Saltmarket tenements

Image: © kim traynor Taken: 26 Mar 2012

"The social implications [of [industrialisation] were profound. It was the age of the urban peasantry: tens of thousands flocked to west-central Scotland from the Highlands and from Ireland. A grim existence awaited them. Cramped, insanitary and hurriedly erected housing: a working day of 14 hours (longer after the advent of gas lighting) for men, women and children alike; dirty and dangerous working conditions, subsistence pay and inadequate diet: in all these lay the paradox, intuitively familiar to the modern Scot, of a nation's wealth being built on the poverty of its people. Diseases—smallpox, cholera, rickets, tuberculosis—shrivelled the physical stature of the Scots-Irish people and killed them in numbers which only continuing waves of immigration could keep economically viable. Average life-expectancy in Glasgow in the late 19th century was 30; 16 years below the national figure. As late as the eve of the World War I, nearly two-thirds of the city's population lived in homes with two or fewer rooms; and nearly 15 per cent of children died before the age of one." -- Keith Aitken, The Economy, Anatomy Of Scotland, 1992

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