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‘In this powerfully argued book, Duncan Green shows how we can make
major changes in our unequal and unjust world by concerted action,
taking full note of the economic and social mechanisms, including
established institutions, that sustain the existing order. If self-confidence
is important for the effective agency of deprived communities, so is a
reasoned understanding of the difficult barriers that must be faced and
overcome. This is a splendid treatise on how to change the actual world—
in reality, not just in our dreams.’
Amartya Sen, Thomas W. Lamont University Professor,
and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University
‘In How Change Happens, Duncan Green points to a simple truth: that
positive social change requires power, and hence attention on the part of
reformers to politics and the institutions within which power is exercised.
It is an indispensable guide for activists and change-makers everywhere.’
Francis Fukuyama, Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at
the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI),
and the Mosbacher Director of FSI’s Center on Democracy,
Development, and the Rule of Law, Stanford University
‘It was George Orwell who wrote that “The best books… are those that
tell you what you know already.” Well in Duncan’s book How Change
Happens I have found something better: A book that made me think
differently about something I have been doing for my entire life. He has
captured so much in these pages, drawing on global and national and
local change and examples from past and present. But what makes this
book so insightful is that at all times we are able to see the world through
Duncan’s watchful eyes: From his time as a backpacker in South America
to lobbying the WTO in Seattle and his many years with Oxfam, this is
someone who has always been watching and always been reflecting. It is
this gift that will most help Duncan’s readers—whether they be students
or those who think they have seen it all. There is always more to notice
about such a complex, changing world. And the more we can see, the
better we will be at making change happen.’
Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director, Oxfam International
‘Once again, following From Poverty to Power, Duncan has given us a remark-
able tour de force, wide-ranging, readable, combining theory and practice,
and drawing on his extensive reading and rich and varied experience. How
Change Happens is a wonderful gift to all development professionals and
citizens who want to make our world a better place. It confronts contem-
porary complexity, systems, power, and wealth and builds on an extraor-
dinarily rich treasury of experience and evidence to give us a new, grounded
realism for development practice. Only after reading and reflecting have I
been able to see how badly we have needed this book. It does more than fill a
gap. The evidence, examples, analysis, insights, and ideas for action are a
quiet but compelling call for reflection on errors and omissions in one’s own
mindset and practice. Here then we have vital reading for all development
professionals, practitioners, and activists, and all concerned citizens. It is as
relevant and important for South as North, for funders as activists, for
governments as NGOs, for transnational corporations as campaigning citi-
zens. We are all in this together. How Change Happens should stand the test of
time. It is a landmark, a must read book to return to again and again to
inform and inspire reflection and action. I know no other book like it.’
Robert Chambers, Research Associate,
Institute of Development Studies
‘This is a gem of a book. Lucidly written and disarmingly frank, it distils
the author’s decades of experience in global development practice to
share what can work and what may not, in changing power relations
and complex systems. Again and again I found myself agreeing with him.
All of us—practitioners and academics—who want a better world, and
are willing to work for it, must read this book.’
Bina Agarwal, Professor of Development Economics and Environment,
Global Development Institute, University of Manchester
‘This fascinating book should be on the bedside of any activist—and
many others besides. Duncan Green is the rare global activist who can
explain in clear yet analytical language what it takes to make change
happen. Ranging widely from Lake Titicaca in Peru to rural Tajikistan,
from shanty towns to the halls of power, this is a book sprinkled with
wisdom and insight on every page.’
Dani Rodrik, Ford Foundation Professor of International Political
Economy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
‘How Change Happens is a positive guide to activists. It is one of the most
helpful, hopeful and thoughtful manual on the process of transformation. It
is an optimistic book; to be an activist you need to be an optimist! When
one feels despondent and disheartened then reading this book will help to
encourage, energise, and inspire one to participate in the creation of a better
world. Duncan Green makes the case with vivid examples that significant
changes have taken place and continue to take place when social and
environmental activists employ skilful means and multiple strategies such
as advocacy, campaigning, organising, and building movements. It is a
wonderful book. Read it and be enthused to join in the journey of change.’
Satish Kumar, Founder of Schumacher College and
Editor Emeritus, Resurgence & Ecologist
‘The world committed to global transformative change in , with the
 Agenda and targets in the Paris Climate Agreement to stay well
below °C and achieve carbon neutrality by the second half of the century.
We need to understand how change happens in order to accelerate our
pathway to a safe future. Duncan Green’s book is a timely and badly
needed guide to bringing about the necessary social and political change.’
Mary Robinson, Chair of the Institute
for Human Rights and Business
HOW C HANGE HAPPENS
 DUNCAN GREEN

