Scottish Seafarers at Home and Abroad, 1550-1850

During the early modern period, Scotland enhanced and extended its shipping capacity. Initially it traded with ports along the coasts of England, the Low Countries, and Scandinavia, but by the Victorian era Scottish ships and seamen could be found worldwide, especially in North America and the Caribbean.  During the seventeenth century Scotland traded with Western Europe from Archangel in the north to Venice in the south. Scottish seafarers settled abroad, notably in ports such as Rotterdam and London, and served on vessels of the Netherlands and England.

Trade fostered settlement initially by seamen, merchants, and their factors in ports such as Bergen in Norway for timber, or in Riga on the Baltic, a source of flax for the textile mills of Dundee. Similarly in Virginia, Scots merchants, their factors, and seafarers could be found in Alexandria and Norfolk obtaining tobacco for shipment to Glasgow; and in Kingston, Jamaica, for sugar for the refineries of Greenock. Vessels bound for Canada with emigrants returned to Scotland with cargoes of timber.

This book is designed to identify the shipping links used by merchants and later by settlers. A wide range of goods and raw materials were traded. Mr. Dobson used the Scottish Port Books, though incomplete, in this compilation for trade prior to 1828. The early Books are in the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh; those after 1828 are in London. Mr. Dobson also used the records of the High Court of the Admiralty of Scotland, journals such as the Scots Magazine, and contemporary newspapers such as the Edinburgh Evening Courant and Leith Commercial Lists. Most seafarers listed here were engaged in merchant shipping; however, researchers will also encounter a few pirates or privateers (e.g. William Kidd), whalers, and slave traders.

David Dobson

2026, 5.5" x 8.5", paper, 156 pp.

ISBN: 9780806360706

102-8770