Introduction

The Scottish twentieth century can be analysed as representing a catalogue of decline, at least in relation to the country's world position as a manufacturing nation. Evident from the end of the preceding century, this decline became increasingly apparent in the wake of the Great War. Poor management, rising costs and ageing hardware encouraged potential customers to take their custom elsewhere. By the end of the century, shipbuilding had practically disappeared from the Clyde (although shipbreaking continued, the skills for one trade being reversed and exploited for the other); shipyards in Japan and, in particular, Korea took up the strain. The production of iron and steel continued, but became increasingly small-scale. As long as the railways used steam as the primary means of propulsion (something which continued until the end of the 1950s in Scotland, in marked contrast to other European countries, where steam was sidelined by electricity and diesel at the very latest in the period following the Second World War) and most homes were heated by coal or coke (with cookers fuelled by coal-derived gas), coal mining remained an important industry. Economies of scale and the introduction of new technologies meant that fewer miners were needed to produce more coal in the new larger pits. Steam was replaced by ‘clean’ propulsion on the railways (which, as I write, primarily involves the exploitation of another non-renewable power source, diesel) and the passing of Clean Air Acts meant that the industry went into steep decline from the 1960s on. By the end of the century practically no deep mines existed, although some open-cast mining continued. The cloth and thread mills of towns like Paisley were moribund by the 1970s (although some weaving continued in the Borders and, using high-end (and -priced) traditional methods, in the Western and Northern Isles).

Other traditional occupations mutated and declined. By the end of the century, only Peterhead in Aberdeenshire remained as a major fishing port. Overfishing and pollution in the southern North Sea, along with Icelandic restrictive practices related to their perception of the size of their national waters, had rendered the North Sea no longer viable as a resource for fish (at least in the short term). While agriculture continued, changing technology and altered work practices meant that far fewer people were needed to make individual businesses profitable.