This thesis examines the social and cultural roles and experiences of the women of the mid-eighteenth century Scottish elite. It focuses on the women of lowland gentry families. Theirs was a society preoccupied with ideas of improvement, in which a perceived ‘change of manners’, incorporating new and diverse social roles for elite women, played a defining role as an indicator of progress. Yet until now, the lived experience of these women has remained relatively under-studied. Through archival research into both women’s and men’s correspondence, supplemented by accounts, bills, memoirs and other family papers, this thesis examines aspects of elite women’s involvement in the society in which they lived. Commencing with girls’ education and upbringing, it then considers women’s reading and their relationship with various print genres. It investigates the impact of polite culture and the forms of sociability in which elite women’s participation was expected, and moves on to relate this to women’s involvement in other aspects of public life; in particular, in the machinations of politics. It ends with an analysis of women’s travels, both domestic and overseas. In relating recent developments in eighteenth-century British women’s and gender history to the specific social context of the early Scottish Enlightenment, this thesis demonstrates that even the most well-known archives can provide insights into important fields of historical enquiry when re-examined in a new light. It argues for the importance of epistolary evidence and of studying individual experience. It adds weight to the arguments for a wide-ranging interpretation of Enlightenment culture which takes account of a female readership and audience, and contributes to scholarship which explores the complexities of regional and national variations on polite culture within Britain. It adds a Scottish dimension to the growing body of work which argues for the diversity of elite and specifically genteel women’s social roles in eighteenth-century Britain.

The National Health Service was created separately in Scotland by the National Health Service (Scotland) Act of 1947. In explanation, the official history of the NHS offers that the English Bill had been adapted in March 1946 to suit the characteristic administrative and geographic conditions of Scotland. At the time it had even been suggested that the Scottish Bill could be regarded as 'a faint echo of its English counterpart'. This thesis rejects such an explanation. Twentieth century progress towards a state medical service began in Britain at a time when government decisions were influenced by nationalism, most pressing in Ireland but significant also in Scotland. In 1911, like Ireland, Scotland was given its own National Insurance Commission. This was the beginning of a new and separate health bureaucracy. The Highlands and Islands (Medical Service) Board, the Scottish Health Board, and the Department of Health for Scotland followed. The Highlands and Islands Board set up the first comprehensive medical service in Britain. Independent of the Ministry of Health, and stimulated by the particular severity of the effects of the Depression in Scotland, the Scottish health bureaucracy made its own plans for the reform of all the country's health services, culminating in the Cathcart Report in 1936. (Since there had been little similar planning by the Ministry of Health the early White Paper on the National Health Service for Britain, hastily drawn up in 1944, was based on the Cathcart Report). When introducing his National Health Service (Scotland) Bill, the Secretary of State stated that his Bill was a Scottish Bill, based on the experience of the Highlands and Islands Medical Service and on the recommendations of the Cathcart Report. The creation of the National Health Service in Scotland therefore had a history peculiar to itself. A separate evolution, influenced by the distinctive medical traditions in Scotland, created a National Health Service that was different not only in important features of its organisation but in also its ethos and practice.

In the time-scale of one generation the island of Shapinsay, Orkney, was transformed into one of the most progressive and productive farming communities in Scotland. A number of small estates, run by three separate and distinctive landlords, were brought under the stewardship of one Orcadian born proprietor. David Balfour invested much of his inherited wealth, and government grants, in converting the subsistence based agriculture of Shapinsay into a 7,500 acre ‘floating farm’, complete with 160 new farms and a network of square, ten-acre, fields. Shapinsay is a microcosm of the nineteenth century agricultural improvement that transformed Orkney, fully three generations after the same developments in the Lothians, Borders and North East Scotland. The disruption of the population (never in excess of 950) caused considerable initial hardship and brought conflict between the small tenantry, many members of the United Presbyterian Church, and their Episcopalian land-lord. The introduction of a rival denomination, the Congregationalists, and a number of overt (and covert) elements of social control, forced the tenantry into conforming to Balfour’s ideal of a planned island economy. The pragmatism of these farmers in accepting his diktats on six-phase rotation, enclosed fields, over-wintered live-stock and long-term performance leases, led eventually to stability of tenure and owner-occupancy. In addition to an ethos of competition, exemplified by a calendar of public events on Shapinsay, Balfour promoted the island as an example of ‘uniqueness’ and as a community that could be prosperous and progressive while staving-off the catastrophic effects of emigration and cyclical famine. To this end he lauded his ‘blueprint’ through voluminous correspondence with landowners through Highland and Hebridean Scotland.

