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Dumfries and Galloway and the Industrial Revolution

Alistair Livingston

Between 1760 and 1800, Improving landowners inspired by the Scottish Enlightenment transformed the landscape of southern Scotland. An industrial revolution led to a further transformation north of the Southern Uplands Fault. To the south, Dumfries and Galloway remained a rural region with agriculture as its main industry. The perception of the region as quintessentially rural has led to the neglect of the regions significant role in the development of the industrial revolution in north-west England. In the late eighteenth century, a group of young men from Dumfries and Galloway moved south in search of employment. Some arrived in Liverpool where they became wealthy merchants, others became innovative and successful cotton manufacturers in Manchester. However, as the rapid and chaotic growth of Manchester in particular came to symbolise the challenges posed by industrialisation, critics of the new order also emerged from Dumfries and Galloway. Thomas Carlyle is the most well known, but Newton Stewart born Dr. Peter McDouall, who became a radical Chartist, was another. Finally, James Clerk Maxwells work pointed beyond Carlyles Mechanical Age to the present Electrical Age .

Scarcely noticed by travellers on the A 75 Euroroute, a monument on a small hill above Ringford in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright celebrates a discovery which made Scotland an industrial nation. The Neilson Monument, erected in 1883, commemorates James Beaumont Neilson (1792-1865) and his discovery in 1828 that the use of superheated air improved the efficiency of iron smelting. Neilsons invention was immediately adopted by the Baird family of Old Monklands parish in Lanarkshire. For several generations, the Bairds had been tenant farmers, but the construction of the Monklands canal between 1771 and 1794 encouraged them to diversify first into the leases of coal mines in 1816 and then, beginning in 1828, into the iron industry. Unfamiliarity with the new technology delayed the construction of the Bairds first blast furnace, but on 4 May 1830 iron smelting, began at the Bairds Gartsherrie works. MacGeorge A, The Bairds of Gartsherrie (Glasgow, 1875) p.59.

Reflecting on the impact of the iron industry on the area in 1875, James Baird commented that

the increase of population that took place in this hitherto rural district in consequence of the works which thus sprung up simultaneously, is unprecedented in any part of Europe. In a district not more than twelve miles in diameter, an increase of population amounting to not less than twenty-six thousand had taken place, within the ten years before 1841. This was by the census of 1841, and nearly all that increase had taken place during the six years preceding that date. The population of Old Monkland parish increased from ten to twenty thousand, New Monkland the same, and Bothwell from five thousand to eleven thousand. MacGeorge A, The Bairds of Gartsherrie (Glasgow, 1875) p.73.

The impact of the iron industry on the immediate environment was described by David Bremner writing in 1869.

Though Coatbridge is a most interesting seat of industry, it is anything but beautiful. Dense clouds of smoke roll over it incessantly, and impart to all the buildings a peculiarly dingy aspect. A coat of black dust overlies everything, and in a few hours the visitor finds his complexion considerably deteriorated by the flakes of soot which fill the air, and settle on his face From the steeple of the parish church, which stands on a considerable eminence, the flames of no fewer than fifty blast furnaces may be seenThe flames then have a positively fascinating effect. Their form is ever changing, and the variety of their movements is endless. Now they shoot far upward, and breaking short off, expire among the smoke; again spreading outward, they curl over the lips of the furnace, and dart through the doorways, as if determined to annihilate the bounds within which they are confined; then they sink low into the crater, and come forth with renewed strength in the shape of great tongues of fire, which sway backward and forward, as if seeking with a fierce eagerness something to devour. Bremner D, The Industries of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1869) p. 35.

By 1847, Neilson was able to retire having made his fortune through his invention. After a lengthy series of disputes, even the Bairds of Garthshierrie (who had claimed otherwise) were forced to pay Neilson and his partners 160 000 for their use of his hot blast. In 1851, Neilson bought the Queenshill estate in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright where he lived until his death in 1865. The move to Galloway may have been influenced by the belief that his family were descended from John Neilson (c1617-1666) of Corsock. This John Neilson had strong Covenanting sympathies which led him to participate in the Dalry (or Pentland) Rising of 1666. Captured at the battle of Rullion Green, John Neilson was executed at the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh on 14 December 1666. Neilson F, The Corsock Neilsons: A Galloway Family (Sydney, 2012) p.65 and p. 210. Although the evidence for direct descent from John Neilson of Corsock is ambiguous, it is likely that James Neilson had Galloway roots through one of the numerous branches of a family which had been established in Galloway since at least the time of John Neilson (1400-1444) who was infeft in the lands of Corsock in 1439.

