“Scottishness,”“Britishness,” and Scottish Tourism, 1770–1914

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines the cultural significance of Scotland for the legions of English tourists who headed north in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and provides an overview of several scholarly debates that are currently taking place in the fields of tourism and of British national identity. The image of Scotland was refashioned in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the result of changing cultural fashions and new political developments. Because the industry of tourism and the idea of Scotland developed alongside each other, Scotland played a disproportionately important role in the history of tourism, and tourism a disproportionately important role in the history of modern Scotland. The image of Scotland, for both Scots and foreigners, did not evolve in isolation. It developed simultaneously with the descent upon Scotland of masses of tourists, lured by a certain type of advertising, and armed with guidebooks and preconceived expectations of what they would find. Prompted by promotional materials, the comments of previous travelers, and literature, tourists claimed a sense of mastery over Scotland and its people. However, the tourist image of Scotland was not hegemonic. Thoughtful tourists were challenged by what they found in Scotland, discovering that they could not always make the country fit their expectations.