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Scotland - Industrial Revolution, Clearance, and Enlightenment
In the wake of the Jacobite uprising, British authorities wished to uproot Highland culture in an effort to prevent yet another campaign.
They made numerous legislative attempts to stamp out or alter aspects of Highland society, and achieved a large measure of success, though the first glimmerings of the Industrial Revolution and a modern money economy had much to do with the final breakdown.
At the same time, the Agricultural Revolution had started to change the face of the Scottish Lowlands and to transform the traditional system of subsistence farming into a stable and productive agricultural system which would make Scotland the envy of Europe.
This, however, had dramatic effects on the population, and precipitated a huge migration of Lowlanders, which commentators now recognise as the "Lowland Clearances".
In the years to follow, Scotland's fate became tied to that of the United Kingdom as a whole.
Shortly after Culloden, the British fought in the Seven Years' War (1756 – 1763), at the end of which their star appeared in the ascendant.
As a partner in the new Kingdom, Scotland began to flourish in ways that she never had as an independent nation.
As the memory of the Jacobite rebellion faded away, the 1770s and 80s saw the repeal of most of the draconian laws passed earlier.
Economically, Glasgow and Edinburgh began to grow at a tremendous rate.
A flowering of culture and science helped this growth, spearheaded by names such as Adam Smith, David Hume and James Boswell in the former category, and in science by James Hutton and William Thomson, better known as Lord Kelvin.
In 1763 – 1764 the Greenock-born mathematical-instrument maker to Glasgow University, James Watt, repaired a Newcomen steam engine and thought of an improvement, which he patented in 1769.
With Matthew Boulton in Birmingham, England, he manufactured this improved Watt steam engine, bringing a dramatic increase in use of steam.
In Dumfries in 1788, William Symington put a steam engine into a twin-hulled boat, a successful prototype for the Charlotte Dundas which in 1802 steamed along the Forth and Clyde Canal as the "first practical steamboat".
By 1812 Henry Bell's Comet had begun the first commercially-successful steamboat service in Europe on the Firth of Clyde.
Pre-eminent in this Scottish Enlightenment, however, stood Sir Walter Scott.
Scots by birth, a prolific writer of ballads, poems and the historical novels he pioneered, he more or less single-handedly set off a pan-European fad for all things Scottish in the first part of the 19th century.
His romantic portrayals of Scottish life in centuries past still continue to have a disproportionate effect on the public perception of "authentic Scottish culture," and the pageantry he organised for the Visit of King George IV to Scotland made tartan and kilts into national symbols.
George MacDonald also influenced British and American views of Scotland in the latter parts of the 19th century.
While Lowland Scotland charged ahead, the Highlands declined.
Continuing a process that had been taking place all over Europe for the previous few centuries, many clan chieftains, seeing themselves as landowners, converted clan lands to sheep pasture, dispossessing many of the small Highland farming communities.
The crofters suffered dire consequences, as many faced forcible removal from their land in these "Highland Clearances", and the population of the Highlands dropped precipitously.
Significant numbers of Highlanders relocated to the Lowlands and to elsewhere in the British Empire, particularly Nova Scotia, the Eastern Townships of Quebec, and Upper Canada (later known as Ontario).
As the 19th century wore on, Lowland Scotland turned more and more towards heavy industry.
Glasgow and the mouth of the River Clyde became a major ship-building centre, to the point that Glasgow figured briefly as one of the largest cities in the world and the second-largest city in the British Empire after London.
Article is provided courtesy of Wikipedia.org and distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.
Click here for the Scotland360.com History of Scotland Index page.
 
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