INTRODUCTION

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY IN Scotland was characterised by rapid population growth, population movement on a large scale and growing urbanisation, particularly in the west central Lowlands. The so called ‘big four’ – Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen – dominated the urban landscape but some other places grew at even faster rates. Coatbridge in Lanarkshire grew from 742 people in 1831 to 30,034 in 1891, which was typical of some of the rapidly growing coal and iron centres. Glasgow's population increased from 275,000 in 1841 to 784,000 in 1911, a nearly threefold increase. Edinburgh and Leith more than doubled from 164,000 in 1841 to 401,000 in 1911. In the same period, Aberdeen grew from 65,000 to 164,000 and Dundee from 60,000 to 165,000. The housing stock could not keep pace and overcrowding became endemic. In 1911, half of all Scots lived in one- or two-roomed households while for England and Wales the comparable figure was 7 per cent. This degree of overcrowding helps to explain the attraction of urban pubs for the Scottish working man in the Victorian period.

TEMPERANCE

The first temperance society in Britain, an anti-spirits society, was founded in Greenock, Renfrewshire in 1829. Apart from the link with John Dunlop (1789–1868), a Greenock lawyer and temperance pioneer, the choice of Greenock is significant in other ways. Greenock was an expanding port, cotton-manufacturing and sugar-refining centre with a large immigrant population drawn originally from the Highlands and later from Ireland. In 1792, the population was 14,299, including 1,825 families with a Highland-born head of household, making around 9,000 people (63 per cent of the population) with Highland origins. The burgh population almost doubled from 14,299 in 1792 to 27,571 in 1831. It was a hard-drinking place. In 1792, there were 247 licences granted for the sale of spirits, one for every fifty-eight people. By 1840, there were thirty-one inns and taverns in Greenock, plus 275 houses selling ales and spirits, one for every twenty-five families.