Ewen A. Cameron

Glasgow's going round and round: some recent Scottish urban history

If a rural historian who has few credentials to undertake the current review may begin this essay with a point from his own field of research: there is a view of Scottish rural history which argues that far too much attention has been paid to the Highlands. A similar view could be advanced about concentration on Glasgow in Scottish urban history; in addition to the volumes under consideration have been numerous other recent titles. As Professor Morris has noted in a recent review article in this journal, however, other Scottish cities, especially Aberdeen and Dundee, have recently been subjected to variants of the ‘urban biography’ approach. Aberdeen, in particular, has come under intense scrutiny with a two-volume history sponsored by the local authority and taking advantage of the rich resources of the city archives. Edinburgh, by contrast, and notwithstanding the recent culmination of Professor Rodgers extensive researches, remains the poor relation of Scottish urban history: aside from the classic account of the creation of the New Town by A.J. Youngson and the late R.Q. Grays account of nineteenth-century social history, the existing historiography of Scotlands capital city remains interred in the pages of unpublished theses and scholarly journals.

The 1918 Reform Act, Redistribution and Scottish Politics

This essay examines the effect of the 1918 Representation of the People Act on Scottish politics. It notes the extensive addition to the electorate with the enfranchisement of adult males and most women over the age of 30 years. The main focus of the essay is on the effect of the provisions of the act in terms of the redistribution of seats in Scotland. Although the overall level of Scottish representation increased from 70 to 71 seats, there was a profound shift from the rural areas of the north and south to the industrial areas of west central Scotland and the city of Glasgow, which was awarded a further eight seats. In addition, the majority of the ‘Districts of Burghs’, a legacy of the Union of 1707, were abolished. It is argued that these changes created new political conditions in Scotland which favoured the Labour Party in the interwar period, and especially in the 1920s. The arguments – economic, historical, and political – deployed in defence of seats scheduled for abolition by the Boundary Commission are analysed.

Securitization, Memory and the (Historic) Debate on Scottish Independence

I argue that from being a new element of the debate about Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom (UK) these questions take us back to the very reasons for the formation of the UK in 1707 and its extension in 1800, and appropriation of that past in contemporary debates. Matters relating to the security of England/Britain were crucial to the birth and development of the UK. The memory of Scotland’s place in the UK is closely related to these issues. The contribution of Scotland to the military history of the UK and the British Empire—through distinctive regiments and participation in global conflict—is central to the case for maintaining the integrity of the UK. This chapter adds historical depth and contextualization to the concept of securitization.

William Gladstone: New Studies and Perspectives

tarily tie us to its largesse’ (p. 1), Beerbohm suggests, and this can leave individuals feeling almost trapped with a latent form of moral liability that can be both painful and confusing. For Beerbohm, however, the traditional chants of ‘Not in my name!’ represent the denial of a basic political responsibility that simply cannot be so easily side-stepped. His argument is therefore clear and direct: ‘In this book, I argue that there are responsibilities of the democratic citizen that are nondelegable’ (p. 2). In adopting this novel and provocative position, Beerbohm provides a sophisticated link between the generally micro-specific literature on ‘blame games’ (Christopher Hood), ‘multiple-accountabilities disorder’ (Jonathan Koppell) and the broad organizational or governance-theoretic literature on ‘the problem of many hands’ (Dennis Thompson) and the far broader literature on public disengagement and political apathy. Key reference points in this latter seam of scholarship include Colin Hay’s Why We Hate Politics (London: Palgrave, 2007), Gerry Stoker’s Why Politics Matters (London: Palgrave, 2007), Pippa Norris’ Democratic Deficit (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) and Yannis Papadopoulos’ Democracy in Crisis (London: Palgrave, 2013). At base, Beerbohm suggests that it is far too easy for ‘disaffected democrats’ to heckle from the sidelines while blaming those weary souls that do step into the political arena for the general sins of society as a whole. The author admits that ‘the theory of citizenship that I describe and defend here is not likely to induce comfort in readers’ (p. 5), but it is for exactly this reason that this book deserves to be read. Taken forward, this logic suggests that in a representative democracy citizens have reason to reduce their ‘complicity footprint’ through more active participation. How exactly this participation is to be undertaken and channeled into the institutional mechanisms of collective behavior remains uncertain but what is beyond doubt is that In Our Name is a distinctive and important contribution not just to political theory but also to the political and social sciences more broadly.

