Scotland: history from 1746

For the history of Scotland before 1746, see Scotland: history to 1058, Scotland: history 1058 to 1513, Scotland: history 1513 to 1603, and Scotland: history from 1603 to 1746.

Political stagnation and intellectual ferment In the half century following the last Jacobite rebellion Scotland was politically stagnant. Only two Scottish statesmen played any part in the united fortunes of England and Scotland. The first of these was the Earl of Bute, who as prime minister (1762-63) had a strong influence on George III. The second was Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, whose Tory influence in Scotland predominated until his impeachment in 1806.

Despite the political stagnation, this period was marked by the intellectual ferment of the Scottish Enlightenment. Schooling in Scotland had been widespread since the Reformation, and Scotland also possessed four active universities, in comparison to England's then moribund two. In this climate a number of important thinkers emerged, among whom might be mentioned David Hume in philosophy, and Adam Smith, whose Wealth of Nations revolutionized economic thought. Science and medicine also flourished, and the technical innovations of men such as James Watt helped to power the Industrial Revolution that was getting underway in Britain.

The era of reform The French Revolution of 1789 excited a desire in Scotland for parliamentary and municipal reform. However, radicalism of any degree was firmly repressed in the following decades. In 1817, for example, the leaders of the Hampden Club, a democratic society, were tried for sedition, and military suppression of the general strike declared in Glasgow and Paisley on 1 April 1820 resulted in what is known as the ‘Radical War’, an abortive workers' revolt. Eventually, in 1832 the Scottish Reform Act was passed (see Reform Acts). By the extension of the franchise and the redistribution of the burghs, Scottish representation in Parliament was increased from 45 to 53 seats.

Scottish reforming zeal was then directed towards the Church of Scotland, and Thomas Chalmers headed a movement against the lay patronage of pastors. Patronage had, however, been established by law, and the conflict became one between church and state, culminating in the ‘Disruption’ of 1843, whereby the Church of Scotland split in two, and the new Free Church of Scotland was set up, not to be reunited again until 1929.

Following the Disruption a new poor law was passed in 1845, necessitated by the fact that formerly, when all inhabitants had belonged to the one church, poor relief had been administered by the kirk sessions. It was in 1845 transferred to the parish councils, but by the Local Government Act of 1928 the work was taken over by the county councils. The Reform Act of 1832 was supplemented by an extension of the franchise under the Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884.

The Industrial Revolution and the Clearances The 19th century is, however, not so much remarkable in Scotland for political and ecclesiastical history as for the Industrial Revolution and the rapid pace at which Lowland Scotland became industrialized and prosperous. The mines, factories, and shipyards of Scotland attracted thousands of Irishmen to the country from 1850 onwards, partly counterbalancing the movement of Scots out of the country.

Advances in agriculture were also marked, especially in the more fertile Lowlands. In this respect the landowners set an admirable example, but in the Highlands the landowners lent their lands to the encroachments of the Lowland sheep farmers and dispossessed the ancient crofter families. This dispossession of the crofters - known as the Clearances - had stared in around 1750, and continued to the end of the 19th century, leading to wholesale emigration to the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Government in Scotland Scotland for long suffered under an inefficient administrative machine. After the union of 1707 the position of Scottish secretary of state was established, but was abolished in 1746. Scotland then fell under the control of the home secretary, who relied on an unofficial ‘minister of Scotland’, or on the lord advocate (the chief law officer of the crown in Scotland). Under the premiership of George Canning, in 1827 the lord advocate was made directly responsible for Scottish affairs, but later such an accumulation of business fell to the lord advocate that the position of secretary for Scotland was created in 1885; not until 1926 was this office raised to its former position of a secretaryship of state. One of the first acts of the Conservative government returned to power in 1951 was to establish the office of minister of state in the Scottish Office, the implication being that henceforth Scotland was to suffer less from centralized treatment from Whitehall in London. In local government, a two-tier system of regions and districts was introduced in 1974, but these were replaced by unitary authorities in 1996.

