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The thesis explores the reception of the works of the Scottish Enlightenment in provincial Scotland, broadly defined, aiming to gauge their diffusion in the libraries of private book collectors and 'public' book-lending institutions, and to suggest the meanings and uses that contemporary Scottish readers assigned to major texts like Hume's History of England and Smith's Wealth of Nations. I thereby acknowledge the relevance of more traditional quantitative approaches to the history of reading (including statistical analysis of the holdings of contemporary book collections), but prioritise the study of sources that also allow us to access the 'hows' and 'whys' of individual reading practices and experiences. Indeed, the central thrust of my work has been the discovery and interrogation of large numbers of commonplace books, marginalia, diaries, correspondence and other documentary records which can be used to illuminate the reading experience itself in an explicit attempt to develop an approach to Scottish reading practices that can contribute in comparative terms to the burgeoning field of the history of reading. More particularly, such sources allow me to assess the impact that specific texts had on the lives, thought-processes and values of a wide range of contemporary readers, and to conclude that by reading these texts in their own endlessly idiosyncratic ways, consumers of literature in Scotland assimilated many of the prevalent attitudes and priorities of the literati in the major cities. Since many of the most important and pervasive manifestations of Enlightenment in Scotland were not particularly Scottish, however, I also cast doubt on the distinctive Scottishness of the prevailing 'cultural' definition of the Scottish Enlightenment, arguing that such behaviour might more appropriately be considered alongside cultural developments in Georgian England.

This dissertation investigates the development of loyalism in the colony of New York during the American Revolution. It argues that the decision to remain loyal was largely determined by local, rather than ideological, factors. In contrast to interpretations that see loyalism as a fixed, ideological construct, this dissertation shows that the loyalist experience differed greatly between distinct geographic regions within a single colony: different counties entered the war at different stages, loyalist claimants described different motivations for remaining loyal, while the nature of the activities and services provided by loyalists to advance the British cause varied considerably. Crucially, the local factors which shaped the nature of New York loyalism had historic roots which extended back into the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. New York is deserving of a detailed study because of the unique role which it played during the conflict. Captured by the British during the summer of 1776, New York City formed their military headquarters for the duration of the war and became the centre of loyalism in British North America. Responding to the emergence of recent scholarship on upstate New York during the Revolutionary era, this dissertation shows that significant reserves of loyalist support could also be found within more rural and frontier regions. However, this allegiance to Britain was not necessarily guaranteed: New York had initially been established as a Dutch colony but, during the early eighteenth-century, underwent a significant process of Anglicisation. This dissertation is divided into two parts. Beginning with Jacob Leisler's Rebellion of 1691, Part One considers New York's transformation from a Dutch colony to an English province. Tracing New York's social, cultural, political and material development, it questions the extent to which the process of Anglicisation was felt uniformly within the colony. It argues that the uneven impact of such changes produced distinctly different regions within New York, each with their own local character. Part Two forms a detailed and sustained analysis of the post-war compensation claims submitted by New York's loyalists to the British Loyalist Claims Commission. Comparing the claims of loyalists from three counties - the city and county of New York, Albany County and Tryon County - it demonstrates that the exact nature of loyalism in each of these regions was mainly influenced by local circumstance and the unique complexities of each region; the nature of which have been outlined in Part One. This study is original in the way that it makes use of the loyalist claims. Despite their vast potential, limited scholarly attention has been paid to the claims and they remain an under-utilised resource. Furthermore, this study bridges a scholarly gap that has emerged between the histories of New York City and upstate New York: in contrast to studies that exclusively focus on the revolution within either region, this dissertation is the first to compare the loyalist experience between the colony's urban and rural areas. Finally, as scholars continue to comprehend the complexity of loyalist identities, this dissertation contributes to the growing field of loyalist studies by demonstrating that the nature of loyalism varied greatly, even within a single colony. This variance not only supports the conclusions of existing scholarship which argues that loyalist identities were neither static nor homogenous, but it also indicates that the exact nature of loyalism was ultimately a product of local circumstance.

This thesis examines the fascinating and complex body of work surrounding the missionary hero as a product of late imperial ideas of the heroic produced in the form of biography. It will concentrate upon how the literature was appropriated, reproduced and disseminated via the Sunday school network to working-class children between 1870 and 1917. It will discuss how biographers through imaginative narrative strategies and the reframing of the biography as an adventure story, were able to offer children a physical exemplar and self-sacrificial hero who dispensed clear imperial ideas and moral values. This thesis will reflect upon how the narratives embedded in dominant discourses provided working-class children with imperial ideologies including ideas of citizenship and self-help which it will argue allowed groups of Sunday school readers to feel part of an imagined community. In doing so, the thesis sheds important new light on a central point of contention in the considerable and often heated discussion that has developed since the 1980s around the impact of empire on British people. Through an analysis of common themes it will also consider the depiction of women missionaries, asking whether biographical representation challenged or reinforced traditional gender ideologies. To interrogate these components effectively this thesis is divided into two parts, Part One is divided into five chapters providing context, while Part Two will look in detail at the repetition and adaption of common themes. The first chapter will outline concerns surrounding working-class children and analyse the solutions suggested to provide children with ideas based upon self-improvement, character building and patriotism. Chapter 2 examines the use of the missionary biography in the Sunday school while ideas surrounding the hero and hero-worship and literature incorporating British heroes will be studied in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 analyses the missionary biography and will discuss why the missionary, both male and female, was deemed an ideal candidate to provide examples of self-help and self-improvement. This chapter will conclude with a section introducing missionaries James Hannington and Mary Slessor. Chapters 5 will focus on the role of the publishers, biographers and illustrators. This will lead to Part Two of this thesis which comprises of four chapters investigating common features, motifs and codes within the biographies which highlight how children were inculcated in ideas of patriotism, gender and British superiority all inextricably linked to ideas of community. In conclusion, I consider how far and in what ways the thesis has advanced understanding of missionary biographies in this period, while sketching out some possibilities for further research.