HOW CHANGE
HAPPENS

1
 3
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For Tito and Jenny who got me started, Cathy who kept me going,
and Calum and Finlay, who can take over from here.
 FOREWORD
Ha-Joon Chang

‘T he philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various

ways. The point, however, is to change it’, said Karl Marx in
one of his most celebrated passages, which eventually became one of
his two epitaphs (the other one being, ‘Workers of all lands, unite’).
Marx was certainly right to argue that social theories should be not
just about understanding the status quo but also about offering a
vision for its improvement; but he was wrong to imply that no one
before him had thought like that.
For the last several thousand years at least, human beings have tried
to imagine a different world from the one they live in, and worked
together to create it. Human history is littered with countless visions
of—and struggles for—an alternative social order. These may have
been large-scale social experiments based on elaborate theories, like
Marxism, the welfare state, or neo-liberalism. Or they may have
involved daily struggles for survival, safety, and dignity by oppressed
and underprivileged people, even though they may not have had any
sophisticated theory about their alternative world. However, the cap-
acity to imagine an alternative social order and cooperating to create it
is what distinguishes humankind from other animals.
Despite the fact that much of human history has been about
attempting to create different realities, we do not understand the
process of social change very well.
To be sure, we have grand historical narratives that describe social
change as the results of interactions between technological forces and
economic institutions, such as property rights; Marxism is the best

xi
 FOREWORD

example of this. We know quite a bit about the way in which society is
transformed because of the changes in political-legal institutions, such
as the court system or international trade agreements. We have inter-
esting and detailed accounts of how certain individuals and groups—
whether they are political leaders, business leaders, trade unions, or
grassroots groups—have succeeded in realizing visions that initially
few others thought realistic.
However, we do not yet have a good theory of how all these
different elements work together to generate social change. To put it
a bit more dramatically, if someone wanted to know how she could
change certain aspects of the community, nation, or the world she
lives in, she would be hard pressed to find a decent guidebook.
Into this gap steps Duncan Green, the veteran campaigner for devel-
opment and social justice, with How Change Happens, an innovative and
thrilling field guide to—let’s not mince words—changing the world.
Many conventional discussions of how change happens focus
either on technology (mobile phones can bring the revolution!) or a
brutal account of realpolitik—how oligarchs and elites carve up the
world. While not ignoring such factors, How Change Happens develops
a far better framework for understanding social change by focusing on
power analysis and systemic understanding; this is called the ‘power
and systems approach’.
The power and systems approach emphasizes that, in order to
generate social change, we first need to understand how power is
distributed and can be re-distributed between and within social groups:
the emancipation of women; the spread of human rights; the power of
poor people when they get organized; the shifting power relationships
behind the negotiations around the international economic system.
While emphasizing the role of power struggles, the book does not see
them as voluntaristic clashes of raw forces, in which whoever has more
arms, money, or votes wins. It tries to situate those power struggles
within complex systems that are continuously changing in unpredict-
able ways, affecting and being affected by diverse factors like social
norms, negotiations, campaigns, lobbying, and leadership.