The early 20th century After 1832 a strong tradition of Liberalism had been established in Scotland, and between 1832 and 1910, on every occasion except one (1900), Scotland returned a Liberal majority. In 1893 the Scottish MP Keir Hardie founded the Independent Labour Party (ILP), which was followed by the formation of the Labour Party in 1900. From 1910 there was a steady rise in Labour representation in Parliament and local government, accompanied by a corresponding Liberal decline. Scotland became a principal Labour stronghold, the Labour Party and ILP deriving their main support from the industrial and mining areas. The ILP in particular had its power base in Clydeside.

With the outbreak of World War I, the Labour Party lent its support to the Allied cause, while the more radically socialist ILP maintained its pacifist stance. Clydeside became strategically important as a major ship-building and munitions centre, but even during the war there was some left-wing agitation and industrial unrest. This increased at the end of the war, and at one time troops were deployed on the streets of Glasgow, the government fearing an outbreak of communist revolution.

The wartime expansion of industry in Scotland was forced to contract from 1920, and there were severe economic problems and higher unemployment. These were exacerbated by the depression that followed the Wall Street crash of 1929 and continued to the outbreak of World War II.

During World War II Scotland, and particularly Clydeside, again became the ‘the arsenal of the Empire’, and the depression and unemployment of the interwar years vanished. However, the strategic importance of the area made it a target for German bombing raids, and Glasgow, Greenock, and Clydebank all suffered in the raids of 1940-41. The Forth of Clyde became the haven for a time of the Home Fleet after a German submarine succeeded in penetrating the Scapa Flow defences in the Orkneys and sinking the battleship Royal Oak. With the English ports of the south and east coasts practically out of commission through bombing, the Clyde became a leading shipping centre of the UK.

Scotland after World War II Scotland's industry played an important role in the post-war production and export drive of the UK as a whole. Its dollar-earners ranged from the heavy engineering products of Clydeside to luxury textiles and whisky. Emigration to England and overseas, however, continued at a fairly high rate. In the 1960s there were patches of above-average unemployment in Scotland, which accentuated the emigrant tendency. These patches were caused largely by shifts in the industrial pattern of the country, such as mine closures, and successive governments made efforts to establish new industries in Scotland and even to disperse government departments there from England.

The spread of hydroelectric power aided development in the Highlands, where new industries were established by the Highland and Islands Development Board, and the Highlands are no longer wholly dependent on tourism, although this is still a major part of the Highland economy. The discovery and extraction of oil and gas from the North Sea from the late 1970s has created a boom in those areas, such as Aberdeen, where on-shore services are based, but the fact that the oil revenues were collected by the London government led to an increase in nationalist sentiment.

Economic decline With the advent of the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, the old principles of government intervention and regional aid and planning were looked upon with great scepticism. As a result, during the period of Conservative rule (1979-97) those of Scotland's traditional industries that were no longer able to compete internationally - such as coal mining, steel making, ship building, and vehicle manufacturing - were allowed to disappear, with a consequent effect on the level of unemployment, although this was to a certain extent offset by the introduction of new industries, such as computer manufacturing.

The popularity of the Conservatives, never great in Scotland, declined further following the introduction of the poll tax in 1989 (the year before it was introduced into England and Wales). Conservative opposition to Scottish devolution, which more and more Scots began to favour through the 1980s and 1990s, was another contributory factor to the decline in the number of Conservative seats in Scotland in each successive election, until they emerged from the general election of May 1997 with no Scottish seats at all.

Scottish devolution The Scottish National Party (SNP) was established in 1934 as a union of two earlier parties, but it was not until the 1960s that it had any significant electoral successes. It won 11 seats in the second election of 1974, and, together with the pro-devolution Liberal Party, was able to bring pressure to bear on the Labour government to hold a referendum on devolving power from Westminster to a Scottish assembly. Although in the referendum held in 1979 the majority of Scots who participated voted in favour, by the terms of the referendum insufficient numbers voted overall to bring devolution about.

By the 1990s the Labour Party was more wholeheartedly in favour of devolution, and following its success in the 1997 election another referendum was held on the question. On this occasion the Scots voted more convincingly in favour of the establishment of a Scottish assembly with tax-raising powers, and an act was passed to bring this about. The Scottish Parliament was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 1 July 1999, with Labour politician Donald Dewar as the first minister. Following Dewar's death in October 2000, Labour's Henry McLeish was elected the new first minister.