Scotland's response to the end of the British Empire was different from reactions in the rest of the UK. This thesis examines the specific ways in which Scottish civil society and politics engaged with British decolonisation during the 1950s and early 1960s. The thesis draws heavily on the understudied archival records of Scottish civil society and pan-UK political groups to demonstrate that a conspicuous critique of decolonisation emerged north of the border. It shows (in Chapters I and II) that the most powerful and distinctive strand of anticolonialism in Scotland coalesced Scottish civil society organisations, primarily the Church of Scotland (CoS). Transnational connections, especially in Central Africa, shaped an anticolonialism largely driven by an Edinburgh based middle-class establishment which found its primary focus on opposing the imposition of the Central African Federation on Nyasaland and the Rhodesias. As Chapter III shows, this anticolonialism also found expression in the previously understudied Scottish Council for African Questions, a pressure group formed in opposition to the Central African Federation, with close ties to the CoS (along with university academics and other notables). Political parties and trade unions also campaigned on anticolonial causes and their responses are charted in Chapters IV to VII. With the exception of Scottish nationalist organisations, such groups operated more in a pan-British context and had many connections to equivalent organisations in England. Pan-UK political and other organisations tended not to be vehicles of Scottish distinctiveness, but could at times be prominent local vehicles of anticolonialism. However, by the end of the decade, Scottish politics was taking its lead from Scottish civil society in opposition to the Central African Federation. By reconstructing critiques of empire in Scotland, the thesis sheds further light on Scotland's complex relationship with the British Empire, demonstrating how Scotland's transnational connections and civil society generated a distinctive response to the end of empire.

One of the most recent developments within imperial historiography has been the consideration of specifically Scottish attitudes to the expansion of the British Empire and how it impacted upon Scotland from a social-economic, political and also cultural perspective. However an unproven consensus has taken root that Scots were generally enthusiastic about this process, demonstrated by increasing participation in Britain's imperial military and commercial institutions, mass emigration to North America and the emergence of new economic sectors which depended on Atlantic trade. This dissertation argues for the existence of scepticism within eighteenth-century Scottish society towards numerous aspects of the British Empire. Crucially these attitudes were present across multiple sections of society, expressed within the records of influential institutions such as the major burgh councils or the Church of Scotland, widely perused pamphlets and periodicals, the private correspondence of prominent aristocrats and even amongst the signature works of the Edinburgh literati. This scepticism, or ambivalence, will not be presented as simply expressions of direct hostility to empire itself. Much of it related to the British Empire becoming a very different type of entity than many Scots had hoped it would be. The most common expression of this anxiety revolved around the preferred benefits of a commercial empire, based on overseas trade and often through joint stock companies and fears over the ever greater influence of settler colonies in North America. Criticism of Britain's imperial trading companies was though still very much present, especially amongst the landed gentry towards returning “nabobs.” Chronologically, and structurally, this thesis will start by considering the impact of the Darien Scheme's failure on Scotland. This disaster forced Scottish society to largely focus on domestic improvement, particularly during the first half of the eighteenth century. The first half of this thesis will demonstrate the extent to which the country's economy was not centred on imperial commerce by examining the development of the Scottish banking and agricultural sectors. Banking will feature very prominently within this thesis, partly because of what Scotland's eighteenth-century financial crises say about the true influence of empire on the economy. Also the minutes of the chartered banks demonstrate that the chartered banking system did not offer significant levels of support to colonial trading links. The second part will show how scepticism existed as a consequence of the great, and often resented, human costs of imperial expansion; whether through emigration to Britain's North American colonies or military service overseas. In contrast to these sacrifices, the presumed benefits of empire, including the wider presence of colonial products, were frequently derided as being not only harmful for parts of Scotland's domestic economy but also a source of moral and social corruption.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Akron, Dept. of History, 2006. / "December, 2006." Title from electronic thesis title page (viewed 08/20/2007) Advisor, Elizabeth Mancke; Faculty reader, Michael Graham; Department Chair, Walter Hixson; Dean of the College, Ronald F. Levant; Dean of the Graduate School, George R. Newkome. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1897. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-159).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1897. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-159).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1897. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-159). Also available in digital form on the Internet Archive Web site.

Univ., Diss.--Edinburgh, 2005.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard University, 1929. / Bibliography: p. [314]-324.