More certainly, despite its description as a quintessentially rural region, Allenbrooke R and Cook C, Agriculture and its Future in Rural Dumfries and Galloway (Dumfries, 1998) p.1. through the late eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century, it is possible to identify many individuals from this rural region who helped shape the industrial revolution. While the importance of Thomas Telford (1757-1834) is widely recognised, the significant roles played by others like John Kennedy (1769-1855), Peter Ewart (1767-1842) and his brother William (1763-1823) have been overlooked. Unlike Neilson and Telford, Kennedy, the Ewarts and other members of their network had little direct impact in Scotland. Instead they helped develop the revolutionary economy of the Liverpool/ Manchester axis.

The Liverpool connection was already established by 1745 when Thomas Dunbar contributed 5 5 shillings to the establishment of the Liverpool Infirmary. Baines T, History of the Commerce and Town of Liverpool (Liverpool, 1852) p. 413. Thomas Dunbar was the second son of Sir George Dunbar, baronet, of Mochrum in Wigtownshire. Thomas son George (1750-1811) became one of Liverpools leading merchants before retiring from business after he inherited his grandfathers title. William Ewart began his career in Liverpool as an apprentice to George Dunbar. Edgar Corrie (1748-1819) moved from the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright to Liverpool and was well established by 1787 when he set up a corn-trading partnership with John Gladstone (1764-1850) whose family came from Biggar. John Gladstone and William Ewart became close friends and so Gladstones fourth son and future prime minister was named William Ewart Gladstone when he was born in 1809. Checkland S, The Gladstones A Family Biography 1764-1851 (Cambridge, 1971) p.55. Robert Burns first biographer, Dr James Currie (1756-1805) was born in Annandale but practised in Liverpool. Thomas Telford was one of Curries close friends. Thornton R, James Currie The Entire Stranger and Robert Burns (Edinburgh, 1963) p. 243. Family connections to the Duncan family led Curry to find placements in Liverpool for George, William and Henry Duncan. George and William remained in Liverpool, but Henry (1774-1846) spent only 3 years (1790-93) at the Heywood Bank before becoming a student at Edinburgh University and later the well known minister of Ruthwell parish. Thornton R, James Currie (Edinburgh, 1963) pp.234-238. Also Duncan G, Memoir of the Reverend Henry Duncan Minister of Ruthwell (New York, 1848) Chapter 2. Finally, four brothers from the Stewartry - Wellwood (1785-1867), Alexander (1787-1867), William (1791- ?) and George (1796-1858) Maxwell - became tobacco and general traders in Liverpool. McKerlie P, History of the Lands and their Owners in Galloway (Edinburgh, 1877) Vol. 4, p. 11.

The earliest Manchester connection found so far is William Kennedy (born 1732) of Kells parish in the Stewartry who became a fustian manufacturer in Manchester. Thornton R, James Currie The Entire Stranger and Robert Burns (Edinburgh, 1963) p. 406. In 1784 his daughter Elizabeth married Robert Riddell of Friars Carse, Robert Burns neighbour when he farmed at Ellisland. In the 1760s, William Cannan (1744-1825) of Kells parish migrated via Whitehaven and Liverpool to Chowbent in Lancashire, where he became a manufacturer of textile machinery. Cannan employed 30 apprentices and through his connection with Kells, George Murray (born 1761), James McConnell (born 1762), Adam Murray (born 1766) and John Kennedy (1769-1855) who were all from Kells parish became Cannans apprentices. Equipped by Cannan with the necessary skills, the four then moved to Manchester where they swiftly progressed from making cotton spinning machinery to establishing their own cotton spinning businesses. The firms of McConnell & Kennedy Lee C, A Cotton Enterprise 1795-1840 : A History of McConnel and Kennedy (Manchester, 1972) and A &G Murray Miller I and Wild C, A & G Murray and the Cotton Mills of Ancoats (Lancaster, 2007) rapidly became the two largest cotton spinning businesses in Manchester, each employing over 1000 workers by 1815. In 1785, Thomas Maxwell (1761-1792) became Charles Taylors partner in an innovative textile dyeing business in Manchester. Thornton R, William Maxwell to Robert Burns (Edinburgh, 1979) p.41. James Watts son James Watt junior joined this firm as an apprentice in 1788. Robinson E, Watt, James (17691848), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28881, accessed 20 June 2013. Thomas was the brother of Robert Burns friend and doctor William Maxwell (1792-1834). William Ewarts brother Peter served his apprenticeship with John Rennie, helping to construct the Albion Flour Mill in London in 1785. This mill, powered by Bolton and Watt steam engines, burnt down in 1791 and inspired William Blakes famous dark Satanic mills line. Ackroyd P, Blake (London,1996) pp.130-131. Ewart then became Bolton and Watts Manchester agent (1790-93) before becoming a cotton manufacturer until 1835 when he moved south to become chief engineer and inspector of steam ships for the Royal Navy. Cardwell D, Ewart, Peter (17671842), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford, 2004). http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/40766, accessed 20 June 2013. In 1813, Ewarts paper On the Measurement of Moving Force was published by the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. This paper impressed leading Manchester scientist John Dalton and was influential in the development of the new science of thermodynamics. Cardwell D, From Watt to Clausius: The Rise of Thermodynamics in the Early Industrial Age (Iowa,1979) p.163. William Fairbairn (1789-1874) was born at Kelso in Roxburghshire and after serving his apprenticeship as a millwright in Newcastle, moved to Manchester in 1813. Fairbairn was employed by A & G Murray and McConnel & Kennedy to improve the efficiency of their cotton spinning mills. Pole W, The Life of Sir William Fairbairn, Bart. (London, 1877) pp.112-116.

