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The industrial and commercial
progress of Scotland is also apparent in the expansion of its towns and the
growth of population. In the early years of the century Edinburgh, including
Leith, which since the Reformation had been a dependency of the Capital, had
a population of 30,000. In 1760 Macpherson records it at double the number.
At the close of the century it had swelled to over 80,000. Before the middle
of the century a beginning in town extension had been made by the erection
of two streets—New Street and St John Street—off the north and south sides
of the Canongate respectively. In 1763 the North Loch was drained and the
North Bridge completed in 1772, three years after the collapse of the south
end of it owing to the scamped work of the engineer, W. Mylne, and the lack
of proper surpervisioii on the part of the Town Council.
Further west a huge mound had been constructed across the valley some years
earlier. In 1788 the Register House was finished and before the end of the
century the magnificent New Town had taken shape as far west as Castle
Street, the plan of this northern extension being prepared by James Craig, a
nephew of the poet Thomson. A beginning of expansion on the south side had
also been made by the construction of the South .Bridge over the Cowgate and
the building of George Square. Town extension was a much-needed boon in a
city like Edinburgh which, owing to its situation on a ridge between two
ravines and its lack of cleanliness, was long a cramped and unsavoury place
to live in. The migration which began in the second half of the century to
the New Town was the beginning of a much belated change for the better.
Previous to this period the quaint, homely life of an earlier time had
changed little. Even lords and lairds, judges, professors, lawyers,
ministers, and physicians lived in scanty flats up the dark, dirty stairs of
its closes and wynds, as well as in its spacious High Street and Canongate.
For business as well as for drinking, which was an essential of many a
transaction, numerous taverns were available. A regular practice was to
repair thither several times a day, and for this dubious practice bad and
insufficient housing was probably largely responsible. Drinking bouts, with
their multifarious toasts and sentiments, were also an obligation of private
hospitality throughout the greater part of the century, though conviviality
was happily becoming more self-respecting towards the end of it. Life and
character might become less original owing to such changes, but the loss was
counterbalanced by the gain in refinement and propriety.
At the
time of the Union Glasgow was a pretty town of
12,500 inhabitants. In
1760 Macpherson describes it as " a beautiful and
increasing city " with 26,
or 27,000. Three years
later the number was 28,300
and in 1801 its
population of 77,385
nearly equalled that of Edinburgh. Its commerce had suffered a temporary
eclipse during the American War. For this check its merchants speedily found
a remedy in the extension of the trade with the Continent and the West
Indies. The deepening of the Clyde and the
competition of the Forth and Clyde Canal contributed materially to its
recovery. In the year in which the war ended it established a Chamber of
Commerce for the promotion of trade and manufactures. Here is the picture of
its surging industry and commerce sketched by Macpherson in 1800. "Before
America became independent of Great Britain, the foreign commerce of Glasgow
was chiefly with that country; and consequently it was deranged by that
event. But the enterprising spirit of the merchants has found new channels
of commerce, sufficient to employ their capitals and industry. They have
also turned their attention more than formerly to manufactures, whereby the
city has become the centre and fostering parent of a prodigious number of
manufacturing establishments. There are thirty printfields within the
influence of this hive of industry. The towns and villages ill a circuit of
many miles around, and some at considerable distances, are filled with
spinners, weavers, and the many other classes of work-people, depending upon
the fabrics of the loom and the stocking frame; and there are in the
neighbourhood several ironworks for making cannon and all other articles of
cast iron, which, taken collectively, are perhaps scarcely inferior in
importance to the Carron Works. The works for window glass, bottle glass,
and ornamental glass are extensive and thriving. Sugar baking, malting, and
brewing are old established concerns. But it would be almost as difficult to
particularise all the manufactures of Glasgow as those of London, and it may
suffice to say that manufactures of almost every kind are carried on with
spirit and activity, and generally in joint stocks by companies, or, as they
are generally called here,
concerns, under the management of one or more of
the partners; and that the manufactures requiring fire have the vast
advantage of coals close to the city."
Glasgow's
neighbour, Paisley, had a population of only about 4,000 in the middle of
the century. In 1792 it had reached 14,000 and a large part of the town had
been rebuilt within the previous half-dozen years. In the same interval that
of Dundee, which had suffered direly at the hands of General Monk in the
seventeenth century and had only slowly recovered, had increased from 12,000
to 20,000, of Perth from 9,000 to about the same total, of Aberdeen from
15,000 to 24,000. Over the whole country the population had risen from over
a million at the beginning of the century to millions in 1797, and in 1801
by fully an additional 100,000. |
