Dead Man of Drumbeg

The People

Scotland in the 19th century

Drumbeg in the Highlands of Scotland, where the second in the Crime Team series is set, was a tough place during the 19th century. And Scotland’s relationship with its southern neighbour was always ambiguous: honoured with one hand and ruthlessly oppressed with the other.

Although Scotland had been united with England with a single Parliament in the Act of Union of 1707, Jacobite rebellions had attempted to replace the Hanoverian dynasty lodged in England with Catholic Stuarts.

After these rebellions were finally quelled in 1745, the government banned kilt-wearing, pipe-playing and the establishment of private armies. Transgressors were executed, transported or robbed of their land. An animosity to southern outsiders remained for a long time, particularly in the Highlands.

In 1822, however, George IV became the first British monarch to visit Scotland since Charles II nearly two centuries earlier. A key cultural figure of the time, Sir Walter Scott, urged every man to ‘wear his tartan’ in defiance for the loss of identity caused by the ban on wearing kilts. This led to a rebirth in the idea of local pride.

This resurgence of hope was not to last long. In the middle of the 19th century the Highland Clearances saw people forced off their land. Many were forced into emigration to destinations as far away as America and Australia. Hardship was accompanied by extreme poverty, a potato famine and the confiscation of common grazing land. Many people were moved to crofts, small holdings with extortionate rents.

Queen Victoria led to a rebirth in Scottish culture when, in 1842, she spent her honeymoon there. In recognition of the visit and her enduring love for her husband, Prince Albert, she continued to display a public interest in Scotland’s cultural richness, such as the Highland Games. Balmoral was decorated with royal tartans developed by her court.

Outside of the Highlands, many of Scotland’s towns and cities were booming. Dundee, for example, came to prominence making large quantities of linen and then expanded into the production of jute in the 1830s. Jam and whale products were other important products from the city. From this came expertise in building extreme-weather ships, and at the turn of the 20th century the Dundee Shipbuilding Company built the Royal Research Ship, Captain Scott’s Discovery.

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