PANALBA

Nae mair will our bonnie callants
Merch tae war when oor braggarts crousely craw
Nor wee weans frae pit-heid an clachan,
Mourn the ships sailing doon the Broomielaw

Hamish Henderson – Come a ye at hame wi freedom

Over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries a fair chunk of the Scottish population would up-sticks, leave their homeland behind and emigrate across the oceans to the new world. The flower of a nation decided that their futures, and the futures of their descendants, lay not in the land of their fathers but in the growing nations of Canada, America, Australia and New Zealand. This so-called diaspora was in keeping with a general trend in Europe of following the dream of carving out a new life across the sea. Perhaps more than any other group however, the Scots would influence the course of these new countries, reaching the highest echelons both politically and artistically and leaving an incredible footprint that remains with us to this day. Of course, the new world’s gain was Scotland’s loss, and this mass emigration year on year, decade upon decade – whether voluntarily or forced – sapped the life-blood of the nation. There is a hill on Bute called Canada Hill, as this would be the last thing that these émigrés would see as they sailed down the Firth of Clyde, and many of these ships would depart from the ancient harbour of Glasgow, the Broomielaw.

The River Clyde has been for centuries the life-blood of the city of Glasgow, from its humble beginnings as a religious settlement, through its growth as a medieval trading burgh, to its incredible expansion in the 17th and 18th centuries as Scotland’s principal port and economic powerhouse. It was trade with the New World that spurred on this growth, and the sugar, cotton and tobacco lords of Glasgow were among the richest merchants in the world. As they brought these raw materials from the Americas and the Caribbean, so Scotland resurrected an old tradition – emigration; after all, someone had to run the plantations, someone had to oversee the commercial interests of the company back home. It was Glasgow’s position on the Clyde that not only allowed the ships bringing the goods in a safe port, but made the ideal point of departure back.

The Scots have always had an emigrating tendency: we lived historically in a tremendously poor country with few options for social mobility, progress, or escape from the drudgery of everyday life under the harsh rule of the local laird or clan chief. Following the Feudal revolution in the 12th century, many ordinary folk from the countryside around towns like Glasgow, Aberdeen or Perth moved in, as economic migrants looking for a better life and a chance to earn some disposable income, and who knows break the chains of poverty, if not for themselves then for their children. Many more would take to the seas as fishermen or work on the ships trading with the Baltic and the Low Countries. The more opportunistic, those with the means, some with a sense of adventure and many others with nothing to lose followed those ships and settled across the North Sea. Scotland has also long been a warlike nation, and a breeder of fighting men – a very valuable asset for many a prince or pope across a war-torn Europe. Scots would be found as mercenaries in every conceivable army, fighting in every conceivable battle.

The Union with England in 1707 brought phenomenal new opportunities for the ambitious, talented and visionary, and the world literally opened its doors to their enterprise. From the sugar plantations of Jamaica, the jute fields of India to the fur trade in Canada you could find a Scot. This made them incredibly wealthy, but also brought about great wealth for the homeland – well, for those with the ability to enjoy it. As the British Empire grew, then so the influence of the Scots across the globe: but at home things were still grindingly poor for those disenfranchised by the New Jerusalem.

As Glasgow grew rich and large from its trans-Atlantic trade, hundreds of thousands poured into the city to work in its factories, its steelworks and iron forges, and they were stuffed cheek-by-jowl into the most horrific slums. Things weren’t much better in jute-rich Dundee or even in commercial Edinburgh. Other towns and cities sprung up between them, centred on ports, coal mines and iron works, and Scotland’s population sky-rocketed; to unsustainable proportions. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the Highlands.

To start with, in the years following the disaster at Culloden in 1746, and accelerated by the introduction of sheep into the north in the 1790s, migration out of the Highlands was almost entirely voluntary. The weather wasn’t helping – the 18th and 19th centuries were so cold, wet and miserable that thousands simply packed their bags and left their starving comrades behind. The middle class of the clans had seen the writing on the wall, knew what opportunities lay in Canada or America, or even closer to home in the big cities of the south, had a few shillings in their pockets and so off they went. There were several ports of departure that these intrepid Highlanders would make for: Leith, Greenock, and the Broomielaw. It would be the last of these that would remain ingrained in the psyche of the departed and those left behind.

To help its growing economy the city fathers of Glasgow dredged the Clyde in the mid 17th century and established a small port on the north side of the river at the Broomielaw. A weigh-house and crane were erected in 1662 and the river further dredged and deepened in the decades to come. By the mid 18th century the quay was handling nearly half of all Britain’s tobacco imports. Due to the vast amount of shipping coming in and out of the Clyde, it became a natural ship-building centre. To start with most of Glasgow’s ships were built at Broomielaw, but as the tonnage grew the yards moved further down the river to Clydebank and Govan – by 1900 two thirds of the world’s shipping was built on the Clyde.

Despite the numbers leaving the Highlands, always against the sizeable background of migration from the slums in search of a new start, the hay-day of the great emigrations was still to come.

The old traditional escape to the army was still a major draw for many young men across the country: it was one of the few ways that you got out of the croft or coalmine. Yet, even this wasn’t enough for the landlords of the north: the forced evictions followed. Tens of thousands would be removed from their homes across the mountains – most would end up either in new ‘improvement’ villages along the coast or in the industrial south, but plenty and in their droves would make for the Clyde and a tearful farewell on the gangplanks of the Broomielaw. Two million would leave over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Today, thanks to a new footbridge ships can no longer make it to the Broomielaw, but as you walk along the regenerated dockland, past offices and apartments, in quieter moments perhaps, just perhaps you can still hear the ghosts of all those that bade farewell to the land of their fathers and built the modern world.