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The Scottish Country Miller 1700-1900

by Enid Gauldie

ISBN: 9780859765114
Imprint: John Donald
Publication Date: Mar 2006
Format: Paperback
Price: £14.99
Stock Status: in stock

Her research is based not only on a wide variety of written records (including those from milling companies, local parishes and engineering firms), but also in extensive fieldwork, including interviews with those who worked, or whose families worked, as millers in the days when mills were still of central importance to the rural community.

The history of Scotland has often been the history of aristocracy, lawyers and clergy, but recent years have brought growing interest in the lives of ordinary country people and the domestic craftsmen who formed an essential role in the role in the life of the community. Until the industrialisation of the towns and depopulation of the countryside (which took place at widely differing paces in different regions of the country), the miller was of vital importance in the community. His product was the chief element of the diet of the whole Scottish people until Victorian times (and of large sections of the population until World War 1), and, before the expansion of retail trade, the mill was shop as well as manufacturer and the only source of what most people ate most of the time.

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