LEAVING SCOTLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The nineteenth century saw a vast movement of peoples from Scotland, Ireland and England across the Atlantic to the colonies of North America. These included many Scottish families, some of whom saw the opportunities offered by the New World as an escape from the deprivation and social change they had suffered in their homeland.

The Highland Clearances (1762–1853), especially, resulted in a massive movement of poor Scots to the Lowlands and then to the growing industrial centres of Glasgow and northern England – to Newcastle, Liverpool and eventually to London and other large cities and ports. Families were tempted by the offer of employment in the fast growing industries which had burgeoned with the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the promise of a higher standard of living.

The subsequent depopulation of the Lowlands from 1828–60 and the Scottish Potato Famine of 1836–37 added to those who chose to leave. And in vast numbers they did, from ports in every part of the British Isles – from Glasgow, Liverpool, Belfast, Bristol and London – to seek better fortune on the other side of the Atlantic.

The emergence of an independent United States of America a century before had added to the expectations of opportunities for those who undertook the weeks-long journey across the Atlantic to the ports in Canada and the US along the St Lawrence River, sometimes with their extended families.

Many Scots families had settled in the newly-formed provinces of Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in Canada, and the northern states of New England in the US, namely New York, New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts – and eventually further west to Michigan, Ohio and Indiana – states which still bordered the southern boundaries of the Great Lakes.

Wherever they went, the Scots were renowned as administrators, traders, teachers and engineers – and they became a crucial part of the building of the new nations of Canada and the United States of America. Later they were a major part in the forming of the countries of the British Empire – India, Burma, Cape Colony, Natal, Rhodesia, The Sudan, Australia and New Zealand.