The post-medieval period saw major economic development in South East Scotland. The years between AD 1600 and AD 1800 were characterised by considerable changes in agriculture, industry, trade, education and entertainment. By the end of the 18th century, Edinburgh had become an important European city. The Scottish capital was sustained by its growing significance as a hub for legal and financial services, by its burgeoning international trade, conducted primarily through the port of Leith, and by the industries and agriculture of Lothian and the Borders.
During the 17th and 18th centuries AD, the South East was at the forefront of innovations in Scottish agriculture. In the 1690s, the politician and agricultural improver Lord Belhaven proclaimed that ‘the soil of East Lothian… is accounted the best of any County or Shire in Scotland’ and advocated for local farmland ‘to be Improven’ (Belhaven 1699, 5). The next hundred years saw major changes to the region’s countryside with the aim of agricultural ‘improvement’. Substantial new farm buildings were constructed, fields were enclosed and drained, new types of crops were introduced, and agriculture took steps towards mechanisation with the adoption of new inventions such as the threshing machine. The changes of the post-medieval period laid the template for land management in the region into the early twentieth century. However, the full impact of improvement on rural communities remains imperfectly understood and deserves further study.
The tentative beginnings of agricultural mechanisation were enabled by the increasing industrialisation of South East Scotland during the post-medieval period. Although the region’s heavy industries arguably reached their height after 1800, the post-medieval period did see substantial developments in mining, metal-working, lime extraction and engineering. The industrial expansion of the 19th century would not have been possible without the investment and innovation of the previous two hundred years. Indeed, evidence from material and textual sources suggests that we may have significantly underestimated the extent of industrial activity in South East Scotland during the 17th and early 18th centuries. It is to be hoped that more research into this earlier period of industrialisation will be undertaken.
Living standards of elite families and of the expanding ‘middling sort’ changed significantly over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, as new styles of houses were built and access to consumer goods increased. During the post-medieval period mercantile and professional families acquired increasingly elaborate furnishings and introduced imported luxuries such as sugar and tea into their diets. The lifestyles of the prosperous became dependent on international trade, and the economy of South East Scotland was increasingly intertwined with global networks of exchange and exploitation.
Indeed, it is important to recognise that the benefits of international trade, industrialisation and agricultural improvement were not shared equally. The global economy from which some in South East Scotland profited was partly supported by the labour of enslaved peoples and other exploited groups. Meanwhile, within South East Scotland the changes of the 17th and 18th centuries were accompanied by considerable hardship for many individuals and communities. Material evidence provides a valuable lens to gain further insights into the experiences of the impoverished and marginalised, especially as written records disproportionately document the attitudes of the wealthy and educated.
Yet it should also be noted that even for the aristocracy and gentry, the 17th and 18th centuries AD did not see an uninterrupted journey towards prosperity. Whilst the general trend from the 1600s to the 1790s was one of growth, there were challenging times. The 1620s and 1690s saw major harvest failures, whilst civil war brought considerable disruption to the 1640s, 1650s, 1710s, and 1740s. The implications of the union of 1707 were also complex. In the long-term, the creation of the United Kingdom appears to have opened new markets to the merchants of South East Scotland. However, the immediate ramifications of the Act of Union within the region may well have been more problematic. When Daniel Defoe visited Edinburgh in the early 18th century, he described a community which had not yet experienced the economic benefits ‘reasonably expected upon the Union’ (1727). Integrating archaeological evidence with the extensive written and visual sources from the period can bring nuance to our understanding of the complex stories which played out in South East Scotland during the post-medieval period.