Agriculture and Industry
Britain was at war for the majority of the eighteenth century - battling against the French and the Spanish over colonies in India, America and Canada. Closer to home, Britain also participated in the Seven Years War (1756-63). Because of Britain's involvement in these battles the Army and the Navy needed a lot of support and supplies. This in turn had a beneficial effect on industry and farming - farmers did not have any difficulties selling their cattle, sheep and other produce while industries flourished as items such as clothes and tools were constantly in demand. The Agricultural Revolution had the first (and most significant) effects because at that point in time the majority of the population still lived on the land. For the first time in many years improvements in farming occurred. The changes happening in England were making landowners there incredibly wealthy - Scottish landowners noted these improvements when they travelled to England and they transferred the new ideas to their own lands. A 'Society of Improvers' was established in 1723 with the objective of idea sharing and helping Scotland to improve its farming methods. However, these changes did not occur overnight - improvement was a lengthy process and those landowners who desired improvement were required to outlay a large amount of capital. They did away with the old systems of runrig crop growing and ferm touns, then divided the land into larger farms with fields and built farmhouses. The farm was then rented to a tenant farmer for a number of years at a high rent because it was now improved land. Land improvement involved drainage of marshland (in order to plant crops); fencing/enclosing and fertilising fields; and planting trees as windbreaks. Crop rotation was introduced as a method to improve the soil. The crops planted included clover, barley, wheat and turnips - some of which could be eaten by the farm animals in winter and meant that they no longer needed to be killed and salted for winter. Potatoes were introduced at this time and eventually they became a vital food source for the people.

The farmers who lived on improved farms had much better crops and were generally able to make a decent living for themselves and their families. They were able to breed bigger cattle and sheep. Their food was good and their homes comfortable - living standards improved which meant that the population as a whole grew because infant mortality rates dropped and people lived for longer. Because the tenant farmers were able to rent land for several years at a time, it was worth their while working hard and improving their resources. However, some farm workers did not rent land; instead they lived in small cottages and received a wage from the tenant farmer. At this time there were new inventions in farming, which included the metal plough (which could be used by one man with two horses), the seed drill (this planted seed in straight rows and made sowing seed/weeding much easier) and the threshing mill. However, these improvements meant that there was not as much work for farm labourers as there had been previously, so these people went to seek work in the towns.

In Scotland during the eighteenth century industries were mainly cottage industries. Linen was very important and the flax for the linen was delivered to the cottages by agents. Spinners made the yarn on their spinning wheels, then the weavers wove it on their looms - the agent then paid for and collected the finished cloth. Different areas of Scotland specialised in different types of cloth (Perth - muslin & calico; Dundee - linen; Dunfermline - damask). Most of this cloth was exported to the colonies in America. However the linen trade collapsed after the American War of Independence because cotton was grown in America, which was cheaper and easier to use than flax. Also new inventions such as the Spinning Jenny and the Flying Shuttle speeded up the production of cotton cloth. In 1769 the invention of the Waterframe by Richard Arkwright changed the cotton industry into a factory industry - Waterframe machines were extremely expensive and too big for cottages so they had to be put in mills beside rivers (the wheels were operated by running water). By 1781 James Watt had invented a steam engine which could drive the wheels. About 200 mills were built over the next fifty years in Scotland. Mill owners generally took advantage of the poor, using them to operate the machines - women and children were employed as they could be paid less. The mill workers worked for long days in miserable conditions. However, some mill owners were 'enlightened' - Robert Owen took over a cotton mill in New Lanark and he built comfortable homes for his workers, allowing them to purchase food and clothing very cheaply from the village shop. He also paid them a decent wage, and no children under the age of ten were allowed to work in the factory. Instead they were sent to a free school and smaller children were able to go to nursery. Night classes were available for adults who could attend if they wanted to. Robert Owen's business was very successful.

