CALIDAD DEL SERVICIO A NIVEL GENERAL PO CIUDADES

Inmigration to the towns implies a simple transfer of population from

sources to urban centres but there were also more complex movements involved in the overall mobility patterns. This section will examine some of these : step-wise inmigration, return mobility and non-economic motivated movement. Furthermore we must not forget that although rural-urban moves were prominent during this modernising period, there was also some counter-urban migration and inter-urban flows which involve the urban population (as well as intra-rural mobility which will be considered in the following chapter).

Step-wise Migration

First identified in the 1880s by Ravenstein, this feature of movement takes the migrant from rural to urban area via transitional steps and is linked to the concept of the urban hierarchy.209 Conway (1980, p. 8) provides us with a definition of step-wise migration :

. . . a process of hum an spatial behaviour in which individuals or families embark on a migration path of acculturation which gradually takes them, by way of intermediate steps, from a traditional-rural environment to the modern-urban environment.

From this definition we would expect to find that rural migrants initially moved to a village and then to a town and finally to a large city. This is a different process from those movers who make a single migration direct to 209 Step-wise migration can also involve the transfer of population up the urban hierarchy with different people moving at each stage.

an urban centre. Direct migration can be associated to the greater knowledge of the opportunities in the larger urban settlement than those in the smaller centres. Schofield (1987) demonstrates this clearly in his findings that married children of Cardington residents were much more likely to be living in London than the closer town of Bedford in the later eighteenth century. Much of the data for Angus reflect net migration and thus it is harder to provide substantial firm evidence on the process of step-wise movements.

Information from the Dundee Guildry allows us to see that movements up the urban hierarchy did take place, although these are only one-step relocations.210 Each inmigrant from an urban source area moved to the next level above in the urban hierarchy by migrating to Dundee. This confirms Conway’s idea of the step-wise movement towards the modern- urban environment. However one-third of migrant householders to Friockheim came from urban centres higher up the hierarchy. Whilst this presents a converse movement than that predicted by Conway, the existence of cheap feus may have attracted some innovative urban residents who possessed limited capital resources. The new village also offered a suitable environment to carry on trade without any burgh restrictions. Thus different motives may create movement which contradicts Conway’s thesis. Withers and Watson (1991) find that 30% of their sample of Highland inmigrants to Glasgow over the period 1852-98 made a step-wise move and half did so in two steps. These migrants tended to be young, female, unmarried adults and moved from rural to urban centres nearer Glasgow which were also higher up the urban hierarchy. Marriage register data for 210 DDA TC 56/3.

Dundee between 1822-30 can be used to examine similar two-step movements by females to this urban centre.^lt Only those migrating within Angus, Perthshire and Fife were included. The sample comprised forty- seven females who moved from their parental home to another destination and who subsequently married a Dundee-resident groom. Of these, six (13%) actually left Dundee to work elsewhere, although five only moved to contiguous parishes and the other migrated to Ceres in Fife. Thus there was a small counter-flow of females out of the town to take up positions in the areas around Dundee, perhaps indicating that the acquisition of a job was affected to some extent by the contacts of one's family.^^2

The moves made by the female migrant group can be analysed in two stages. The first stage is the move from their parental home to a location other than Dundee and the second move is to Dundee where their grooms resided. In the first stage, twenty-five out of the forty-seven (53.2%) migrated to intermediate destinations closer to the town of Dundee but this means that the other half moved to more distant locations. Additionally only fifteen (31.9%) moved to a place higher up the urban hierarchy than their parental home e.g. from a rural parish to a small town or from a small town to a larger urban centre. As we do not know of any additional moves made between leaving the parental home and arriving at the place of residence before marriage, these results should be used warily in drawing any conclusions about female migratory behaviour. The second stage of m igration, i.e. the move after m arriage to Dundee, proved to be overwhelmingly equivalent to a movement up the urban hierarchy. The vast majority (97.9%) migrated from a place below Dundee's position on the urban hierarchy. This is not surprising since Dundee is at the top of the 211 GRO OPR 282/21.

urban hierarchy in Angus and indeed was a larger centre than the county towns of Fife and Perthshire, i.e. Cupar-Fife and Perth. These results also emphasise the local nature of female migration which was operating in the area. Some form of step-wise movement did take place for at least half of the sample. Several daughters of farmers made their move into town before the time of their marriage (e.g. from Kirkden to Arbroath and Lintrathen to Kirriemuir) thus representing a change of environment through migration. However, all such moves cover relatively short distances within the immediate neighbourhood of their parental homes. This again underlines the impact of the spatial pattern of the urban network of Tayside and Fife which encouraged inmigration to intermediate towns. Riddell and Harvey (1972) in a study of Sierra Leone note that the step-wise model of population movement through an urban system is a feasible pattern of population migration only in the absence of "certain deviation- causing characteristics". These can all be identified in the mobility of population into the towns of Angus, and to Dundee in particular. The first is the presence of a weak local urban focus such as Brechin which was less able to attract inmigrants from a wide area due to competition with the more dominant Montrose. The relative proximity to the larger urban centre is a second factor in producing direct inmigration avoiding any intermediate step-wise movements. As already mentioned the area around a town is commonly the source area of a large number of migrants. This was reflected in Dundee with movements from the parishes of Mains and Liff being especially high, aided by channels of interaction through the supply of foodstuffs to markets and resident textile labour working for urban manufacturers. Movers from areas isolated from intermediate urban centres may migrate direct to the large regional centre because information about the larger place was more readily attainable and the attractions of the

