A Persistent Borderland: Glasgow, the Anglo-Scottish Border, and the Making of (North) British Identity, 1700–1730

Abstract

Abstract Borderlands are not just zones bisected by a border but are also conceptual spaces and areas defined by ‘borderwork’ activities. Eighteenth-century Glasgow was one such area, in which the typical activities associated with borderlands – tax evasion, feuds, and violence as a hallmark of inter-community relations or resistance to an overmighty state and its lieutenants – shaped the effort to produce a new ‘British’ identity after 1707. This article examines two instances of riot in Glasgow and emphasises the importance of the role played by lower-status actors and prevailing concepts of fairness in forging the Anglo-Scottish Union in one of its most important cities.