Another important eighteenth century industry was coal, as it became increasingly needed for making glass, salt, lime, heating homes and for export overseas. It also fuelled the newly invented steam engines. As industry expanded, the demand for coal increased. In turn the new coal powered inventions made it possible to dig deeper mine shafts as water could be pumped out of the shafts and coal lifted out by machines. The steam trains then carried coal from the mines to the iron works and to towns. Men, women and girls worked side by side in the mines up until 1842, when a law was passed which prohibited female labour. Coal was mined in Scotland - in Fife, Lothian, Ayrshire and Lanarkshire. The life of a miner was hard - they lived in small villages, usually two rows of simple cottages close to the mine. Iron industries were set up near the coal mines, and the industry increased dramatically after 1828 which was when James Nelson discovered how to use coal to smelt iron ore. His new method was called the 'Hot Blast' and was so powerful that it could smelt iron stone. By the middle of the eighteenth century over 150 furnaces in Scotland burned Scottish coal. People who worked in the iron industry had just as hard a life as the mill workers and the miners. Sometimes children worked in the ironworks - they were used to break up lumps of lead ore before it could be smelted, and when they worked at the front of the furnace they would often be showered by sparks of hot metal.

Ship building became a very important Scottish industry, because after the 1707 Union Scotland was able to trade with the overseas colonies. Ships were built on the Clyde at Glasgow, at Leith (Edinburgh), Dundee and Aberdeen. Scotland soon became the leading centre for shipbuilding worldwide. Orders were taken from all over the world and Scottish engineers were responsible for designing steam engines and boilers for famous shipping lines such as Cunard and P&O which were founded by Scots.

As has already been explained, the cottage industries died out because of new inventions and because the goods produced in cottages were too expensive to sell. As a result, people did not work at home any more, instead they went out to work in factories etc. They had to stick to the rules of the factory, but since so many were seeking employment at the time, the employers paid low wages and there were no healthy and safety or working time regulations in force at all.

The Highlands
In the Highlands of Scotland the picture was slightly different. During the eighteenth century the old ways of life changed forever - even prior to the Union of 1707 many landowners and lairds moved to the cities and to London. After the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745 Disarming Acts forbade men to own weapons. A huge number of clan chiefs had been killed, while many others lost their lands. New landlords took over the glens and the old system of loyalty to a clan chief was dismantled. The tacksmen no longer needed to raise men from the clans for war, so instead they organised the first emigrations of Highlanders to the Colonies. 20,000 Highlanders had emigrated by 1773, in search of a better way of life and their own land. There were soldiers from Scotland who had been involved in the wars in the colonies - they often encouraged their families to emigrate to the colonies, especially since some of them had been given colony land in lieu of pay. Families were glad to leave their harsh lives behind - many were driven to leave Scotland because of increasing rents and years of famine. However, some landowners and clan chiefs were concerned about the high numbers of people leaving Scotland and made efforts to prevent this. For example, the Duke of Argyll tried to establish a herring fishing base when he created the town of Inverary. All across Scotland many new villages were built and landowners tried to provide work for their tenants. Grantown-on-Spey was created as an industrial town, to produce linen, wool and timber. At Ullapool, Tobermory and Skye fishing stations were set up. However the Highlanders still departed. Sir John Sinclair built the new town of Thurso and the port of Scrabster in Caithness because he believed that as many people as possible should remain on the land. He also believed that the people should keep cattle, sheep and grow crops on the large, newly improved farms. Those people who had to leave the land were able to find work in the new industries (mining, brewing, tanning). Sir John Sinclair lost a great deal of money by attempting to improve the lives of his tenants, but his biggest obstacle was isolation as Caithness was so far from the big cities (Edinburgh, Glasgow, London) and it cost far too much to transport goods to these cities.

The Marquis of Stafford made improvements in Sutherland - building stone houses, roads, bridges and inns at Helmsdale, Brora and Golspie. Many industries including brewing, fishing and mining expanded and the people who were being removed from the land to make way for the new sheep runs were relocated to these towns, although there were some coastal areas of land which were available for smallholdings and crofts. Some of the clansfolk who moved to the coast to live missed their old way of life so much that they booked places on the immigration ships.

Some people stayed on the land until they were forced off because they didn't own the land and couldn't pay the rent. They had no rights to the land at all, even though they and their ancestors had worked and fought for the clan chiefs for so many generations. The landowners now were able to make more money from sheep farming than from renting the land to the Highland clansfolk. The new sheep were very strong and suitable for wool and meat (they were Cheviots and Blackface Lintons). The majority of the Highlanders were evicted from their homes to free up the land for the sheep and this period of history became recognised as the Highland Clearances. The Clearances were often brutal as landowners forcibly removed those who refused to leave. Soldiers were called in when trouble seemed likely, and houses and crops were incinerated, leaving nothing behind. Some evictions were incredibly cruel, turning the elderly and the sick out into the harsh Highland weather. The worst evictions occurred in Sutherland. During the later year of the Clearances, there was nowhere at all for the majority of the evicted to go. Some headed to the cities and towns to seek employment, while others sailed to the colonies to make a new life. The Clearances lasted for over a century, from 1760 onwards.