While it has not been possible to find any evidence for direct business or trading links between the Liverpool and the Manchester groups, when a proposal to link Liverpool and Manchester by a railway emerged in 1821, this was supported by members of both groups. In Liverpool, John Gladstone and his brother Robert, William Ewart and his brother John along with Wellwood Maxwell and his three brothers were supporters. In Manchester John Kennedy, James McConnel and Peter Ewart were supporters. By 29 October 1824, when a formal prospectus for the Liverpool and Manchester Rail-Road Company was issued, five out of the 27 members of the companys committee were Scots- Robert Gladstone (deputy chairman) John Ewart, Peter Ewart, John Kennedy and Wellwood Maxwell. Carlson R, The Liverpool & Manchester Railway Project 1821-1831 (Newton Abbot, 1969) p.81.

The problem which united Liverpools merchant traders and Manchesters cotton manufacturers was that the network of canals and turnpike roads which linked Liverpool and Manchester had become a hindrance to trade. The canals in particular were both slow and expensive. However, although railways existed, they were mainly used to transport coal for short distances from mines to canals or seaports. A 33 mile long railway linking two large towns to transport general freight and passengers was a revolutionary innovation. When the possibility of using steam locomotives was added, the proposal appeared fantastical. As one of the only members of the committee (apart from Peter Ewart) with any engineering knowledge, John Kennedy a good friend of James Watttconsistently advocated the adoption of the steam locomotive to provide the railways motive power. Carlson R, The Liverpool & Manchester Railway Project 1821-1831 (Newton Abbot, 1969) p.50. In May 1824, Kennedy and three other members of the provisional committee visited the Stockton and Darlington railway which was then under construction. Their advice to the provisional committee was that a railway worked by steam locomotives was the way forward. Carlson R, The Liverpool & Manchester Railway (Newton Abbot, 1969) p.67.

Unfortunately for its promoters, a poor performance by George Stephenson during the committee stage of the first Liverpool and Manchester Railway Bill Rolt L, George and Robert Stephenson The Railway Revolution (London. 1960) pp.110-113. and doubts about the practicality of steam locomotion led to the bills defeat in June 1825. A second attempt met with success and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Bill received Royal Assent on 1 May 1826. However, in order to overcome opposition, references to locomotive haulage had been dropped from the Act. In 1827, Thomas Telford was asked to report on the progress of the building works. In his report, Telford highlighted the resulting uncertainty over how the line would be worked. Rolt L, George and Robert Stephenson (London. 1960) p.156. By 1829, as the works were nearing completion, a solution had to be found. The answer was to hold a series of trials which would demonstrate that steam locomotives were fully capable of hauling freight and passenger trains on the new railway. Held at Rainhill on the new line in October 1829, the clear winner was the Rocket designed and built by George Stephensons son Robert. One of the three judges at the Rainhill Trials was John Kennedy, probably the most important cotton manufacturer of the day. Burton A, The Rainhill Story The Great Locomotive Trial (London, 1980) p.125. The Liverpool and Manchester railway was opened in September 1830 with steam traction.

While the connection between Dumfries and Galloway and James Neilsons contribution to the industrial revolution is tenuous, the Liverpool and Manchester links are more substantial. The young men who left the region to make new lives in north-west England made substantial contributions to the transformation of the two towns into major cities. At the same time, while the region they left was successfully transformed by an agricultural revolution in the eighteenth century, the industrial revolution in Dumfries and Galloway did not advance beyond the stage of water-powered cotton mills. In Galloway, the absence of coal provides an explanation for this failure. In Dumfriesshire there was (and still is) coal but this was not sufficient to inspire an industrial revolution. Why was this so?