The past decade has witnessed a debate in the literature over the best way to explain patterns of gender inequality. The central objective of contributions has been to understand the processes which underlie differences in the experiences of men and women. Particular concern is directed at processes which lead to women's unpaid labour in the home and to their position, vis-a-vis men, in paid employment where they are found in segregated and low paid occupations. Theoretical developments range from dual systems approaches, which try to explain gender by combining a theory of patriarchy with a marxist theory of capitalism, to approaches which argue for a single, integrated explanation of production and reproduction. This thesis assesses these developments and finds current understandings lacking in two respects. Firstly, although there is a recognition of the inadequacy of marxist categories in accounting for gender they are, nonetheless, given a central place in explanations. Similarly, variation in the experience of men and women are often discussed but are rarely incorporated into theoretical explanations where they appear as significant categories. A large part of the problem stems from the abstract level at which the development of explanations has been carried out. The argument presented here is that advances in theoretical explanation require that the processes underlying patterns of gendered experience are properly identified, and that this can only be achieved by a thorough empirical examination of the wider context in which women labour. Those contributing to the debate have focused on a few symbolic occurrences in the nineteenth century such as protective legislation, male trade union exclusivism and the family wage.

This thesis focuses on the relationship between Gaelic Scotland and Gaelic Ireland during the classical age (c. 1200-c. 1650) - on perceptions, attitudes, and outlooks. How did the Gaels of Ireland view Scotland and the Scottish Gaels? How in turn did the Gaels? How prominent was Gaelic Scotland in the Irish Gaelic view of the world, and vice-versa? The thesis begins with an overview of intellectual paradigms that have been applied to understand the cultural position of the late medieval Gaelic world. One standard view is that Gaelic Ireland and Gaelic Scotland formed a single 'culture-province', a region of unified, largely unvarying culture. Another suggests that Gaelic Scotland was the 'poor sister', systematically dependent upon the cultural leadership and dominance of Gaelic Ireland. The thesis explores these and other related viewpoints in detail. Chapter 1 considers the historical background. Both Gaelic Ireland and Gaelic Scotland underwent significant change during this period, largely in reaction to de-Gaelicizing influences in the two countries, most notably in Scotland where the country became effectively divided into a de-Gaelicized 'Lowland' region and a Gaelic 'Highland' region. The political interactions between Gaelic Scotland and Gaelic Ireland are discussed in detail, with particular attention to the role of Scottish Gaelic mercenaries in late medieval Ireland. Chapter 2 focuses on the literary and intellectual culture of the time, exploring the ways in which the culture of Gaelic Scotland related to that of Gaelic Ireland. This culture was essentially 'pan-Gaelic', with a learned class that transcended borders. Particularly important was the role of the trained poets, who moved between the two countries. Chapter 3 is a detailed study of the vision of the relationship between Gaelic Scotland and Gaelic Ireland presented in the work of these trained poets. The worldview of the poets was a strongly Hiberocentric one, and the position of Scotland within it ambiguous and contradictory, sometimes included and sometimes overlooked.

Knighthood was not only a military status which members of the nobility could attain, but also a powerful social and political tool for the crown. James I, James II, James III and James IV all used knighthood as a way of controlling members of the nobility. The honour was usually bestowed to signify a man’s commencement in royal service, or to reward him for service which he had already provided. Over the course of the century the need for knights in a military capacity declined, and knighthood changed from a career which esteemed heroics on the battlefield to one which demanded equal parts of martial skill and administrative, political and diplomatic abilities. However, while warfare was changing so dramatically, the ideals of chivalry underwent a revival. This was manifested through ideas promoted in literature, but also through traditional chivalric displays. These displays, namely tournaments, were held infrequently throughout the century, until the reign of James IV, who adopted a programme of chivalric reform, which included numerous crown-sponsored tournaments and jousts. Whilst knights were important in everyday court life, there was a steady decline of interest in chivalric knighthood from the start of the century. James I returned to Scotland with ideas for reform based on what he had witnessed during his years at the English court, and he focused more on using his knights in political and administrative posts. James II had a keen interest in chivalry, but his time was spent predominantly on waging military campaigns of a type which increasingly rendered the knight’s traditional role futile. James III showed less interest in chivalry than his predecessors, and although scholars have often credited him with founding a chivalric order of knighthood in the 1470s, these assertions are ill-founded. In fact, James III all but ignored the common ideology which was shared by an important section of his nobility. There was, however, a revival of chivalry in the reign of James IV, when the king attempted to promote himself as a chivalric patron and encourage his knights to pay tribute to the ideals of the mythical Arthurian court.

From the late 18th century there was an increase in the formation of voluntary associations in Britain and a growth in the membership of such organisations. This thesis analyses the historical significance of voluntary societies created and supported by the Edinburgh middle class between 1780 and 1820. Chapter Two outlines the social structure of Edinburgh in this period. Using categorised occupational titles from the Post Office Directories, the diversity of the middle class, and the preponderance of small units of production and retailing is emphasised. Chapter Three contextualises the changing typical cultural form of elite voluntary associations from relatively small, exclusivist, ephemeral and introverted organisations to more open 'subscriber democracies' which publicly projected their aims and aspired to gain social authority. The next three chapters examine the impetus, aims, institutional practices and memberships of key voluntary societies in the fields of policing and poor relief, religion and education. It is argued that the cultural production of such organisations was crucial for the mediation of power within and between classes during this period of rapid social change. Although elite-led, voluntary associations provided concensual platforms of common interest for the Edinburgh middle class, appealing to their shared concerns about commercial prosperity, discrimination in the distribution of resources, and the supervision of the poor. Chapter Seven uses techniques of nominal record linkage to provide quantitative evidence of the social characteristics of membership of various types of Societies. The over-representation of the legal/commercial elite, and the under-representation of lower middle class groups compared to their proportion in the middle class as a whole is emphasised. Interconnections between certain types of membership lend substance to the argument for a growing cohesiveness of middle class organisation. The thesis contributes to our understanding of the dynamics of middle class formation in the early 19th century. The creation of a self-aware and socially confident middle class by the 1820s was partly due to their participation in voluntary associations which claimed to be representative of Edinburgh inhabitants in ways which local state and parish-based authorities could not be.

