Poor Relief in Edinburgh and the Famine of 1621-24

Abstract

Between the years 1621-24, Scotland and the north of England were afflicted by a famine which must count amongst the more important demographic events of the seventeenth century. Michael Flinn did not flinch from calling it "a national disaster" which may have surpassed the so-called "Seven Ill Years" of the 1690s in its scale and intensity. i The timing of the famine is also significant; twenty-four separate cases of either localised or national food shortages have been identified in the period 1550-1600, but by the second decade of the seventeenth century, Scotland seems to have been exporting surplus grain and reducing imports of victual from the Baltic. ii The crisis of 1621-24 has primarily raised interest amongst historians who see it as an indicator of the persistent instability of what was still, for most people, a subsistence economy in Scotland. Furthermore, it has been used to highlight the shortcomings of a poor relief system that was not designed to cope with large-scale destitution. iii Rosalind Mitchison's work has been particularly influential in establishing this view. She rightly stressed how formidable obstacles to collective action in the localities severely limited the effectiveness of legislation on poor

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