In west Cumberland, John Lowther (1642-1706) and his son James Lowther (1673 -1755) developed a profitable coal industry. Beckett J, Coal & Tobacco The Lowthers and the Economic Development of West Cumberland 1660-1760 (Cambridge, 1981). It was the growth of Dublin which created a market for Cumbrian coal which was exported via the ports of Workington and Whitehaven. However, although the Lowthers were keen improvers of their coal mining assets, they showed little interests in agricultural improvement. Robert Maxwell (1695-1765), the Stewartry born secretary to the Honourable Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture inspected James Lowthers estates in 1750, but few of his recommendations for their improvement were taken up. Beckett J, Coal & Tobacco (Cambridge,1981) p.33. James Lowther was more interested in ensuring that his miners had access to small parcels of land to sustain them through the regular slumps in the Irish coal trade than in the more marginal profits which might flow from agricultural improvement. James Lowthers lack of interest in agricultural improvement also extended to a lack of interest in industrial diversification. In particular his failure to fully support attempts to establish ironworks and other coal using industries denied west Cumberland the opportunity to pioneer the industrial revolution. Beckett J, Coal & Tobacco (Cambridge, 1981) pp.126-142 The development of the important iron industry in west Cumberland was therefore delayed until the nineteenth century, beginning with the Whitehaven Iron and Steel Company in 1841. Joy D, The Lake Counties (Newton Abbot, 1983) p. 163.

The Irish (Dublin) market for coal also inspired attempts, beginning in the 1660s, to develop coal fields in Ayrshire. The Saltcoats coal field, which had easy access to the sea, seemed a particular threat and James Lowther contemplated buying the lease of the Saltcoats colliery in the 1720s as a way to negate this competition. Beckett J, Coal & Tobacco (Cambridge, 1981) p. 41. Through the eighteenth century, the lure of Irish gold brought a wide variety of prospective coal masters to Ayrshire. Whatley C, The Finest Place for a Lasting Colliery Coal Mining in Ayrshire 1660-1840 (Ayr, 1983) p.68. However, as with Lanarkshire, the full development of Ayrshires coal fields did not occur until the nineteenth century and the post-Neilson expansion of the iron industry into the county. The Dalmellington Iron Companys iron furnaces began operations in 1848 Smith, D The Dalmellington Iron Company its Engineers and Men (Newton Abbot, 1967) p. 20. and a similar but less successful venture near New Cumnock in 1845 Whatley C, The Finest Place for a Lasting Colliery (Ayr, 1983) p.99. brought such developments to the borders of Dumfries and Galloway.

One of the eighteenth century Ayrshire landowners with an interest in the Irish coal trade was Richard Oswald (1705-1784) of Auchincruive. Oswald had rented out land on his estate for coal mining and to support this enterprise the Auchincruive waggonway was built to link the pits on his land to the harbour at Ayr. After Oswalds death his nephew George encouraged the development of the waggonway which by the time of George Oswalds death in 1819 was two miles long. Broad H, Rails to Ayr 18th and 19th century coal waggonways (Ayr, 1981) pp.104-121. As well as Auchincruive, Oswald also owned Cavens estate in Kirkbean parish, Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. Here his neighbour was William Craik (1703-1798) of Arbigland. In the 1770s, Oswald and Craik convinced themselves that coal was present. Although no coal was found, Southerness village was built by the late Richard Oswald Esq. of Auchincruive, with a view, it is said, of a coal trade. The Statistical Account of Scotland 1791-97 (Wakefield, 1983) Vol. V, p. 180. An earlier but equally fruitless search for coal near the Isle of Whithorn in Wigtownshire was noted by Richard Pococke writing in 1750. Pococke R (edited Kemp. D), Tours in Scotland 1747, 1750, 1760 (Maryland, 2003) p.16. In the 1790s, Alexander Gordon (1747-1830) of Greenlaw in Crossmichael parish, Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, proposed extending the already ambitious 26 mile long Glenkens canal from Kirkcudbright to Loch Ken by a further 22 miles to reach the Dalmellington coal fields. Reid R, 'The Culvennan and Gordon MSS', Transactions DGNHAS 3rd Series Vol. 23 (1940-44) p.49. Although the Glenkens Canal Act Donnachie I, The Industrial Archaeology of Galloway ( Newton Abbot, 1971) p.164. was passed in June 1802, neither the canal nor Gordons proposed extension were ever built. In 1811 a railway in Dumfriesshire was proposed. This would have linked the Sanquhar coal fields with Dumfries. The engineer responsible for the survey Buchanan R, Report relative to the proposed rail-way from Dumfries to Sanquhar (Dumfries, 1811) was Roberston Buchanan (1769-1816) who also surveyed the Nith for the Nith Navigation Board in 1811. Skempton A, editor, Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers 1500-1830 (London 2003) p. 94. Canals from Dumfries to Carlisle, Powfoot to Lochmaben, Dalswinton to Caerlaverock and Kirkbank to Annan were also proposed. Hewison J, Dumfriesshire (Cambridge, 1912) p.125.

