Introduction

  Large-scale migration within and to the nineteenth-century British Isles was a reflection of a dynamic industrial economy. Among the migrants who specifically came to Scotland increasing numbers came from continental Europe. Beginning with a discussion of existing accounts of their settlement patterns and of the possibilities of a comparative analysis offered by concepts such as that of ‘foreignness’, it will be explained that the focus of this monograph will be on the institutions of a ‘Scottish’ state, on the dynamic of relations between that expanding state machinery and migrants, and on the impact of ‘official Scottishness’ on migrant identities.