Emigration & Immigration
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/lear
ning/learningzone/clips/4353/
Industry and agriculture attracted men and women to leave their
homes to seek work. In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries,
Clydeside absorbed huge numbers of Highlanders and rural
Lowlanders to work in mills, mines, factories and shipyards.
Emigration
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/learning/learningzo
ne/clips/4353/
Push factors and Pull factors?
• In the nineteenth century almost 3/4 of emigrant
Scots (around 900,000 individuals) crossed the
Atlantic.
• Although most
were bound for the
United States, until
1847 more Scots
went to Canada
than to any other
destination.
Push-pull factors
• Migration is often analysed in terms of the "pushpull model", which looks at the (negative) push
factors which drive people to leave their
countries and the (positive) pull factors which
attract them to their new countries.
• Migration can occur as result of push and pull
factors.
• Push factors are those which force a person to
move. This can include drought, famine, lack of
work, & eviction.
• Pull factors are those which encourage a person
to move. These include work, a better standard of
living, free land, a chance to start again.
Highland Clearances
• Landowners and crofters came into conflict –
masses of people left the Highlands for
Lowland Scotland, America, Canada,
Australia & New Zealand
• Land could be more profitable from sheep
farming
• Crofters evicted
• In C19th population of Highlands fell
dramatically
• New opportunities in textile mills in the south
Table of events in Highland Clearances
18001801
1820s
1832
1836-7
1840s
1850s
1852
1886
First clearances in Sutherland. Beginning
of evictions
Riots in Sutherland and Ross
Outbreak of cholera
Famine
More evictions throughout the Highlands
Deer farming becomes popular and a
decline in evictions starts
The Highland and Island Emigration
Society formed, offering ships & assistance.
Crofting Act makes it difficult to evict
Highlanders
• Tenants moved off the land to the
coast to make way for sheep, (and
later deer farming)
• Ex-farmers expected to become
Herring Gutters in
Stornoway
fishermen
• Many people moved off the land starved & froze to
death at the site where their home had been.
Starvation was everywhere.
I have been increasing my sheep stock as the removal
of crofters made space. The crofters could not pay
their rents. The population, which was 500 is reduced
to 150. … Two of the crofters are in Tobermory; all the
others went to America, Australia or the south of
Scotland.
Estate owner Francis Clark, 1851.
A magazine illustration from 1853
showing the loading of a ship with
emigrants from the Isle of Skye,
northwestern Scotland.
• The actions of the lairds or Scottish landlords were
“push factors”
• Some landlords actively encouraged people to
emigrate.
Sir James has offered to provide 1000 free passages for
people and their families as may desire to emigrate, to
cancel all debts due to him and to leave them their stock.
James Matheson, Island of Lewis 1850s
Irish immigration
Many of the Irish who emigrated to Scotland had worked
on the land. In Scotland there was no land for them. They
did unskilled labour often undercutting the wages of
Scottish workers.
Irish labourers came to work on the land and in the mines,
and to help build the canals and railways.
• The rapid growth of the iron and mining
industries in the Central belt attracted a
huge influx of immigrants (mainly Irish
and Highlanders) into the area to work
• in the mines, ironworks and foundries.
• Many of these immigrants were single
men with no local ties who found it
difficult to get accommodation in the hopelessly overcrowded
towns. In the mid 19th century establishments known as
Model Lodging Houses were built in industrial towns.
• This at least helped the problem. They usually consisted of
a number of small cubicles in which the men slept, with a
communal dining area.
• During the 19th century it was common for Irish labourers to
work seasonally on Scottish Lowland farms.
• The construction of canals and later the railways employed
large numbers of Irish labourers, who lived temporarily
wherever work took them.
• Some were joined by their families and remained in Scotland.
• The first permanent Irish immigrants were handloom weavers. By 1830
around one third of Glasgow's weavers were Irish. Others worked in the
Lanarkshire coal mines. The failure of the Irish potato crop in 1845-9
brought famine to hundreds of thousands, and a large number came to
Scotland. Ironically, as Scots left, Irish immigration into Scotland was
increasing.
• More Irish people came to Scotland after the potato famine than went to
England and Wales. This migration continued for decades, adding to
those who were born in Scotland of Irish parents or grandparents.
Source C is evidence given to a Parliamentary Enquiry in 1836 by
Alexander Carlisle who ran a spinning mill in Paisley.
Source C
Our mills never would have grown so rapidly if we had not had large
numbers of Irish families. The work of this town requires women and
children as well as men. Without the Irish, a sufficient number of
workers would never have been found. The large immigration of the
Irish at the harvest season also proves a great advantage to our
farmers.
3. How useful is Source C for investigating the results of Irish
immigration into Scotland?
3 marks
Source C is evidence given to a Parliamentary Enquiry in 1836 by
Alexander Carlisle who ran a spinning mill in Paisley.
Our mills never would have grown so rapidly if we had not had large
numbers of Irish families. The work of this town requires women and
children as well as men. Without the Irish, a sufficient number of workers
would never have been found. The large immigration of the Irish at the
harvest season also proves a great advantage to our farmers.
Source D is from “Changing Life in Scotland and Britain”.
Many native Scots resented the Irish. They accused them of dragging
down wages. While this was undoubtedly true, it has to be
counterbalanced by saying that by 1880 they were becoming prominent in
Trade Unions and were helping to push up wages. However, the arrival of
large numbers of desperately poor Irish did nothing to ease the already
overcrowded housing situation. Moreover, their arrival sometimes
increased existing tensions over religious beliefs and practices.
4. What evidence is there in Source C that the arrival of Irish immigrants
brought benefits?
What evidence is there in Source D that the arrival of Irish immigrants
did not bring benefits?
5 marks
5. How far do you agree that the arrival of Irish
immigrants brought benefits for all Scots?
You must use evidence from the sources and your
own knowledge to come to a conclusion.
4 marks