Migrants and the Public World in Scotland, 1885–1939: A Way Forward for Comparative Research

Large-scale migration within and to the nineteenth-century British Isles was a feature of a dynamic industrial economy. Among the migrants who specifically came to Scotland, over time increasing numbers came from Continental Europe. Facing interactions with long-established Scottish institutions such the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, they also became increasingly subject to newly-formed state institutions in Edinburgh and London. In this article, I will show how we can begin to comparatively characterise the dynamic of migrant-host relationships in the period 1885–1939, by examining a growing ‘Scottish’ administration, largely based in Edinburgh, and the ‘social spaces’ associated with migrant associational culture