Occupations

The years 1760-1780 in Britain saw the installation of the first major mechanical inventions for harnessing power to manufacturing and for multiplying production. The spread of the Industrial Revolution in Scotland produced a complexity of change. New kinds of employment began to appear, a number of occupations slowly or quickly vanished, while there was a tendency for many types of business to become localised, the country ones moving to the towns, the town ones shifting to the cities. For example, shopkeepers superseded the travelling packman, whose wares ranged from thread to the latest popular pamphlet. The spinning of wool (a task for womenfolk in some local farms up to 1815), the weaving of homespun (carried out in the village wabster’s shop), and the making of broadcloth garments (by the travelling tailor), all customary and accepted when the story starts, have mostly disappeared before it is half told. Application had to be made to the Council to become a “Stallinger” with permission to erect a stall in the street on Market and Fair Days. The town was growing.