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Social conditions underwent a
gradual change in keeping with the economic advance characteristic of the
second half of the century. During the first half of it manners and customs
still differed little from those prevailing in the previous century. In the
country houses of lords and lairds, ladies in middle age wore the carefully
handled dresses which had been part of their marriage outfit. Whilst these
lords and lairds had little money to dispose of, there was plenty of
substantial food on their tables, in virtue of the payment of rent in
poultry and other kinds of produce. The standard of comfort was still,
however, rather primitive even in the houses of the country gentry. The beds
usually stood in inlets in the walls, with sliding doors, and the windows of
the rooms were without sashes. Food was eaten from wooden or pewter plates.
Glasses were scarce, if bottles and casks were numerous, and in many
households the ale or wine was drunk from the same glass, which went the
round of the table. Knives and forks were not too plentiful and it was not
considered boorish to pick the bones and make use of the knife to convey
food to the mouth. Tea drinking was creeping in and became common in great
houses towards the end of the first quarter of the century, in spite of the
protests of old-fashioned people against "the vile drug." Men of rank kept
a lumbering coach, imported from Holland and drawn by six horses, to convey
them when on a journey over the deeply rutted roads, with two footmen
standing behind armed with long poles to prise it out of the ruts, and one
to go in front to give warning of any obstruction. Lairds went on horseback
with their ladies behind them, and one of their labouring men on another
horse to attend them. Both wore homespun made of the yarn which the members
of the household spun on the rock and reel, and later the spinning wheel,
and woven by the village "wabster," except on special occasions when gayer
garments were donned. The plaid was an indispensable part of feminine
clothing for gentle and simple, though it differed in quality according to
rank. English broadcloth and foreign fashions were, however, like tea,
beginning to appear from about the first quarter of the century. The younger
generation was learning these fashions in the capital, or in Holland and
France, whither the sons of nobles and gentry went to study law or medicine.
Despite these greatly deplored innovations,
fashion changed slowly, and in Edinburgh in 1720 there was only one
milliner. In the country the travelling tailor and weaver long sufficed for
the simple needs of the country housewives of the upper class. Family life
in these homes, under the Calvinist regime, was of the Spartan type, parents
being regarded by their children not only with reverence, but with awe, the
rigid intercourse between them allowing no scope for familiarity or
endearment. Sunday must have been for the young a fearful and tiresome day,
being devoted to religious exercises, private as well as public, from
morning to night, including attendance twice at long and heavy services in
the kirk. Whilst there was much intercourse and mutual hospitality among the
gentry of a parish or district, it was conditioned by the political passions
and prejudices of the day. Whig and Jacobite assorted little together, the
Stuart loyalty of the latter being obnoxious to the former, while the
Jacobite hated with a perfect hatred the Hanoverian allegiance and the
Presbyterian strictness of his Whig neighbour. In those days of limited
incomes and large families it was not deemed a humiliation to apprentice
younger sons to shopkeepers in training for the vocation of "merchant," who
was a retailer of a miscellany of articles ranging from candles and tobacco
to lace, wine, and pearls. Many of these Edinburgh "merchants" were the
brothers of lairds, baronets, and even lords. In the Highlands, where
prejudice and pride were strong, a gentleman, whilst despising shopkeeping,
might be found keeping an inn, or plying the trade of a cattle dealer and
selling to English graziers the black cattle which he drove down from the
hills and glens to Crieff market or tryst.
The lack of communication
tended to prolong this old world social life. In 1740 Lord Lovat took eleven
days to travel in his chariot from Inverness to Edinburgh, with numerous
mishaps to the vehicle by the way. In 1749 a stage coach began to run
between Edinburgh and Glasgow twice a week at a fare of 9s. 6d. and
performed the journey of 46 miles in twelve hours—a great improvement on
previous times, when a coach and six horses required a day and a half. By
the middle of the century carriers were only beginning to carry goods
between the towns, in place of cadgers with their creels on horseback. Even
as late as 1770 a carrier took a fortnight for the journey from Edinburgh to
Selkirk and back with a load of six hundredweight. Up to 1754 there was only
a monthly stage coach between Edinburgh and London, which did the journey in
from twelve to sixteen days, letters being carried by the post in six days.
