An Enlightenment Tory in Victorian Scotland: The Career of Sir Archibald Alison

241 Pages·1997·13.39 MB·English

by  Michael Michie

AN ENLIGHTENMENT TORY IN VICTORIAN SCOTLAND
The Career of Sir Archibald Alison
An Enlightenment Tory in Victorian Scotland is a political and intellectual
biography of Sir Archibald Alison (1792-1867), historian, social critic,
criminal lawyer, and sheriff of Lanarkshire. The first author to examine
the full range of Alison's writings and activities, Michael Michie reveals a
significant link between the Scottish Enlightenment and Victorian con-
servatism.
Michie argues that Alison's conservative ideas were deeply influenced
by the social and political thought of the Scottish Enlightenment. He
contends that Alison was the embodiment of the High Tory appropria-
tion of the legacy of Adam Smith particularly evident in the belief that
an agrarian capitalist society was the most appropriate form for both the
maintenance of order and the practice of virtue.
Developing the suggestion that a conservative interpretation of the
enlightened legacy was possible for the succeeding century, Michie's
study offers a useful corrective to the received wisdom that Victorian
Liberalism was the true heir of the Scottish Enlightenment.
MICHAEL MICHIE is associate professor of political science, Atkinson
College, York University.
MCGILL-QUEEN'S STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS
AN ENLIGHTENMENT TORY IN
VICTORIAN SCOTLAND
The Career of Sir Archibald Alison
Michael Michie
McGill-Queen's University Press
Montreal & Kingston • London • Buffalo
© McGill-Queen's University Press 1997
ISBN 0-7735-1025-7
Legal deposit fourth quarter 1997
Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec
Published simultaneously in the European Union
by Tuckwell Press Ltd.
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and
Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the support
received for its publishing program from the
Canada Council's Block Grants program.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Michie, Michael Hugh, 1944-
An Enlightenment Tory in Victorian Scodand: the career of Sir Archibald Alison
(McGill-Queen's studies in the history of ideas; 25)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7735-1025-7
i. Alison, Archibald, Sir, 1792-1867 - Political and social views. 2. Conservatism -
Scotland - History - igth century. 3. Enlightenment - Scotland. 4. Scodand -
Politics and government — 19th century. 5. Scodand — Intellectual
life - 19tii century. II. Title. III. Series.
KDC313.A4M53 1997 32o.5'2'og2 097-900688-0
This book was typeset by Typo Litho Composition Inc.
in 10/12 Baskerville.
For my father
John James Michie
and in memory of my mother
Catherine Johnson
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Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 3
1 "Persevering Virtue" 13
2 "Laborious Lawyer" 35
3 "Riding at Them with a Squadron of Dragoons" 64
4 "A Little Aristocracy of Freeholders" 92
5 "Mr. Wordy's History" 130
6 "The Oldest of the Tories" 159
Conclusion 198
Bibliography 203
Index 225
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Acknowledgments
In the planning and writing of this book I have been helped and inspired
by a number of people. It was John Dwyer who first suggested that a study
of Alison was viable and who gave me the benefit of his wide knowledge
of Scottish Enlightenment sources and debates. My dissertation supervi-
sor, Nicholas Rogers, deserves thanks; his knowledge of eighteenth- and
early-nineteenth-century British social and political history was invalu-
able in setting my subject in a wider context, and his comments and sug-
gestions for chapter revisions were thorough and extremely useful. David
McNally gave me the benefit of his original and stimulating research on
Adam Smith, Thomas Mai thus, and political economy in general. I thank
Douglas Hay for many fruitful suggestions for research in the area of
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century criminal law. My colleagues in the
Political Science Department of Atkinson College, York University, and
our secretary, Louise Jacobs, have demonstrated their support and
friendship through many years. I have received much encouragement
from Leslie Sanders, a dear friend and colleague.
I am grateful for the financial support received from the CUEW (now
CUPE) Part-time Research Fund and the Atkinson College Research
Fund. Those grants enabled me to travel to Britain, where my experience
of the courtesy and professionalism of the staffs of the Public Record
Office (Kew), the Scottish Record Office, the National Library of Scot-
land, Edinburgh University Library, and the Mitchell Library, Glasgow,
was entirely positive. The staffs at York University Libraries and the staff at
the Robarts Library, University of Toronto, were also extremely helpful, as
was Hazel O'Loughlin-Vidal of Atkinson College. This book would not
have progressed far from the dissertation stage without the encourage-
ment and advice of Peter Blaney, Philip Cercone, and Joan McGilvray of