Lead-Mining and the Lead Industry in Scotland, 1680–1780

Abstract

Lead-mining was one of Scotland's few domestic industries during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, there is very little scholarly material available on this subject. T.C. Smout is one of the few historians who has written about the Scottish lead industry, but his articles were published in the 1960s and 70s. The aim of this article is address this gap in research by trying to establish the scale of mining activities, the industry's gross revenue, and its profit margins between 1680 and 1780. This paper relies heavily on archival records concerning Leadhills in Lanarkshire, which are primarily stored at Hopetoun House near South Queensferry. Leadhills was one of Scotland's two major lead mines and was acquired by the Hope family in the mid-seventeenth century. Mining activities at Leadhills quickly became the Hopes’ (who obtained the earldom of Hopetoun in 1703) primary source of income. The influence of the Hopes as lead barons became such that they built Hopetoun House, one of the country's most significant country houses, at the turn of the eighteenth century and aggrandised it for decades thereafter. This paper will confirm concretely the importance of Leadhills as a boon to the Hopes’ income and Scotland's increasingly globalised economy (particularly after the 1707 Union).