While Buchanans iron railway had to wait 40 years before it was constructed, neither the Glenkens canal (apart from two short sections near Castle Douglas) nor the Dumfriesshire canals were ever built. What were built were hundreds of miles of new roads, dozens of new bridges, hundreds of new farms, thousands of miles of new hedges and dykes and 81 new towns and villages. Philip L,'Planned Villages inDumfriesshire andGalloway' Transactions DGNHAS3rd SeriesVol. 80(2006). In his comprehensive study of Richard Oswald and his (mainly Scottish) business partners who made their fortunes in the mid-eighteenth century, David Hancock Hancock D, Citizens of the World London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community 1735-1785 (Cambridge, 1995) Chapter 9. argues that the urge to improve their newly purchased estates was strongly inspired by Henry Home (1796-1782, Lord Kames from 1752). Lord Kames was a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment and was one of Richard Oswalds friends. Kames was also a close friend of Oswalds neighbour (in Kirkbean parish), William Craik of Arbigland. According to Craiks daughter, they met while they were both studying law in Edinburgh and Kames was a regular visitor to Arbigland. Shirley G, Two Pioneer Galloway Agriculturalists Transactions DGNHAS 3rd Series Vol.13 (1925-26) p.149. A further Galloway connection was the marriage in 1761 (until divorce in 1772) of Kames daughter Jean Home to Patrick Heron IV (1736-1803) of Kirroughtrie. The Collected Works of Henry Home, Lord Kames (London., 1993) Vol. 1. p. xi. Through this relationship. Kames became involved in with James Rome, described by Andrew Wight as the most remarkable man in Scotland for enterprise and expedition for his improvements of Ingleston farm (owned by Patrick Heron) in Kirpatrick Irongray parish in the Stewartry. As Rome explained to Wight I entered to these improvements at Whitsunday 1763, upon a thirty years lease, in partnership with the proprietor, Mr Heron of Heron. The plan was formed by Lord Kames Wight A, The Present State of Husbandry in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1784) Vol. 3, p. 55.

Rome then gave Wight a detailed description of the immense effort improvement required. To improve the 144 acres of Ingleston Hill, 90 horses and 24 workers laboured for 32 days to carry and spread 48 346 bags of shell-marl. The hill was then ploughed, first with a team of 6 oxen led by 3 men followed by a team of 4 horses. The 200 acres of Clouden-park were similarly improved and planted with turnips. Kames monitored the progress of Romes improvements and in 1770 commented that he had never seen better work. Wight A, The Present State of Husbandry in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1784) Vol. 3 pp. 59-62. Part of James Romes work involved removing the existing broad rigs from Ingleston. At Baldoon in Kirkinner parish, Wigtownshire, Mr.Jeffray managed the farm for the earl of Selkirk. Baldoon was one of Douglas lordship of Galloways arable granges in 1455 Murray A, The Crown Lands in Galloway 1455-1543 Transactions DGNHAS 3rd Series Vol.37 (1958-59) so here the broad rigs were firmly rooted in the land. As Jeffray explained in a letter to Wight, beginning in 1760 it took 3 years to level 300 acres of old crooked rig and replace them with narrower straight rigs. Wight A, The Present State of Husbandry in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1784) Vol. 3, pp.96-102. (Rigs were still needed until the introduction of undersoil tile drains.) Reproduced across hundreds of thousands of acres of arable and pasture land in Dumfriesshire and Galloway, the era of Enlightened improvement required an expenditure of time, labour and capital as significant as the contemporary construction of the early industrial revolutions canals. However, as Hancock notes, the returns on investment in agricultural improvement yielded an average annual return of 3.25% compared to the 20% annual return on investments in commerce. Hancock D, Citizens of the World (Cambridge, 1995) p. 292. While canal construction was expensive, the first canals linking Liverpool and Manchester were highly profitable. The Mersey and Irwell Navigation was begun in 1720 and became an incorporated company in 1794 when shares were sold for 70. By 1825, shares were selling for 1250 and paid an annual dividend of 35. Carlson R, The Liverpool & Manchester Railway Project 1821-1831 (Newton Abbot, 1969) pp.25-27.