xii
 FOREWORD

Providing a theory of social change that is convincing is already a

tall order, but Duncan Green sets himself an even higher bar. The
book aims to be a practical field guide to social activism. More than
that, it aspires to be a field guide not just for the kinds of people he
normally works with, such as NGO campaigners or grassroots organ-
izers. It is meant to be a field manual for activists in the broadest sense:
politicians, civil servants, businesspeople, even academics.
This is certainly a hugely ambitious project; how can anyone write a
book that can provide sophisticated theories of social change, while
providing practical advice to activists?
However, amazingly, How Change Happens delivers on its promise.
Those who are purely interested in understanding better how societies
change will find a treasure trove of theoretical insights and empirical
evidence. Those who want to change the world through formal
politics will certainly learn a lot from the book in terms of how to
establish political consensus and legitimacy, how to build coalitions,
and how to use national and international laws to initiate and con-
solidate changes. Civil servants who want to make things better for
citizens, or business leaders who want to do more than simply
maximize profits will also find plenty of lessons to draw from the
book in devising policies and corporate strategies that can make the
world a better place in realistic but innovative ways. The book will
even help academics, like myself, who try to engage with real-world
issues, to grasp better the role that their research and outreach
activities can play in bringing about (or hindering) social change.
Drawing on his impressive knowledge of the relevant areas of the
social sciences, his thirty-five years of diverse experience in inter-
national development and many first-hand examples from the global
experience of Oxfam, one of the world’s largest social justice NGOs,
Duncan Green has produced a unique and uniquely useful book
addressing a hugely important but largely neglected issue. Everyone
who is interested in making the world a better place should thank him
for it.

xiii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

O nce again, I am indebted to the editorial dream team of Mark

Fried and Anna Coryndon. Mark’s unique combination of edi-
torial skill, deep knowledge of development, and phenomenal
patience helped steer this book from a messy first draft to (hopefully)
something rather better. Anna managed the project throughout with
her customary grace and attention to detail.
I would like to thank Oxfam for giving me the time and encourage-
ment to write this book, but while I thank Oxfam for its support, I want
to make it clear that How Change Happens does not necessarily reflect
Oxfam policy positions—the views expressed are those of the author.
A huge number of Oxfam friends and colleagues contributed to
various drafts and discussions, including Laurie Adams, Emily Brown,
Celine Charveriat, Binay Dhital, Thomas Dunmore-Rodriguez, Lisa
Marie Faye, Penny Fowler, Uwe Gneiting, Sally Golding, Mark Goldring,
Tim Gore, Irene Guijt, Thomas Heath, Mohga Kamal-Yanni, Eluka
Kibona, Gawain Kripke, Max Lawson, Paul O’Brien, Jo Rowlands, Erinch
Sahan, Joss Saunders, Kashif Shabir, Barry Shelley, Kaori Shigiya, Mary
Sue Smiarowski, Caroline Sweetman, and Andrew Wells-Dang.
The book has been greatly helped by the financial and intellectual
support of Australia’s Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade,
including Kirsten Bishop, Helen Corrigan, Steve Hogg, Sally Moyle,
and Sandra Kraushaar.
Colleagues at the Developmental Leadership Program have pro-
vided invaluable advice, notably Niheer Dasandi, David Hudson,
Linda Kelly, Heather Lyne de Ver, Heather Marquette, Alina Rocha
Menocal, and Chris Roche.

xv
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to my long-suffering students at the London School of

Economics for allowing me to test various iterations of the arguments
in the book on them.
More generally, I am deeply indebted to a wide and supportive
network of ‘development wonks’ scattered across academia, civil soci-
ety, business, and government, including Jean Boulton, Francesco
Caberlin, Nathaniel Calhoun, Robert Chambers, Paul Clough, Steve
Commins, Stefanie Conrad, Paddy Coulter, Aidan Craney, James
Deane, Alice Evans, Jaime Faustino, Robin Ford, Alan Fowler, Greta
Galeazzi, John Gaventa, Calum Green, Finlay Green, Tom Harrison,
Maximilian Heywood, David Hillman, Robert Jordan, Nanci Lee,
Jeremy Lim, Matthew Lockwood, Siobhan Mcdonnell, Catherine
Masterman, Masood UL Mulk, Arnaldo Pellini, Vicky Randall, Raul
Sanchez-Urribarri, Ryan Stoa, Heidi Tydemers, Craig Valters, Jorge
Velasquez, Steve Waygood, Frauke de Weijer, and Leni Wild.
The OUP team of Kim Behrens, Kate Farquhar-Thomson, Phil
Henderson, Adam Swallow, and Aimee Wright have been a delight
to work with throughout.
I would also like to thank the many, many people around the world
who gave up precious time to answer the questions of a nosy visitor.
Many are named in the text, unless they wished to remain anonymous.
And finally, if you helped with the book, have scoured this page,
and not found your name, all I can offer is my groveling apology and a
heartfelt thank you.
As ever, any errors in the text are mine alone and certainly not the
responsibility of the many people who have helped me along the way.
The research project ‘How Change Happens’ is funded by Australian
Aid and the University of Birmingham’s Developmental Leadership
Program. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not
necessarily those of DFAT/Australian Aid and DLP.

