Popular Disturbances in Scotland 1780-1815

‘Mobbing and rioting’ in late eighteenth-century Scotland was often the only recourse of the people in response to high food prices, the threat of eviction or the prospect of compulsory military service. This study of popular disturbances in the thirty-five years spanning the turn of the eighteenth century shows that rioting was not a blind or unreasoning reaction, but rather an active assertion of traditional rights and a collective appeal for just treatment.

The book looks at meal mobs, riots against the Highland Clearances, the widespread anti-militia disturbances of 1797, and also riots about Church patronage, politics and industrial action. The concluding chapter draws various themes together and examines the composition of crowds in the period, the role of women in disturbances, the use of handbills before and during riots, and leadership, organisation and forms of action of the crowd. Kenneth J. Logue makes full use of a range of source material: the records associated with the administration of Scottish criminal justice, Home Office documents and numerous newspapers and periodicals.