Although the origins of the industrial revolution can be traced back to 1712, when the first of Thomas Newcomens atmospheric steam engines began working near Dudley castle in Staffordshire, as late as 1783, Manchester had only two water-powered cotton mills. These were Arkwrights in Piccadilly and Thackrays near Granby Row. Collier F, The Family Economy of the Working Classes in the Cotton Industry 1784-1833 (Manchester, 1963) p.14. The problem was that Manchester was not a suitable location for water powered mills. It was not until John Kennedy and his associates began applying their skills as spinning machine makers to the problem of harnessing steam power to cotton spinning in 1793 that the explosive growth of Manchester as Cottonopolis could begin. Even then, as Kennedy notes, his first approach to the problem began with the use of a steam engine which was used to raise water upon a water-wheel. Kennedy J, Miscellaneous Papers Connected with the Manufactures of Lancashire (Manchester, 1849) p. 72. To solve the problem required improvements in steam engines so they could supply a smooth and reliable source of power, improvements in spinning machinery to take advantage of steam power and the construction of new factories laid-out to accommodate the steam powered spinning machines. A further challenge was the highly competitive business environment of the cotton industry.

Between them, Peter Ewart, John Kennedy, James McConnel and the Murray brothers possessed the necessary combination of technical and business skills which gave them enough advantages to prosper in Manchester. However, apart from Peter Ewart who was cousin to John Robison Glasgow University Lecturer in Chemistry 1766-70 and Edinburgh University Professor of Natural Philosophy 1773-1805, Broadie A, editor, The Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge, 2003) p.100. , it is difficult to connect this successful group of Manchester entrepreneurs or their Liverpool compatriots with the Scottish Enlightenment. This is an important point. Joel Moykr has recently and at length Mokyr J, The Enlightened Economy Britain and the Industrial Revolution 1700-1850 (London, 2009). agued that the industrial revolution in Britain was driven by intellectual rather than material forces. Yet while it is possible to link the agricultural revolution in Dumfries and Galloway with the Scottish Enlightenment through key figures like Henry Home (Lord Kames), the region did not experience a subsequent industrial revolution. Instead it remained frozen on the cusp of modernity, unable to make the transition from what Anthony Wrigley has called the organic (water, wind, human and animal powered) economy to the mineral (coal and oil powered) economy. As Wrigley puts it An industrial revolution is physically impossible without access to energy on a scale which does not exist and cannot be secured in organic economies. Wrigley E A, Energy and the English Industrial Revolution (Cambridge, 2010) p.193..

Coal was available in Dumfriesshire, in Ayrshire and in west Cumberland even if not in Galloway. In which case, why did John Kennedy and his cohort make their fortunes in north-west England rather than south-west Scotland? A possible answer is that the agricultural revolution inspired by the Scottish Enlightenment was a revolution from above. The improvers were either indigenous land owners like William Craik or already wealthy enough, like Richard Oswald, to become land owners. The Enlightened improvers, as members of the governing classes, were influenced by the intellectual fashion of civic humanism which stressed the responsibilities of the elite for the creation of a better and more civilised society. Devine T, The Scottish Nation 1700-2007 (London, 2006) p.102. The dynamic forces of an unfettered market economy at work in rapidly industrialising towns like Manchester were the antithesis of such aspirations. While David Dale at New Lanark and James Murray (educated at Glasgow University) at Gatehouse of Fleet were able to create fairly civilised communities around water-powered cotton mills, reliance on water as a power source limited their growth potential. The application of steam power to manufacturing led to a surge of chaotic and disordered growth which the Victorians struggled to civilise.

In contrast to the high status of the Enlightened improvers, John Kennedy was the younger son of a small hill farmer and James McConnels father was the tenant of similar farm. The Murray brothers father was a shop-keeper and the father of Peter and William Ewart was a parish minister. The Galloway they were born into was already beginning to experience the consolidation of hundreds of small owner-occupier (bonnet laird) farms into the huge estates of the improvers. Even upland parishes like Kells, where the process of improvement was slower than in lowland parishes, was affected. By 1787, William Forbes of Callendar (1756-1823) owned 20 farms in Kells, McKerlie P, History of the Lands and their Owners in Galloway (Edinburgh, 1877) Vol. 4 p.85. including Hannaston where James McConnel had been born. However, it is important to note that although farming practice in Galloway retained features of its medieval origin, Oram R, The Lordship of Galloway (Edinburgh, 2000) p.250. the feudal pattern of landownership had been in decline since the collapse of the Douglas lordship of Galloway in 1455. By the seventeenth century, as the Kirkcudbright Sherriff Court Deeds Kirkcudbright Sheriff Court Deeds 1623-1674 (Edinburgh, 1939) and Kirkcudbright Sheriff Court Deeds 1675-1700 (Edinburgh, 1950). reveal, the fragmentation of landownership into hundreds of micro-estates had led to the commodification of farms and their produce. Farms were frequently bought, sold and mortgaged while money was regularly borrowed against future sales of crops and livestock. Although on a small scale, the regional economy was by the eighteenth century already a commercial or market economy. This is likely to have given economic migrants from the region an advantage over migrants from rural Ireland or the Highlands.