smaller centres less appealing. Some parts of upland Angus may have been in this situation explaining one incentive for large numbers from these districts migrating to Dundee. The creation and expansion of several planned villages acted as foci within Angus to alter the step-wise migration pattern from the rural areas to the towns.

A variety of data reveals that there were movements both up and down the urban hierarchy. A Dundee Baker apprentice migrated to the smaller but still important town of Perth on completion of his training to take up a

position as a j o u r n e y m a n . 2 i 3 contrast a Brechin watchmaker in 1797

moved to Perth which represented a move up the urban hierarchy for this

p e r s o n . 2 i 4 Thus in discussing movements through the urban hierarchy it

should not be forgotten that a particular move may have represented upward occupational mobility for the person involved even if it was to a smaller urban place.

Counter-urban movements were not unknown in this period in Angus. Increased accessibility helped promote the out-movement of selected groups of Dundonians, especially when the inner part of the town became more built-up in the nineteenth century. For the merchant community in particular, a residence on the outskirts of the town along the banks of the Tay proved to be increasingly desirable and there were many instances of new houses being built on the fringes of town. Mention has been made of land suitable for villa development outwith the town’s boundaries being advertised and Baxter noted on the 27th of May 1811 that John Ramsay's wife "had got him Decided on to remove to Barry . . . ".215 Though a short- 213 DDA G D /T D /B l/2 6 September 1808.

214 GRO OPR 275/5 30 January 1797. 215 DUA MS 15/114/1.

distance move, this represents the start of the expansion of satellite settlements along the littoral which were to develop in the mid-nineteenth century mainly as the residences for the well-to-do, but also as holiday homes for those escaping from the towns in the summer (e.g. to Carnoustie). This form of counter-urban migration laid the foundation for further developments later in the nineteenth century.

Return Mobility

Return migration is one type of mobility that has rarely been considered in studies of this time period, no doubt due to the limited sources available. The "lockit" or admission book of the Dundee Baker Trade Incorporation records a number of new entrants who had been trained outwith Dundee,

mainly in London, but who then returned to the town to set up s h o p .216

From a sample of 23 inmigrants between 1781-99 twelve (52.2%) had fathers who lived in either the town of Dundee itself or its suburbs, disclosing a return mobility stream to the town. This appears to have been a shrewd career move as Ure (1892, p. 52) notes in his discussion of Dundee in the 1820s :

Then it was thought that no baker could have a chance of getting on in business unless he had been in London, so all the young bakers who had any ambition went to London to get 'finished' in loaf and fancy bread baking.

The remainder of the Dundee inmigrants from London were derived from parishes in Angus, Perthshire and Fife, all located within 25 km of the town, excluding one unidentified location. Of course we do not know how many apprentices from Dundee went to London and never returned but the 216 DD AGD /TD/Bl/2.

existence of a return migrant stream is a feature of historical mobility which remains under-researched.

Thomas Baxter's diary mentions other return migrants to Dundee. For example, George Watson, who arrived back in town from London having spent two or three years out in Ceylon with his regimentals and a man called Lowden who had disappeared from the town leaving a string of debts

. . . he had wandered about Greenock . . . and not having the courage to cross the Atlantic, just thought he could not do better than come home . . .218

The bakers, the soldier and the debtor can all be classified as return migrants to Dundee yet it is apparent that their motives for movement are quite varied. This is a good example of the need to disaggregate migrant flows and look at the underlying motivations.

Non-economlc Motives for Inmigration

Militia duty was instituted in the 1790s and required balloted males to serve in a regiment. At an age when they were economically active this duty was not popular. Balloted men could avoid serving their time if they found a substitute, paid a fine or were under 5' 4" in height. Others chose an alternative route by departing their home parishes and evading call-up. In the Lieutenancy letterbooks information about movers is p r e s e r v e d . 2 1 9 The

majority of these migrants moved from the rural areas into the towns or 217 DUA MS 15/114/2 14 June 1829.

218 ibid., 30 August 1829.

from smaller burghs in Angus to the larger regional centres of Scotland. They may have thought that once ensconced in a larger place they were safe from detection. However most were traced to their destinations. Repeat moves were a common feature, again suggesting that these men were migrating to avoid militia duty rather than for economic motives. For example, a shoemaker from Kirriemuir migrated first to Aberdeen, then to Dundee and was finally tracked down in Edinburgh. Thus a political factor rather than an economic opportunity stimulated these movements.

