Conference News: Histories of Scottish Politics in the Age of Union, c.1700-1945

OVERVIEW

In July 2024, the Scottish Historical Review Trust supported the two-day conference Histories of Scottish Politics in the Age of Union, c.1700-1945, organised by the SHR's co-editor Naomi Lloyd-Jones at Durham University. In this blog, Hannah Speed, one of the speakers, reflects on the event and the state of Scottish political history. 

Hannah Speed is a PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, researching ‘Women’s life-writing and the suffrage campaign in Scotland c.1870s-1970s’.

Is there a distinctive Scottish political history, and if so how might we define it? These are some of the key questions which motivated the papers and discussion sessions at the Histories of Scottish Politics conference held at the University of Durham in July. It is highly encouraging for the health of the field that there were almost as many answers to this question as there were conference attendees.

One strong theme was the need to take a regional approach, with some papers cautioning against making sweeping interpretations about Scotland as a whole. Mathew Nicolson’s paper on the Liberal party’s fortunes in Orkney and Shetland in the late 1940s criticised lazy assumptions about island politics and instead provided an in-depth case study of local political culture and campaigning logistics. On a similar theme, Frankie Aird’s paper on anti-slavery campaigning in Perthshire made a compelling case for looking outside the big cities and considering the regional distinctiveness of Scottish abolitionism. This combination of regional studies and consideration of Scotland’s relationship with the wider world was effectively pursued in the panel on slavery and abolition. Stephen Mullen conducted a close study of the extent of the influence of the West India interest in early nineteenth-century Glasgow, finding that while the interest drew strength from the city’s close links to the Empire, its influence was limited by the small number of MPs Glasgow returned at this time. Matthew Lee considered public perceptions of the Haitian revolution across the local press of several Scottish cities, again highlighting particularly high public interest in Glasgow.

Other papers focused on Scots outwith Scotland. Gary D. Hutchison explored how nineteenth-century Scottish Tory politicians sought seats in England as their electoral fortunes waned at home, retaining an interest and influence in Scottish affairs while remaining ‘exiles’ without a formal role in the Scottish party. Natalee Garrett’s paper considered this same conundrum in a very different context, evaluating how Jane, Duchess of Gordon expertly crafted her Scottish identity while broadcasting her loyalty to the crown as a political hostess in London. My own paper traced how participation in the Scottish women’s suffrage campaign shaped the later lives of three suffragettes, all of whom pursued political careers and activities in England at some stage in their lives. Valerie Wallace expanded on this theme in the closing roundtable, making the case for the importance of studying emigrant Scots across the globe to better understand both Scotland’s and other nations’ political history.

Different topics revealed varying levels of Scottish distinctiveness. Martin Spychal’s examination of mid-nineteenth-century constituency politics in the Scottish counties drew out key differences in voter registration and political culture which made Scottish politics both more participatory and more corrupt than in England. Fast-forwarding to the mid-twentieth century, Sarah Moxey’s paper on Scottish electoral politics in the Second World War convincingly argued that the strong presence of small, non-coalition parties in Scotland created a more competitive by-election and party-political environment than south of the border. Meanwhile, Jim Tomlinson elaborated how the concept of a distinct, measurable Scottish economy only emerged in the early twentieth century. Finally, Dave Steele’s paper on the 1838 Chartist meeting on Glasgow Green acknowledged the rich heritage of protest in that location, but also highlighted the large role that chance and good timing played in the decision to hold the meeting in Scotland rather than elsewhere.  

There was a welcome variety of perspectives in the panels, and it was particularly interesting to hear speakers from heritage institutions share insights from collections and projects outside of the universities. This included James Wylie of the V&A Dundee giving an insight into the painstaking research which underpinned the museum’s recent tartan exhibition, and indeed the complexities of making concrete statements about the use of tartan in the British Empire when so many sources are either lost or have been over-interpreted. Lisa Berry-Waite, from UK Parliament’s Heritage Collections, reflected on what a portrait of Katharine, Duchess of Atholl could tell us about the complex legacy of Scotland’s first female MP, who had a long and eventful political career but did not support women’s suffrage or define herself as a feminist.

Similar diversity could also be seen in the broad interpretations of what constitutes political history across the papers. Several speakers in the closing roundtable observed the huge changes in the discipline over the past half century, from the welcome presence of a panel on women in politics (and indeed many other papers acknowledging women’s contributions) at this conference, to the profitable expansion of the definition of political to include the politics of space and place, social networks, political culture and civic life. At the same time, Ewen Cameron’s keynote highlighted that some traditional elements of Scottish political history such as the ascendancy of Liberalism and the relationship between the church and the state were perhaps now ripe for new interpretations. The range of sources which speakers drew upon also enriched the debate. Several participants reflected on how beneficial the widespread digitisation of newspapers had been for the field, but papers also wove together evidence from personal appointment books, satirical prints, organisational papers, letters, autobiographies, art, poetry and speeches.

Finally, the conference’s culture should not go unacknowledged. Over the course of the event, many attendees remarked on the quality of the papers, the coherence of the panels, the excellent chairing and most importantly the respectful tone of the questions and discussion. It cannot be taken for granted that a conference will create a space for constructive and inclusive debate, so Naomi Lloyd-Jones as organiser, the chairs, and the attendees should be applauded for achieving this.