The difference between Dumfries and Galloway as a rural region and the Highlands can be illustrated by the efforts made by Thomas Telford and Thomas Douglas, the fifth earl of Selkirk, to help the improve the situation of the Highland population. Telford was convinced that the economy of the Highlands could be transformed by building new roads and canals, and that this would halt the process of emigration.. Rolt L, Thomas Telford (London, 1979) p. 82. Selkirk favoured the opposite approach. He was convinced that emigration to Cananda was the best solution to the economic problems of the Highland population and in 1812 established the Red River Colony in Manitoba in Canada for Highlanders. Gray J, Lord Selkirk of Red River (London, 1963). Selkirk believed that the Highlanders would prefer life in Canada to life in the manufacturing districts of Scotland or England.

Accustomed to possess land, to derive from it all the comforts they enjoy, they naturally consider it as indispensable, and can form no idea of happiness without such a possession. No prospect of an accommodation of this kind can enter into the views of any one who seeks for employment as a day labourer, still less of those who resort to a manufacturing town. The manners of a town, the practice of sedentary labour under the roof of a manufactory, present to the Highlander a most irksome contrast to his former life. Douglas T, Observations on the Present Sate of the Highlands of Scotland, With a View of the Causes and Probable Consequences of Emigration (London, 1805) p.48.

The Red River settlement soon became embroiled in a conflict between the Hudson Bay Company and the North West Company which led to a violent incident in which 24 people were killed. Selkirk then faced legal action in Canada which contributed to his death through illness in 1820 and left his estate 160 000 in debt. Gray J, Lord Selkirk of Red River (London, 1963) p. 342. Although Telford oversaw the construction of 920 miles of new roads in the Highlands and the construction of the Caledonian Canal, emigration from the Highlands continued. Telfords work on the Caledonian Canal was also overtaken by events. The canal was opened in 1822, but in 1817 a steam powered tug boat had sailed from Leith to Glasgow via the Pentland Firth Bowman A, Swifts and Queens Passenger Transport on the Forth and Clyde Canal (Glasgow, 1984) p.14. and as steam ships became larger and more powerful, the canal became redundant. By 1840 it was in a state of dilapidation. Rolt L, Thomas Telford (London, 1979) p. 106.

Although Telfords works helped to lay the foundations of the industrial revolution, he was part of Wileys organic economy and mistrusted the commercialisation of society and civil engineering which emerged with the steam powered mineral economy. One of Telfords last works was the St. Katherines Dock project in London which took only two years (1826-1828) to complete. This unseemly haste deeply troubled Telford.

The extreme rapidity with which every operation was forced on was doubtless defensible, as useful and desirable in a mercantile speculation, with the view of having a speedy return for the advance of large sums, and for encouraging future advances, also for meeting the urgent demands of increasing commerce; but as a practical engineer, responsible for the success of difficult operations, I must be allowed to protest against such haste Rickman J, editor The Life of Thomas Telford, Civil Engineer, Written by Himself (London, 1838) p. 155.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) was brought up in Annandale, close to Eskdale where Telford was born. Carlyles father James (1757-1834) was born in the same year as Telford and was a stonemason like the young Telford, but unlike Telford lived and died in Dumfriesshire. In 1826 Thomas Carlyle married Jane Welsh and in 1828 they moved to Craigenputtoch, a hill farm in western Dumfriesshire owned by the Welsh family. Campbell I, Thomas Carlyle (Edinburgh, 1993) p. 65. At this time, the term industrial revolution had not been used in Britain. Donald Coleman Coleman D, Myth, History and the Industrial Revolution (London, 1992) p.4. notes that the term was first used in France in 1827 to describe changes in the French textile industry as a Grande Revolution Industrielle, with the first use in English dating to 1884 when it was used by Arnold Toynbee. Although Carlyle did not use the term, writing at Craigenputtoch in 1829, he captured the disturbing essence of the same industrial revolution which was troubling Telford.

