Agrarian Reform and Agricultural Improvement in Lowland Scotland, 1750-1850

Lowland Scotland underwent massive changes between 1750 and 1850. Agrarian improvement and land enclosure changed the way Scottish farmers and laborers used and thought about the land. This, in turn, had a major impact on industrialization, urbanization, and emigration. Predominantly, those in charge of implementing these wide-reaching changes were middle-class tenant farmers seeking to improve their social status. The power of these estate partitioners, or overseers, increased in the Lowlands throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They were integral to the improvement process in the Lowlands. They often saw both sides of agrarian reform, documenting it as such. By 1850, Lowland Scotland was one of the most industrialized and enlightened sectors of Europe; a century earlier it had been one of the least. It was not simply the work of wealthy landowners who brought these changes to fruition. The role of middle-class partitioners was great, and would significantly influence the evolution of land tenantry patterns across the whole of Scotland.