4 .5 CONCLUSIONS

This analysis has shown that channels of movement between the Angus towns and their hinterlands existed through circulation and interaction as well as by permanent inmigration. Both are features from the early-modern period which continued to be important elements of mobility between 1780- 1830. Modernisation processes increased the need for interaction between town and country and better communication systems facilitated this higher

level of recurrent movements. This is in agreement with Zelinsky's Stage 2

which predicted an increase in circulation and rural-urban migration. The decision of many rural dwellers to move permanently to the nearby towns may have been encouraged by this greater spatial interaction which brought more information about opportunities in the urban centres.

Adaptation to the new environment was often helped by the contacts already established through family friends or on personal visits to the urban centres. This is a crucial point to understand as the decision to move and the chosen destination may be more related to personal contacts than the operation of wider processes. The integration of inmigrants into urban society depended on their economic status and the urban labour market. Vagrants who did not contribute to the wealth of the towns were disliked and the burgh councils occasionally went as far as to eject these people (a form of forced mobility). These cases are related to periods of harvest failure or economic distress when more people became indigent as in the following example :

it (Arbroath) to remove, unless they found security that they

would not become a burden on the p u b l i c . 2 2 0

The Dundee Advertiser of 13 January 1815 reports that Montrose officials had several ^characters' rounded up by special constables and were then "ordered to quit the town". The impact of demobilisation in 1815 after the end of the French Wars produced a glut of labour as Easton (1825, p. 48) remarks :

. . . soldiers and sailors returned to their former occupations, and the supply of labour was soon found in all our manufacturing districts to bear no proportion to the demand for it.

Thus urban areas had to cope with an influx of people whose jobs had been filled by others during the wars. Discharged soldiers were also allowed to practise any trade they wished in the burghs. This was disliked by the trade incorporations who sought to keep control of the number of workers in their craft.221

The expansion of mill-work attracted a large number of Irish to Dundee in the 1820s. Friction was caused between the Dundonians and the incomers

when wages were depressed, as Thomas Baxter vividly describes on 6 July

1830:

. . . a good deal Rioting tonight with the avowed purpose of persecuting the Irish and forcing them to leave the Town . . they . . force themselves into every department of Labour at any wages rather than want employment - they are thus

220 Hay (1876, p. 278) Extract was from Arbroath Kirk Session minutes for

1782.

221 ADA Z /2 /2 /2 This is noted in the case of Peter Macpherson in 1809 who was working as a shoemaker w ithout permission from the Brechin Incorporation. The incorporation took the case to court and lost, as the man had been a soldier.

wish'd to be got rid of .. .222

Thus migration to the towns could cause tensions between residents and inmigrants during periods of economic depression. However, there is little other evidence that indicates that migrants were not integrated into the urban populations. Although Pooley (1979, p. 268) identifies that transient Irish populations lived in the older residential districts of Victorian Liverpool, Withers (1986, p. 48) does not find Highland migrants to Dundee and Perth to be similarly segregated. Withers asserts that most Highlanders were tied to certain areas of housing through low income or in relation to their occupations rather than being inmigrants. Thus we may suggest that full integration into the Angus towns during the modernising period was quite plausible for some groups of inmigrants.

The use of apprentice records has biased the latter analysis towards the younger age groups of the population, but the propensity to move did not vanish with increasing age. For example, the father of an entrant to the Dundee Hammermen, John Monro, was a blacksmith and had recently moved himself from Perth to Edinburgh.223 Other people who were well- established in their chosen professions also migrated. In 1793 James Wood the present Deacon of the Brechin Weavers announced he was to immediately remove to Dunbar.224 Migration could also involve a change of occupation as in the example of George Miln, a former baker in Dundee, who by 1819 had moved to Kirriemuir and was involved in the associated brewing industry.225 Thus a range of people may become migrants at

222 DUA MS 15/114/2.

223 Miller Hendry W.S. Hammerman Lockit Book. 224 AD AZ/4/2/1.

identification of comparable jobs is difficult, many variations being noted in the sources. For example a tradesman can be a journeyman (with no responsibility and directed by his master), a master (with one or two employees) or a manufacturer (with a large business and many servants). Withers (1986, p. 40) confirms this drawback in the historical interpretation :

There is also the problem of 'vertical' and 'horizontal' comparability : of knowing whether an occupation involved similar tasks and had the same connotations of status in different places and at different dates.

Thus in any explanation of the different experiences of mobility we must be careful not to overstate the case and make sure that the patterns and trends are indeed comparable.

A brief discussion of methods of analysis lays the basis for an understanding of how tills thesis was researched and of the data used in the analysis. In the