Were we required to characterise this age of ours by any single epithet, we should be tempted to call it, not an Heroical, Devotional, Philosophical, or Moral Age, but, above all others, the Mechanical Age. It is the Age of Machinery, in every outward and inward sense of that word; the age which, with its whole undivided might, forwards, teaches and practises the great art of adapting means to ends. Nothing is now done directly, or by hand; all is by rule and calculated contrivance. For the simplest operation, some helps and accompaniments, some cunning abbreviating process is in readiness. Our old modes of exertion are all discredited, and thrown aside. On every hand, the living artisan is driven from his workshop, to make room for a speedier, inanimate one. The shuttle drops from the fingers of the weaver, and falls into iron fingers that ply it faster We remove mountains, and make seas our smooth highways; nothing can resist us. We war with rude Nature; and, by our resistless engines, come off always victorious, and loaded with spoils. Carlyle T, Signs of the Times in The Collected Works of Thomas Carlyle (London, 1858) Vol. 3. pp.100-101.

In November 1842, Freidrich Engels (1820-1895) arrived in Manchester to work for the family cotton business of Ermen and Engels. In Manchester, Engels discovered the existence of a revolutionary proletariat and the industrial revolution which had created them. As Engels himself put it The history of the proletariat in England begins with the second half of the last century, with the invention of the steam engine and of machinery for working cotton. These inventions, as is well known, gave rise to an industrial revolution Engels F, The Condition of the Working Class in England (Germany, 1845 and London, 1987) p.50. As Coleman explains, Engels conception of this industrial revolution was deeply influenced by his (highly selective) readings of Carlyles Chartism (1840) and Past and Present (1843). Coleman D, Myth, History and the Industrial Revolution (London, 1992) pp.4-12. Engels belief that the working classes of Britain were about to unleash a revolution was influenced by the General Strike of 1842 which occurred in the summer of that year. Newton Stewart born Chartist Peter McDouall (1814-1854) was a leading supporter of this strike. McDouall had been politicised by his experiences as a doctor in Lancashire of the destructive impact of the factory system on the health of the working classes. Identified as a dangerous agitator by the authorities and with a reward of 50 for his capture, McDouall (who had already been imprisoned for his activities in 1840) was forced to flee to France in September. Gammage R, History of the Chartist Movement 1837-1854 (London, 1894) pp 228-30. McDouall returned from France in 1844 and resumed his work for the Chartist movement only to be arrested and imprisoned again in 1848. In 1854, McDouall and his family emigrated to Australia, where he died soon after arriving.

The disruptive impact of Carlyles Mechanical Age did not lead to a political revolution. Instead its excesses were gradually reigned in by Victorian reformers like Edwin Chadwick (1800-1890) whose report on The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population was published in 1842. In 1839, Chadwick had married John Kennedys daughter Rachel. William Ewarts son William ( 1798-1869) became a reforming Member of Parliament, instrumental in the passing of the 1850 Public Libraries Act and the Ewart Library in Dumfries is named after him. John Gladstones son William Ewart Gladstone became one of the most eminent of the eminent Victorians. In Galloway, James Beaumont Neilson became an improving landowner on his Queenshill Estate where he built his mansion house. John Kennedy inherited the family farm of Knocknalling from his brother David in 1836 McKerlie P, History of the Lands and their Owners in Galloway (Edinburgh, 1877) Vol.4 p.96. and built an imposing mansion house there, although Ardwick Hall in Manchester remained his main home. There is a sense in these developments of a circle returning, of these wealthy Victorian industrialists having made their fortunes through an industrial revolution which broke with the age of Enlightened improvement, now becoming improvers themselves. George Murrays Manchester born son Benjamin Rigby Murray (1823-1901) continued this process, purchasing part of Parton estate in 1852 and the rest in 1865. McKerlie P, History of the Lands and their Owners in Galloway (Edinburgh, 1877) Vol.5 p.40. He rebuilt Parton village in an Arts and Craft style for his estate workers and is buried in Parton Kirkyard. Murrays contemporary and neighbour, James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) of Glenlair is also buried at Parton.

It was at Glenlair that Maxwell found the space and time to develop his revolutionary scientific theories. Goldman M, The Demon in the Aether, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (Edinburgh, 1983) p. 93. The mathematical language developed by Maxwell perturbed contemporaries like William Thomson, (Lord Kelvin) who was unable to fit Maxwells electromagnetic theory of light into a mechanical model of the phenomenon. Goldman M, The Demon in the Aether, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (Edinburgh, 1983) p.196. Yet it was precisely Maxwells ability to think beyond the constraints of the Mechanical Age, beyond the machineries of the industrial revolution, which laid the foundations for the twentieth century development of the General Theory of Relativity and quantum theory. While Neilsons Monument survives, his hot blast furnaces have passed over into the realm of industrial archaeology. The cotton mills of Manchester have been converted into loft apartments or, like Gatehouses Mill on the Fleet, become industrial heritage centres. In contrast, Maxwells work, especially on electromagnetism, still runs like a current of modernity through this Electrical Age.

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