University History Teaching, National Identity and Unionism in Scotland, 1862–1914

Abstract

In the nineteenth century nationalism and historiography were closely linked, and the absence of separatist nationalism in Scotland had consequences for academic history. This article looks at the content of university history teaching, using sources such as lecture notes, textbooks, and inaugural lectures. The nature of the Scottish curriculum made the Ordinary survey courses more significant than specialised Honours teaching. While chairs of general history were founded only in the 1890s, the teaching of constitutional history in law faculties from the 1860s transmitted an older tradition of whig constitutionalism, based partly on the idea of racial affinity between the English and Scots, which was reinforced by the influence of the English historians Stubbs and Seeley. Academic historians shared contemporary views of history as an evolutionary science, which stressed long-term development and allowed the Union to be presented in teleological terms. Their courses incorporated significant elements of Scottish history. Chairs of Scottish history were founded at Edinburgh in 1901 and Glasgow in 1913, but their holders shared the general unionist orientation. By 1914, therefore, university history courses embodied a distinctive Scoto-British historiography, which was a significant factor in the formation of British identity among the Scottish middle classes; there were many European parallels to this state-oriented form of national history.

In Defiance of Discipline: Antiquarianism, Archaeology and History in Late Nineteenth-Century Scotland

“…124 In the universities, Chairs in History existed but their incumbents were, from the 1860s to the 1900s, required to teach English rather than Scottish history. 125 Archaeology, meanwhile, was not taught at Scottish universities during the nineteenth century, even in the classical form present at Oxford and Cambridge. It did not appear there until Robert Munro endowed an annual lecture series at Edinburgh in 1912.…”

‘That famous manifesto’: The Declaration of Arbroath, Declaration of Independence, and the power of language

“…Of course, these lines are often blurred and there have always been people both supportive and not supportive of the Union in Scotland, the complexities of which are shown in Ewen Cameron's Impaled Upon a Thistle (2010). Robert Anderson (2012) has added an important distinction between cultural and political nationalism, both of which will be evident in the subsequent discussion of the uses of the Declaration of Arbroath. Though this brief summary is an oversimplification, keeping in mind the general shift from unionist-nationalism to independence-based nationalism is necessary when considering the uses of the Declaration of Arbroath.…”

Joseph Anderson (1832–1916) and the Scottish historical collection in the Antiquities Museum, 1869 to 1892

“…This was followed by the first Scottish Chair of Archaeology being created in 1925 at the University of Edinburgh, following an endowment bequeathed by John Abercromby (1841-1924) (University of Edinburgh, online; Stevenson 1981: 190). Although history was taught as a subject within Scottish universities, Scottish history was largely embedded in constitutional history in the law faculty or studied as part of literature (Anderson 2012;Marsden 2017: 157-63). For example, Marsden noted that even though Professor of Civil History Cosmo Innes (1798-1874) had a keen interest and expertise in Scottish history, changes in the law degree after 1862 at the University of Edinburgh resulted in him focusing his lectures more on English constitutional history (Marsden 2017: 160-3).…”