Population Checks and Natural Laws: Malthus, Climate Determinism and Emigration

Abstract

Through the lens of emergent laws of climatology developed to advance the scientific foundations and popular reach of practical meteorology in the nineteenth century, this article examines the checks on population and the global movement of people linked to reoccurring climate patterns and abnormal climatic events. Meteorological research contributed to debates within political economy and the public health movement, and to the disputed moral rationale for poor law reform. Scientific authority for this new analysis rested on a network of personal, religious, and professional links between T.R. Malthus, Thomas Chalmers, Francis Jeffrey, David Brewster, James D. Forbes, James Stark, Edwin Chadwick and William Pulteney Alison. The work of climate determinists argued that several causations were simultaneously affecting the nation’s vital statistics. The potential advantage to health from moving on a permanent basis to a more salubrious climate was explored. Adding further to the conundrum of colonisation, and the case for assisted migration, the laws of climatology offered reasons why any migrants pulled into parts of urban and Highland Scotland by freed resource – the vacuum effect – would still experience a positive Malthusian check on their life chances.