The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment, or Age of Reason, was a time of new thinking. Scotland was one of the first countries in the world to advocate the benefits of education for young children. The first schools set up by the Church of Scotland were mainly in the Lowlands, but in 1696 an Education Act was approved to ensure that all young children were able to read and write. In the Highlands a special society was established in order that Gaelic speaking children could also learn English - the language of advancement.

Eighteenth century Scotland produced some of the world's most eminent writers, scientists and thinkers. David Hume established the science of psychology with his books on human nature and emotion. Adam Smith produced works on sharing the wealth and thus established political economy. James Watt experimented with heat and steam power at Glasgow University, which he later used to drive machines. New vaccines and medicines were discovered, which had a profound effect on population growth and infant mortality. Edinburgh became a centre for literature and publishing, and there was a resurgence of interest in the works of the old Scottish poets whose songs were collected before they were 'lost'. The bookseller Allan Ramsay published such works and in 1728 set up Scotland's first lending library. Poets e.g. Burns came to Edinburgh and were treated as celebrities; likewise Sir Walter Scott, whose novels and other works were internationally acclaimed. There were famous artists and architects such as Sir David Wilkie, Sir Henry Raeburn, William Adam and his sons -especially Robert who worked in the Classical style.

Towns and Cities
Edinburgh became hugely overcrowded by the middle of the eighteenth century, and in order to alleviate this overcrowding the City Council held a competition to find the best plan for a new town. A young architect by the name of James Craig won the competition with his plan of wide streets in a grid style, with parks and elegant public buildings. The New Town of Edinburgh was constructed out of sandstone with large elegant townhouses which were airy and spacious - a far cry from the densely packed dark tenements of the Old Town. The wealthy people of Edinburgh were only to happy to exchange their dirty tenements for the bright new town houses. Glasgow followed the same pattern as Edinburgh and was soon the most important centre for trade in Scotland. Glasgow merchants would export a variety of goods (tools, pottery, linen, glassware, furniture, leather) to the colonies and imported timber, fruits, sugar and tobacco - so much so that the merchants eventually became known as the Tobacco Lords. The tenements of Glasgow and Edinburgh became filled with new tenants - people evicted from land in the Highlands who had come to the cities to find work. Sometimes whole families were crowded into a single room. The tenements had no toilets or running water, which made them extremely unhealthy places to live. This, coupled with the fact that the poor had very little food, meant that diseases such as cholera, tuberculosis, smallpox and typhus were rife, killing thousands. Town centres became slums, but across Scotland smaller towns grew where there was a chance for trade or industry to flourish.

Leisure
Britain was much richer in the eighteenth century than it had been in the seventeenth century and this became apparent in a number of areas. People began to take holidays to the seaside and to inland spa towns. They also began to collect pictures and paintings, fine furniture and fine porcelain and spent a great deal of money on these passions. Another area that increased in popularity was music - private patronage of both music and musicians by wealthy Georgians became more generous and widespread. Before the late seventeenth century there had been very little music in people's lives, apart from in churches and cathedrals. However, in Georgian times a passion for music grew and was evident in the newly established public music rooms and private music clubs, taverns and music festivals. It was also evident in the amount of printed music available.

An increasingly prosperous people, the Georgians also for the first time began to embrace leisure - clubs, coffee houses, assemblies, new holiday habits, reading habits and the development of spectator and participative sports. Theatre going was also popular as was reading, as can be seen from the booming newspaper, pamphlet and periodical press in the eighteenth century. The arrival of the novel was slow in coming but when it did finally arrive, it had enormous impact and was (in part) the reason for the setting up of the circulating libraries.