Sir James Young Simpson and religion: myths and controversies:

This paper analyses two key aspects of the life and work of Sir James Young Simpson: his evangelical Christianity and his reaction to criticism following his use of anaesthesia in obstetrics. Simpsons personal religious struggle is placed in the context of the devastating events surrounding the Disruption of the established Church of Scotland in 1843. Whatever his involvement in the events of that year, the development of his faith demonstrates his simple evangelical conviction in the atonement of Christ, very much in keeping with that of many believers in Victorian Britain. There has arisen the notion (still current as is clear from publications in medical journals within recent years) that there was a savage religious response, especially in Presbyterian Scotland, to his use of chloroform – in reality the attack on Simpsons enthusiastic promotion of chloroform was brief, sporadic and of little moment. Simpsons carefully constructed counter to criticism of anaesthesia, drawing on considerable theological and linguistic expertise, reveals a complexity at odds with the simplicity of his faith. The contrast is so great and the reaction so elaborate that it is proposed that Simpson deliberately exaggerated the affair, believing the publicity could only be valuable.

Conservatism and Radicalism in the highland press: the strange cases of the Highlander and the Northern Chronicle

This article considers the linkages between two newspapers published in Inverness in the late Victorian period. At first glance, the Highlander edited by John Murdoch from its beginning in May 1873 until its demise as a weekly newspaper in late 1881 — and the Northern Chronicle edited by Duncan Campbell from its first issue in January 1881 have little in common. The Highlander was a radical newspaper designed to propagate Murdochs unorthodox views on politics and religion: establishment organisations, such as the churches and the political parties, were treated with great suspicion. The Chronicle, on the other hand, was designed to advance the party political cause of the Conservatives in the north of Scotland. It was funded by Conservative landowners and lawyers, and the principal activist behind it was Charles Innes, an Inverness lawyer and agent for the Conservative Party. In the context of Liberal domination of Scottish politics in this period, a Conservative paper was unorthodox in its own way. Although Inverness-shire was represented by a Conservative MP, Donald Cameron of Lochiel from 1868 to 1885, Liberal hegemony in newspaper publication in the north of Scotland was virtually complete. The principal newspapers in Inverness, the long-running Courier and the Advertiser, represented different shades of Liberalism. Further afield, the prestigious Aberdeen Free Press, edited successively by William McCombie and William Alexander, was also Liberal in its politics. This structure was topped by the city-based papers, the Scotsman and the Glasgow Herald, which remained Liberal until the realignment caused by the Irish Home Rule crisis of mid-1886. The Highlander and the Chronicle, then, both stood out against the dominant political tendencies in Scottish newspapers, but from opposite points of view. The profound contrasts between them are clear enough, but there are also some connections and these contrasts and connections are my first theme. My second concerns the attempts of Conservatives in the north of Scotland, both in Aberdeen and Inverness, to establish a newspaper to counteract the dominance of the Liberal press. This resulted in the re-alignment of the Aberdeen Journal in 1876 and the establishment of the Northern Chronicle in 1881 as the Conservative Party belatedly began to pay attention to the press as a political vehicle. These efforts were at first focused on an unsuccessful attempt by Highland Conservatives to purchase unsold shares in the financially

‘Alas, Skyemen are imitating the Irish’: A note on Alexander Nicolson's ‘Little Leaflet’ concerning the Crofters' Agitation.

Introduction The purpose of this short note is to consider the contents and context of an ‘Address to the People’ by Sheriff Nicolson, Kircudbright, which was printed on a ‘little leaflet’ and published, in both Gaelic and English, in late April 1882. Nicolson professed to be shocked by the outbreak of land agitation in Skye and was keen to warn the crofters of his native island not to emulate the tactics of the Irish small tenants who had been engaged in land agitation since the late 1870s. The tone of Nicolson’s views on the crofters’ agitation and the contemporaneous protests in Ireland provides some evidence that, in the early years of the crofters’ war at least, the Irish example was viewed as much with suspicion and deprecation as it was looked to for inspiration. It also provides evidence that some of those who were regarded, or regarded themselves, as leading Highlanders and Gaels sought to control and limit the quickly developing agitation. Nicolson’s short statement, moreover, should be seen in the context of surrounding events in Scotland and Ireland, and must be compared with other views about the Irish land question which were expressed in the early years of the crofters’ protests.