The history of carpetbaggers and their Scottish opponents

In the past, such candidates were called “carpetbaggers” and a group that objected to some of them – dubbed the Young Scots Society – has since been labelled anti-English.

However, history professor Kyle Thompson, who has been researching carpetbaggers and the Young Scots, believes this is not the case.

Even though they were guilty of some anti-English rhetoric, he said the Young Scots’ main objections were that the Liberal candidates parachuted in from England were not left-leaning enough and did not support Home Rule.

One Young Scot, Roland Muirhead, went on to support the nascent Labour Party but later believed leader Keir Hardie had made a mistake by joining up with English Labour.

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“He felt Scottish Labour was more advanced and held back by the larger segment of English Labour,” said Thompson. “This matches up the feeling and argument of the Young Scots in the Edwardian period and again – at least here – the sentiment is not anti-English but instead a realisation of the more advanced segment of a party being held back by its larger moderate half.”

Thompson, below, who is an associate professor of history at Pittsburgh State University, came across the Young Scots, who were formed in 1900, during his research into English carpetbaggers in Liberal Scotland from 1880 to the First World War.

“A carpetbagger is basically a politician seeking office in a foreign place,” he said. “I was interested in this term because it is an American term coming from the post-Civil War era but shows up in the rhetoric of the day in Scotland.”

In the Victorian period, the largest parties were the Liberals, who comprised a wide range of views, and the Tories.

There were few Tory voters in Scotland at the time so the Liberals would send candidates from south of the Border to constituencies where they were sure of a Liberal majority. This included Winston Churchill who was elected Liberal MP for Dundee in 1908.

While this was largely tolerated initially, disquiet grew that some of these candidates’ views did not line up with their constituencies’ and were not particularly interested in the big issues of the day in Scotland, such as land reform.

This came to a head in 1900 when the Liberals suffered a major defeat and lost the majority of their seats in Scotland.

The rout sparked the formation of the Young Scots who were convinced the defeat was due to the Liberals becoming less progressive while they wanted to pull the party more to the left.

“Their first foray into politics was anti-Boer War and pro-free speech, and they held a big demonstration at Waverley market in Edinburgh and really gained a name for themselves,” said Professor Thompson. “At one point they were called the spearhead of the Liberal Party in Scotland so they become fairly influential.

“At first they really focused on [former prime minister] William Gladstone’s form of liberalism, so to move forward they were looking backwards which is interesting. Then, around 1906, they dropped this idea of going back to Gladstone and started focusing more on things like Home Rule and Scottish nationalism.”

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He added: “Some historians claim they were very anti-English and there is some rhetoric that was anti-English but I think overall, that rather than the ethnicity of the person, they were really concerned about candidates who were coming for a safe seat but were not open to their progressive ideas and this progressively becomes Home Rule.”

Professor Thompson pointed out that although they opposed some carpetbagging candidates, they supported others such as Churchill.

This is also illustrated by a 1911 by-election where the Liberal candidate was Gladstone’s grandson, also called William Gladstone. The Young Scots were at first opposed to his candidature but dropped their opposition when he agreed to support Home Rule.

Professor Thompson said it was clear the Young Scots were looking for people who were supportive of their view of politics and what they thought the party should support.

“However they are not a well-known group now and whenever they do pop up the thing that is pulled out is this anti-Englishness, but I don’t see them as that at any point,” he said.

“They always support some English candidates even when there is rhetoric that other English people should not be running for Scottish constituencies. It is a far more nuanced picture than maybe has been previously thought.”

Professor Kyle Thompson is one of the speakers at a conference on the Histories of Scottish Politics in the Age of Union, c1700-1945 at Durham University from July 23-24