From Edinburgh to the larger towns as far north as Inverness and Thurso
letters were at first carried by foot postmen, till the horse-post gradually
introduced a quicker mode of transport. The primitive character of Scottish
roads, which underwent no improvement till the second half of the century,
certainly offered little inducement to travel.
From about 1760 the old ways
underwent a marked transformation. New mansion houses, better furnishings, a
more varied diet, and more sumptuous fashions came in. Better roads led to
better vehicles and more rapid communication, and this of itself always
brings with it social change. Instead of one stage coach a month from
Edinburgh to London, there were now two daily, which reached the Capital in
60 hours. Glasgow ultimately came into direct communication with London, the
journey lasting five hours longer. By the end of the century the journey
between it and Edinburgh was reduced to six hours. Postal communication and
inns were also greatly improved. The improvement in agriculture and trade
brought increasing 1 wealth—another unfailing innovator of old habits and
customs in I the style of living. The Statistical Account of Scotland,
written between 1790 and 1797, and throwing a flood of light on the social
condition of the people, is full of complaints of what the writers, who were
usually the parish ministers, deem the extravagant addiction of their
parishioners to new fashions in dress and unwonted luxuries. The round hat
has replaced the Kilmarnock bonnet as the headdress for men on Sundays and
market days, English broadcloth the old homespun. Their women folks despise
the coarse stuffs of less pretentious times for silks and cotton. Formerly a
watch and a clock were rarities in the parish. Now every farmer has an
eight-day clock and nearly every farm servant a watch. The use of whisky and
tea for ale and beer has spread like a plague over the land, and the
widespread practice of tea drinking comes in for more severe censure than
even the immoderate use of whisky. Fifty years ago a tea kettle was usually
only to be found in the laird's mansion or the minister's manse : now the
tea kettle is in evidence in nearly every cottage and is almost invariably
regarded by the writers as a most ominous sign of the degeneration of the
times. The growing use of tobacco among both men and women is equally
dangerous to both health and morals. The increase in the consumption of tea
is all the more surprising in view of the price, which was 4s. per lb.,
whilst the pound of sugar sold at ll^d. Wages had begun to rise and with
this rise the price of food had also risen during these fifty years. A pound
of beef or mutton, which cost Id. or l^d. per pound about the middle of the
century, cost 5½d. or 6d. towards the end of it. Similarly the price of a
dozen of eggs had risen from Id. to 4d. or 6d., a fowl with a dozen of eggs
from 4d. to between Is. 4d. and Is. 9d., a pair of geese from 2s. to 5s.
6d., a turkey from 3s. to 7s., a pair of pigeons from 1½d. to 6d., fourteen
haddocks from 1½d. to 1s. 6d., and a bottle of claret from Is. to 6s.
Another indication of what even these censorious writers regard as an
improvement was the general use of forks and knives at table, which had
previously been unknown among the country people at least. The diet of the
farming class, if not so generally that of their servants, showed a
corresponding advance in the greater use of meat. The housing of the working
class was also beginning to show a relative improvement in the better
cultivated districts at least.
The fishing population—a
numerous body in the east coast towns and villages—constituted a class by
itself. The women took an active part in their husbands' labour, gathering
bait, baiting the lines, carrying the fish in creels, containing perhaps a
hundredweight, to their customers or to the market, often a long distance
off; carrying, too, their husbands on their backs through the shallow water,
even in the coldest weather, to their boats in places where there was no
pier, in order "to keep their men's feet dry." Withal a hardy race to whom
Dr Carlyle, in his account of Inveresk, and other writers devote a well
merited meed of admiration.
