The Scottish Route of Industrial Heritage

Scotland is internationally famous for its landscape of beautiful mountains and lochs which cover the majority of the country. The major industrial areas are largely confined to Scotland’s Central Belt, which includes Edinburgh and Glasgow, and it is also where the coal fields lay and communications were relatively easy to develop. Despite this relatively limited geographic area Scotland’s industrial history is of world significance.  

Scotland played a leading role in the Industrial Revolution, both in the formative years in the late 18th and 19th  century and in the first half of the 20th century. James Watt is often referred to as the father of the Industrial Revolution with the invention of his steam engine in 1776.  Scotland was a major producer of coal, iron, steel, shale oil, slate and other products and heavy engineering items such as steam engines, railway locomotives and ships, including the famous ocean liners built at Clydebank in the early 20th century. Countless consumer goods were also manufactured including jute, cotton, linen, woollens and a multiplicity of items from tyres to marmalade, not forgetting whisky and beer. To service these industries a network of canals and railways were constructed including the Caledonian Canal, linking the east and west coast, by Thomas Telford completed in 1822 and the iconic Forth Railway Bridge completed in 1890, now a World Heritage Site.

Scottish influence on world development was extended through very high levels of emigration and Scottish engineering and commercial expertise assisted greatly in the economic development of many nations around the globe. At home workers’ solidarity in the face of harsh living and working conditions and the economic realities of industrial competition is a vital part of Scotland’s industrial history exemplified by the dramatic struggles during the decline of the world famous Clyde shipyards.