industry by industry, to match the rates of growth achieved in the national economy. While acknowledging the importance of the latter factor, this article contends first, that significant structural differences did, indeed, exist and second, that these constitute a major part of the explanation of the relatively slow rate of growth of the Scottish economy between the wars.

The article examines the brewing trade in Scotland during the period 1750 to 1850. A macro-survey of capital formation in the Scottish brewing trade before 1800 has been made possible by the detailed examination of contemporary insurance policy records. The formative years in the development of the Scottish brewing industry coincided with the classic Industrial Revolution between 1770 and 1830. As this survey shows, the initial capital required to establish a brewery was modest. Good customers would settle weekly or monthly, and if the brewer was fortunate enough to own an inn or public house he would have an even more certain outlet for his product and a quicker return. Integration with farming also probably helped small country breweries more than was likely with urban breweries in general, because intermediate costs could be reduced. Significantly, many of these small businesses described here survived the troubled times of high grain prices, more burdensome taxation, and greater competition from rival drinks, and the majority were still brewing for local customers as late as 1830.

The article focuses on British urban redevelopment with special reference to Glasgow, Scotland. In the middle of the nineteenth century the ancient heart of Glasgow with its Mercat Cross, its Cathedral and its University was, despite its former distinction, at least as debased as the center of any great British town. Although the population had increased five-fold between 1801 and 1861, the whole of the Glasgow of 1775 remained geographically intact. There was, in the center of this rapidly expanding conurbation a medieval city, covering about 100 acres with narrow winding ill-paved streets which were quite unsuited to the requirements of an industrial city. The central business district, including the new City Chambers, had moved west, and much of the new industry had fanned out along both sides of the River Clyde and to the north. The middle classes had moved west, leaving the declining areas to the poorest classes. Virtually no demolition took place, and indeed the demand for cheap dwellings was so great that former middle-class gardens were filled with jerry-built back-tenements.

In this article, the author examines the trends of corn prices in Scotland during the 17th and 18th centuries. The study of English prices is at present concentrated on the depression in wheat prices in the south between 1730 and 1750. Prices appear to have dropped from 20 to 30 per cent between the 1720's and the 1730's and not to have recovered until the 1750's. Prices seem to have done better in Scotland in areas with a sizeable export trade in corn. It is difficult on the face of this to accept the idea that the bounty resulted in lowered prices. The export markets for Scottish grain were not necessarily shared by England. There was a fairly steady trade in here, meal and malt between Scottish ports and Scandinavia, as well as less frequent export to areas further south such as Spain and Portugal. Exports increased in the 1720's and 1730's, but by the 1750's they were more than balanced by imports, while in England this changeover occurred later. This fact and the maintenance of prices both suggest either a more rapidly increasing home demand or a failure to expand production fast enough. At present there are too many unknown variables for any close evaluation of cause, and the author indicates ways in which important factors may differ from those in England.

This article examines the standard of living in Glasgow, Scotland in the 19th century based on the published works of census-taker James Cleland. The author here presents a cost-of-living index for an important industrial centre, using local retail price information. According to the author, there are several problems associated with the use of Cleland's data. One of them is that, a realistic index cannot be calculated without a systematic adjustment of the quantities in which the commodities were expressed. Cleland merely quoted the price of each item in its basic unit of measurement, and it is essential to obtain quantities consistent with consumption over a given period. The author remarks that the determination of consumption weights raises the familiar difficulties of estimating diet, levels of consumption, and the proportion of income devoted to particular goods, problems which have long been a matter of both conjecture and controversy. The problem of determining the relative consumption of white and brown bread is almost insuperable.

This article focuses on the agricultural wage rates in late eighteenth-century Scotland. The document "Old Statistical Account," the 21-volume amalgam of over 900 parish reports sent by Scottish ministers to analyst Sir John Sinclair in response to his list of 186 questions on physical, economic, and social conditions in the 1790's, is well known to many people outside the relatively specialized field of eighteenth-century Scottish economic history. Of the various types of factual information in the ministers' reports, that relating to wages has been chosen for consideration in this instance, both because of the importance of data about wage levels for the investigation of the spread of a market economy in eighteenth-century Scotland and because the amount of data in the Account regarding wages made it realistic to hope that analysis would yield useful results. For regional differences in the amount of cash which agricultural workers had to spend on, for example, manufactured goods, or which they might accumulate as savings, must have had a profound effect both on the extent to which these various areas were linked with the national market economy and on the rate and degree to which the traditional society, based largely on self-sufficient agriculture, was being eroded.

This article examines the roles played by indigenous railways in the rise of the Scottish heavy industries. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Scottish economy was dominated by agriculture and textile production. By the end of the century these were still important, but heavy industry, in the shape of coal mining, iron and steel production, engineering, and shipbuilding, had come to the fore. Concurrent with this transformation was the construction of some 3,500 miles of railways. That these railways consumed and carried many of the products of heavy industry might imply that Scotland was no exception to scholar W.W. Rostow's generalization--the development of railways has led on to the development of modern coal, iron and engineering industries. The work of scholar R.W. Fogel has, however, demonstrated the naïvety of accepting such statements without subjecting them to statistical verification. Unfortunately, quantification is not always possible and any arguments based solely on non-numerical evidence must be treated with caution.