Communication and Transport
With the development in all types of industry, the need for improved transportation systems became vital. Horse drawn carriages were slow and their journeys difficult along narrow, muddy tracks where accidents happened easily and frequently. Turnpike Trusts were formed after 1751 by local businessmen and farmers who built new roads and collected tolls from travellers who wanted to use those roads at turnpike gates. Hundreds of these Trusts existed and very soon a new road system was in place. One famous member of such a Trust was John Loudon MacAdam. He studied the problems of muddy, rainy roads and invented a new method of road making to counteract the original problems - his roads were arched slightly in the middle, rather than being completely flat, so that the rain could simply run off into the ditches which were dug at each side. His roads were then covered in 3 layers of stones, and the traffic on the new road packed these stones down as they travelled over it, making a hard surface. MacAdam's road making method is used all through the world today - sometimes with tar, hence the name tarmac (tarmacadam).

Another great contributor to the world of transport was Thomas Telford, who was born in 1757. He was a stonemason originally, and worked on building the New Town of Edinburgh prior to working in England. The British Government in 1801 asked Telford to compile a report concerned with communication problems in the Highlands of Scotland. His report and ideas were what the government needed and he was asked to make improvements. Thomas Telford built 900 miles of road in Scotland, and 120 bridges in the Highlands. He also vastly improved fishing and ferry services by building jetties and harbours; and was responsible for the Caledonian Canal which opened in 1822 after 20 years of construction.

Other canals were built to link towns and centres of industry, including the Forth and Clyde Canal, which allowed shipping to move across the country. Canals were used to carry goods and raw materials, and eventually they carried passengers too.

One of the biggest improvements in communication came about in 1784 when the Post Office began a mail order coach service, all over Britain. These carriages used horse teams which were changed every ten miles. As a result mail and newspapers reached people a lot more quickly - in 1784 it would have taken approximately 78 hours to get from London to Edinburgh, but by 1820 this was reduced down to just 48 hours.

Wars and Battles
Government and monarchy also changed dramatically during this period. Parliament increased in power and political parties began to develop - the Tories (Conservatives) and the Whigs (Liberals). The role of Prime Minister became much more important, and he ruled assisted by a cabinet. The monarch was not able to rule without parliament. Change in this area was slow but made Britain very different from most of the other countries in Europe (where the monarch ruled absolutely). The people who lived in the British colonies in North America desired change too. After Britain won the Seven Years War with France, all the colonies in North America were under the control of Britain. The colonies were safe from France, but the people of the colonies did not want to pay Britain for the British soldiers who were still in the colonies. They also did not want to pay taxes to Britain; instead they wanted the freedom to build their own country.

The American War of Independence began in 1775, and in 1776 the colonists signed the Declaration of Independence, which stated that 'all men are born equal'. The war ended in 1783 - Britain lost the American colonies. A lot of Scottish and English settlers moved to the Canadian colonies instead.

Over in France, where the king rules without parliament, the people wanted reform. After years of war France was a poor country - peasants and labourers were starving. This prompted the French Revolution, where people demanded 'liberty, equality and fraternity'. They desired freedom and equality; and King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette were guillotined; as were a vast number of French nobles. These ideas of revolution came to Britain and many people liked the ideas of freedom, equality and the right to vote. They began their demonstrations and were called Radicals by government. The British government was worried that there would be a revolution in Britain as there was in France. Some Radicals were tried and hanged; others were sentenced to be transported to the new colony of Botany Bay in Australia. The French Revolutionists raised an army and went to war with most of Europe. They were led by Napoleon Bonaparte, and they had many successes. Napoleon wanted to become an Emperor and to rule over all the countries that he conquered. He had plans to conquer Britain but was stopped by Lord Nelson, who defeated him utterly at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. After this battle Britain was the world's greatest sea power. The last battle against Napoleon was at Waterloo in Belgium in 1815. This time the Duke of Wellington led the British troops and, with the assistance of Prussia, Napoleon was completely defeated.

A great many Scots fought in the Napoleonic Wars, and the most famous of the Highland regiments included the Cameron Highlanders, Gordon Highlanders and Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. At the end of the war the soldiers and sailors came home, and it was not easy for them to find work. After the war farming and industry suffered dramatically because the Army and Navy no longer needed supplies. In Scotland the kelp industry collapsed because other cheaper products were available in other countries. Sails were no longer needed for warships and the cotton and linen factories no longer had to supply uniforms. Life for the poor became worse because government introduced new taxes on tea, bread, sugar, soap and tobacco. Many families had to beg on the streets and others were driven to stealing food to stay alive. Those who were caught were hanged or transported to the colonies in Australia and New Zealand.