The people led laborious
lives and seem to have taken life rather seriously. Holidays were few,
recreation and festivity limited. Hallowe'en and Beltane (1st May) were
celebrated by the lighting of bonfires, with the quaint practices,
reminiscent of pagan times, so racily depicted by Burns in the case of the
former. Yule and New Year were feast days in the material sense, and the
occasion of shooting matches, football, and other diversions. On Shrove
Tuesday the boys indulged in cock-fighting, the dues going to the
schoolmaster as part of the perquisites of his office. Curling^ was the
favourite winter game in the south. Archery still had its devotees, and
there was golf on the links at Musselburgh, Leith, St Andrews, and Montrose.
The tendency by the end of the century was towards increased social
intercourse among neighbours and friends by the giving of dinners and
suppers. The reaping of the last sheaf, called the maiden, was celebrated in
some parishes by bringing it home to the music of bagpipes or fiddles and
spending the evening in dancing and merriment, the girl whose fortunate lot
it was to gather it acting as queen of the feast. Another old time occasion
of festivity was " the daubing," when the neighbours assembled to assist in
building the mud walls of a new farmhouse, and after the operations, were
regaled with meat and drink, the feast finishing with a dance. Marriages and
even funerals were also the occasions of festivity and were associated with
many popular superstitions. Certain days and months— Friday and the months
of January and May—were regarded as unlucky for marrying. Some would only
marry when the moon c was waxing and the tide flowing. The day once fixed
for the ceremony must, if at all possible, be observed for fear of the evil
consequences that were supposed to follow a change of date. Marriage being "
a tying of the knot," all knots in the apparel of bride and bridegroom were
loosed before the ceremony and tied again after it. A common feature was the
penny wedding, the company present providing by its contributions the feast,
which lasted for a couple of days and was usually the occasion of much rough
merriment and excess. It was customary to invite the whole parish to a
funeral, the beadle going round to proclaim the death and the invitation,
and preceding the coffin ringing his bell on the way to the graveyard. Wakes
or watching the corpse by the neighbours before burial were held, and the
spirit of the departed was assumed to remain near the body till it was
committed to the grave and to keep watch at the churchyard gate, till
relieved by that of the next person who was buried. The day of the funeral
was practically a holiday, for the whole of the inhabitants of a parish were
invited to attend and refreshed themselves only too well before and after
the obsequies. The funeral, in fact, seems to have often ended in a carouse.
" From the death to the interment," notes one writer, whose account seems to
be generally applicable, " the house is thronged by night and day and the
conversation is often very unsuitable to the occasion. The whole parish is
invited at 10 o'clock in the forenoon of the day of the funeral, but it is
soon enough to attend at 3 o'clock afternoon. Every one is entertained with
a variety of meats and drinks. Not a few return to the dirge (potation after
the funeral) and sometimes forget what they have been doing and where they
are." Happily he adds that in his own day (at the close of the century)
these excesses were passing away.
Superstition was not confined
to marriages and funerals. The belief in fairies, ghosts, and witches was
still common, especially in the north. Ghosts of course appeared to the
benighted wanderer in lonely places. Similarly the less fearsome fairies
were to be seen in their green apparel and beaming faces, and one previously
sceptical clergyman returning from a Presbytery dinner was fain to confess
that he had been seized by them and carried in the air to his own door !
What were accounted supernatural sounds were heard at night about the farm
steading and regularly repeated, it might be, for weeks and months on end,
until some old man, who possessed the art of conjuring the evil thing, was
sent for to exercise his skill on the haunted spot. No fisherman would dream
of going to sea on certain days or turn his boat against the sun's course,
and generally the lucky way in performing many actions was that from east to
west. Second sight and the evil eye were articles of faith, incantations and
charms as a protection from "scaith" or evil still common. Other devices,
such as drawing imaginary circles, placing knives in the walls of houses, or
branches of mountain ash above the stalls of the cattle also served to
frustrate the ill intentions of the evil spirits. Lakes, wells, and rivers
had their genii who could heal diseases and foretell events to those who
sought their haunts and made them a present of some small object. Saints' or
holy wells, such as St Columba's or St Fillan's well, were invested with the
same virtue, the saint receiving for his kind offices in healing disease a
variety of offerings such as pins, needles, bits of clothing, etc. |
