Salt is a vital commodity. For many centuries it sustained life for Scots as seasoning for a diet dominated by grains (mainly oats), and for preservation of fish and cheese. Sea-salt manufacturing is one of Scotland’s oldest industries, dating to the eleventh century if not earlier. Smoke- and steam-emitting panhouses were once a common sight along the country’s coastline and are reflected in many of Scotland’s placenames. The industry was a high-status activity, with the monarch initially owning salt pans. Salt manufacture was later organised by Scotland’s abbeys and then by landowners who had access to the sea and a nearby supply of coal. As salt was an important source of tax revenue for the government, it was often a cause of conflict (and military action) between Scotland and England. The future of the industry – and the price of salt for consumers – was a major issue during negotiations around the Union of 1707. This book celebrates both the history and the rebirth of the salt industry in Scotland. Although salt manufacturing declined in the nineteenth century and was wound up in the 1950s, in the second decade of the twenty-first century the trade was revived. Scotland’s salt is now a high-prestige, green product that is winning awards and attracting interest across the UK.

The Industrial Revolution in Scotland is the first new student text on this subject for more than two decades. While the focus is on Scotland, Dr Whatley's approach is largely comparative and he places the Scottish experience of industrialisation within the context of the debate about the 'British' Industrial Revolution. Unusually, Dr Whatley's study encompasses the whole of Scotland and assesses the nature and impact of early industrialisation in the woollen manufacturing towns of the Borders and in Dundee, the Scottish centre of linen production. He also examines the Highlands and Islands, upon which industrial development had a profound impact, and which arguably suffered more than any other region in Britain, as the economy became more centralised from the 1820s. Social as well as the economic causes and consequences of the Industrial Revolution are also fully considered.

Scottish Society, 1707-1830 challenges much conventional wisdom and provides readers with many new insights into Scottish social and economic history.. Argues that the Union of 1707 was vital for Scottish success, but in ways which have hitherto been overlooked.. Contests received wisdom on issues such as the role of the Kirk and other agencies for inculcating order, and argues that the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Scotland were years of upheaval and deep social conflict in both the Highlands and Lowlands, where commercialism and later the market economy revolutionised social relationships.. The period surrounding the Radical War in 1820 is identified as a watershed in Scottish history, almost making but also breaking the Scottish working class.. Not only on an exhaustive reading of secondary material but also incorporates a wealth of new evidence from previously little-used or unused primary sources. -- .

The Industrial Revolution in Scotland is the first new student text on this subject for more than two decades. While the focus is on Scotland, Dr Whatley's approach is largely comparative and he places the Scottish experience of industrialisation within the context of the debate about the 'British' Industrial Revolution. Unusually, Dr Whatley's study encompasses the whole of Scotland and assesses the nature and impact of early industrialisation in the woollen manufacturing towns of the Borders and in Dundee, the Scottish centre of linen production. He also examines the Highlands and Islands, upon which industrial development had a profound impact, and which arguably suffered more than any other region in Britain, as the economy became more centralised from the 1820s. Social as well as the economic causes and consequences of the Industrial Revolution are also fully considered.

This book explores the ordinary daily routines, behaviours, experiences and beliefs of the Scottish people during a period of immense political, social and economic change. It underlines the importance of the church in post-Reformation Scottish society, but also highlights aspects of everyday life that remained the same, or similar, notwithstanding the efforts of the kirk, employers and the state to alter behaviours and attitudes. Drawing upon and interrogating a range of primary sources, the authors create a richly coloured, highly-nuanced picture of the lives of ordinary Scots from birth through marriage to death. Analytical in approach, the coverage of topics is wide, ranging from the ways people made a living, through their non-work activities including reading, playing and relationships, to the ways they experienced illness and approached death. This volume: *Provides a rich and finely nuanced social history of the period 1600-1800 *Gets behind the politics of Union and Jacobitism, and the experience of agricultural and industrial 'revolution' *Presents the scholarly expertise of its contributing authors in a accessible way *Includes a guide to further reading indicating sources for further study

This publication is the third in a series on the history of Dundee, as the trilogy ends with the story of Dundee in the 20th Century.As the Victorian era drew to a close, Dundee was the world's jute manufacturing capital - Juteopolis. But behind that success lay social distress - factory chimney's poured forth steam and smoke, housing was substandard and overcrowded, infant mortality was shockingly high. But as the present century dawned, a new Dundee was in the making. 'Juteopolis' no more; in its stead Dundee proclaimed itself Scotland's 'City of Discovery'. Biosciences and computer games are what many people now associate with Dundee. Students abound where mill workers formerly promenaded.This book traces the process of industrial decline and its social and political reverberations. But it is also a remarkable story of urban transformation, and how this impacted on jobs, the physical environment, social life, culture and politics.Jute No More is richly illustrated with over sixty images, most of them published for the first time.

Victorian Dundee: a city grown prosperous on more than a century's lead in linen production and for a time the world's jute capital - 'Juteopolis'. But textile production was accompanied by a strong sense of civic pride, some remarkable architectural triumphs and perhaps a surprising enthusiasm for public and private art. The traditional view of Dundee in this period is of a grim industrial town marred by social deprivation and riven by workplace conflict. This was only part of the story, and comes later. Early Victorian Dundee provided regular work and better wages than had been paid in the countryside (many of the town's inhabitants were migrants). Working people enjoyed spending money as well as earning it and were able to enjoy a range of social amenities such as the town's grand parks. This book, the first edition of which attracted very favourable reviews, reveals aspects of Dundee that have been hidden from history. This second, extended edition of Victorian Dundee: Image and Realities goes further than the 2000 edition in challenging myth-history. Included are two altogether new chapters.One is on the development - and desecration - of Dundee's ancient waterfront, resulting from the opening of new rail routes. The other reveals who Dundee' s local heroes were, in the shape of the public statues erected in Albert Square. Original chapters have been revised whilst in addition the book is supplemented by more than forty new illustrations that offer fresh and sometimes stunning visual perspectives on a great Scottish city. This is the third in the series Dundee - A New History, the others being Jute No More: Transforming Dundee which span Dundee's history from the sixteenth century to the present. Dundee: Renaissance to Enlightenment.

This collection brings together a series of papers that in May 2007 were presented at a Royal Society of Edinburgh conference organised to mark the 300th anniversary of the Union of 1707. One of the guiding objectives of the RSE event was to showcase the work of younger historians, and to present new work that would provide fresh insights on this defining moment in Scotland's (and the United Kingdom's) history. The seven chapters range widely, in content and coverage, from a detailed study of how the Church of Scotland viewed union and how concerns about the Kirk influenced the voting behaviour in the Scottish Parliament, through to the often overlooked broader European context in which the British parliamentary union - only one form of new state formation in the early modern period - was forged. The global War of the Spanish Succession, it is cogently argued, influenced both the timing and shape of the British union. Also examined are elite thinking and public opinion on fundamental questions such as Scottish nationhood and the place and powers of monarchs, as well as burning issues of the time such as the Company of Scotland, and trade. Other topics include an investigation of the particular intellectual characteristics of the Scots, a product of the pre-Union educational system, which it is argued enabled professionals and entrepreneurs in Scotland to meet the challenges posed by the 1707 settlement. As one of the contributors argues, union offered the Scots only partial openings within the empire.