This thesis examines what the word Scotland meant to Scottish people of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. The answer to this question is sought through analysing how Scottish nationhood was constructed through the interaction of various narratives each representing a particular notion of Scottishness, using sources such as Scottish chapbooks, Sir Walter Scott’s writings, academic historiography and the engravings distributed by the Royal Association of Promotion of Fines Arts in Scotland. While the chapbook representation of Scottishness was based on the dialectics of the nation versus tyranny embodied by civil liberty, religious freedom and loyalism, aiming at achieving different ends, each representation of Scottishness shared the common purpose of legitimising their intention of participating in British politics through their version of the language of the nation. In contrast to this particular version of Scottishness, what was constructed as the notion of Scottishness amongst Scott’s writings, academic historiography and engravings reflect the vision of their readers and viewers, mainly drawn from the landed elite and later from the Scottish bourgeoisie. For those readers and viewers, the notion of Scottish nationhood was used to legitimise the <i>status quo </i>of <i>de-facto</i> autonomy of Scotland within Britain self-governed by themselves. These differences and varieties in the construction of Scottish nationhood amongst these sources demonstrate the multiplicity of Scottishness which reveals the nature as well as class identity as fluid and situational. Such multiplicity can be understood in the relationship between nation and other identities, especially the dialectics of nation and class rather than by fixing national identity with a particular identity.

Custom records have long been recognised as an invaluable aid in the study of overseas trade. In Scotland these records have survived virtually intact from the middle of the fourteenth century, and their importance is magnified considerably owing to the limited number of alternative sources relating to trade. Moreover, they are the only long-term quantitative source relating to the economy of medieval and early modern Scotland. In previous work on the Scottish custom accounts little attention has been given to their reliability as export figures, while those export figures which have been presented have tended to be limited in coverage and lacking in precision. As a result, it is impossible to establish accurately either the long-term or short-term trends in Scottish overseas trade. This thesis examines the customs administration, looking at the extent and changes in the custom jurisdictions, the export locations, the incidence of smuggling and embezzlement, clerical mistakes made during the compilation of the accounts, and the costuming procedure for each major commodity- wool, woodfells, hides, cloth, fish, salt, coal, lead, re-exports, and English imports. This analysis determines the value and limitation of the custom accounts as evidence of exports. For the first time, therefore, together with consideration of these findings, export figures, in both tubular and graphical form, are presented, for each year from 1328 to 1600: export figures are given for each commodity and total trade, for each custom jurisdiction and for the whole country. Finally, with the aid of the export figures, the trends in Scottish exports are discussed, and compared with the situation that pertained in England. It is hoped that this thesis will further the study of European trade, and be a significant tool for the examination of the medieval and early modern Scottish economy.

This thesis examines the relationship between employment and the social identity of bank staff in Scotland during the period 1850-1939. Bank staff are used as an example of the lower middle class of minor professionals and clerks, a then growing social stratum that has received limited academic attention. The thesis critically reassesses existing accounts by adopting a quantitative prosopographical approach as well as economic theories previously unused in historical research. The thesis can be split into three sections. The first section (chapters 2 - 3) outlines the business of banking in Scotland and the business of the Royal Bank of Scotland. This provides a context that informs the subsequent analysis of employment and identity. Both chapters depict banking in Scotland as passing through three phases. These are distinguished on the basis of the structure of the sector, the organisational form adopted by the banks and geographical scope of their business, as well as the competitive arrangements reached and approach to asset management. In addition the conduct of banking is considered, then the internal organisation and management of the banks outlined. The second section of the thesis (chapters 4 - 6) examines the economics of bank employment. Chapter 4 considers the establishment, then development during the first three quarters of the nineteenth century at the Royal Bank of what is identified as an internal labour market, a concept introduced from the economics literature. It concludes the arrangements reached - incremental salaries, stable, long-term employment, internal promotion and a wide range of paternalistic benefits - were: firstly, a rational means of encouraging loyalty and effort in circumstances where opportunistic behaviour was possible and potentially costly, but monitoring expensive and imperfect, and secondly, a means of securing then facilitating the exercise of managerial authority. Chapter 5 outlines how Royal Bank staff fared up until World War I. It argues the standard of living most bank staff and clerks more generally experienced can be viewed in more positive terms than has previously been thought. Chapter 6 examines a key trend identified in the preceding two chapters: a growing majority of recruits left Scottish banking on or shortly after completing an apprenticeship. The third section of the thesis (chapters 6 - 8) analyses how bank staff understood and related to society as a whole.