Statistical Accounts of Scotland

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Statistical Accounts of Scotland are indispensable documents for the study of Scotland in the 18th and 19th Centuries. The most important are the “Old (or First) Statistical Account of Scotland”, published between 1791 and 1792 by Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster , and the “New (or Second) Statistical Account of Scotland" published under the auspices of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland between 1834 - and 1845 . A modern “Third Statistical Account of Scotland” was published between 1951 and 1992 .

Contents

[edit] Early attempts

Attempts at getting an accurate picture of the geography, people and economy of Scotland had been attempted in the 1620s and 1630s, using the network of about 900 ministers of the established Church of Scotland. The time and resources involved, not to mention the troubled times of the Civil Wars , led to limited results.

[edit] Sir Robert Sibbald (1684 - 1690s)

However, the Geographer Royal for Scotland, Sir Robert Sibbald took this forward between 1684 and the early 1690s. Sir Robert circulated some “General Queries” to parish ministers, but again this was the time of the Glorious Revolution and, though progress was made, the results provided a very incomplete picture of the nation.

[edit] The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (1720 - 1755)

The General Assembly proposed a “Geographical Description of Scotland” and took some action on this between 1720 and 1744 , again during troubled times for the country, latterly involving the Jacobite Rebellion under Bonnie Prince Charlie . Nonetheless, during 1743. The Moderator of the General Assembly , the Rev Robert Wallace organised the distribution of questionnaires, as part of a scheme to find out how to support a scheme for the widows and orphans of clergy. This work helped to develop actuarial methods, and explains the involvement of a society for ministers’ widows and orphans in later work.

The Rev Alexander Webster produced a population census of Scotland in 1755 , based to some extent on Wallace’s work.

[edit] Sir James Steuart (1767) and David Erskine (1781)

In 1767 , Sir James Denham-Steuart suggested a national survey in his “Enquiry into the principles of Œconomy” and this was taken up in 1781 by David Erskine , Earl of Buchan. However, by the time this came to fruition in 1792, it had been overtaken by the work of Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster

[edit] The First (Old) Statistical Account of Scotland

Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster had studied German state surveys and wished to use what he called for the first time these “statistical” methods to measure the “quantum of happiness” that existed in the nation and find ways of improving this. In this he was a “remarkable example of Enlightenment idealism at work”. He stressed the empirical ideal of that age by lauding its “anxious attention to the facts” and he set about completing the work left unachieved by the previous attempt mentioned above. The results are crucial to an understanding of Scotland on the eve of both the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution.

In 1790, Sir John sent structured questionnaires to over 900 parish ministers, covering the whole country. This contained 160 questions in 4 sections, namely

  • Geography and topology
  • Population questions
  • Agricultural and Industrial production
  • Miscellaneous questions

There were follow up questions in Appendices - six new questions in 1790 and four more in 1791. There was an excellent response, but since it was not complete, Sir John sent out “Statistical Missionaries” in 1796 . The project was complete by June 1799, though much had been published, and Sir John was able to lay before the General Assembly a complete portrait of the nation. The reports are of inestimable historical value. Some are excellently written by ministers who were themselves meticulous Enlightenment scholars (see for example the response by the Rev Dr James Meek for the Parish of Cambuslang in Lanarkshire).

[edit] The Second (New) Statistical Account of Scotland

As mentioned above, early attempts at producing an accurate statistical account of Scotland were related to schemes to support the widows and orphans of the clergy. In 1832 the “Committee for the Society for the Sons and Daughters of the Clergy”, with the blessing of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, took Sir John’s work further. It was to be more modern (including maps for each county) and was to draw upon the specialist knowledge of local doctors and schoolmasters. It very self-consciously set out not to produce a new statistical account, but a statistical account of a new country - one that the revolutions mentioned above had changed rapidly. It was, however, very much the child of the “Old Statistical Account”. Indeed, the Rev Dr John Robertson, the Minister responsible for of the new account for Cambuslang , was the former assistant to the writer of the old account.

[edit] The Third Statistical Account of Scotland

The Third Statistical Account was initiated after the Second World War and followed a similar parish format to the earlier accounts. The first volume, covering Ayrshire, was published in 1951. Ultimately it was more rigorous and wide-ranging than either of its predecessors, covering industry, transport, culture and demographics. Volume editors ensured a more generic approach than before, but even so the spirit of the originals was retained, even if idiosyncrasies remained.

The scale of the project, difficulties with funding and finding publishers (which included Collins and Oliver & Boyd) meant that the project took over forty years to complete and it was not until 1992 that the last volume, The County of Roxburgh, was published. Another consequence of this was that the later volumes covered administrative divisions which no longer existed.

Although the project was more secular than before, sections of the accounts continued to focus on religious life, and several of the parish accounts were still written by Church of Scotland ministers.

Note: each volume is entitled either County of... or City of....

[edit] External links

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