xvi
 CONTENTS

Introduction 

Part I: A power and systems approach

. Systems thinking changes everything 

. Power lies at the heart of change 

. Shifts in social norms often underpin change 

Case study: The Chiquitanos of Bolivia 

Part II: Institutions and the importance of history

. How states evolve 

. The machinery of law 

. Accountability, political parties, and the media 

. How the international system shapes change 

. Transnational corporations as drivers and

targets of change 

Case study: The December  Paris Agreement

on climate change 

Part III: What activists can (and can’t) do

. Citizen activism and civil society 

xvii
 CONTENTS

. Leaders and leadership 

. The power of advocacy 

Part IV: Pulling it all together

. A power and systems approach to making
change happen 

Conclusion 

Index 

xviii
 INTRODUCTION

I was moved to write this book by a combination of excitement,

fascination, and frustration: excitement at the speed and grand-
eur of many of the social changes occurring today—continents
rising from poverty, multitudes gaining access to literacy and
decent healthcare for the first time, women in dozens of countries
winning rights, respect, and power. Working at Oxfam gives me an
extraordinary and privileged ringside seat from which to appreciate
both the bigger picture and the individual stories of inspiring
activists across the globe. I have also (miraculously) been given time
to read and write, arousing undying envy in many of my colleagues.
This book is the result of that dialogue between reflection and
practice.
My daily excitement is laced with frustration when I see activists
take steps that seem destined to fail. Within months of joining Oxfam
in , I witnessed two examples, one big and one small. On a field
visit to Vietnam, I was taken to see Oxfam’s work with Hmong
villagers in the north. As we drove to the remote home of this
impoverished ethnic minority, we passed the first, more intrepid
backpackers starting to arrive in the area. The Hmong produce won-
derful textiles, and it was obvious that a tourist boom was in the
offing. Yet our project consisted of training villagers to keep their
prized water buffalo warm and well during the winter (involving
rubbing them regularly with alcohol, among other things). There is
nothing wrong with working on livestock, but what were we doing to
help them prepare for the coming influx of tourists? When challenged,
our local (non-Hmong, middle class Vietnamese) staff replied that they


 HOW CHANGE HAPPENS

wanted to ‘protect’ the villagers’ traditional ways against the invasion

of the outside world.
On a grander scale, I had growing misgivings about an enormous,
global campaign Oxfam was then leading that implied global activism
around trade, debt, aid, and climate change could somehow ‘Make
Poverty History’. The campaign seemed to gravely downplay the
primacy of national politics. I developed my argument a couple of
years later in a book, From Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and
Effective States can Change the World. One of the inputs to that book
was a paper we commissioned1 on the theories of change used by
different academic disciplines. It turns out they each operate with
separate and often conflicting theories of change, and there is no
‘department of change studies’ to sort it out. I was intrigued, and set
out some rather rudimentary ideas about ‘how change happens’ in an
annex to the book, marking the starting point for the prolonged
conversation that led eventually to this book.
This book is for activists who want to change the world. A narrow
interpretation would say that means people engaged in protest move-
ments and campaigns around topics as disparate as climate change
and disabled peoples’ rights, usually on the margins of ‘the system’,
people who from the days of the abolitionists have been making
change happen. But the list of ‘change agents’ (English is sadly devoid
of non-clunky descriptors in this field) is much wider. I include
reformers inside the system, such as politicians (both elected and
unelected), public officials, and enlightened business people. And the
civic world beyond formal institutions is far too rich to narrow down
to a single category of ‘campaigners’. Faith groups, community lead-
ers, and the many self-help organizations that women form are all
often influential players. Even within aid organizations, those engaged

1
Roman Krznaric, , ‘How Change Happens: Interdisciplinary perspectives for
human development’, Oxfam Research Report (Oxford: Oxfam GB, ) http://policy-
practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/how-change-happens-interdisciplinary-perspectives-
for-human-development-.


 INTRODUCTION

in what we call ‘programmes’—funding or running projects to create

jobs or improve health and education services, or responding to
emergencies such as wars or earthquakes—are just as involved in
seeking change as campaigners. When I use the word ‘activists’
I mean all of the above. (If that all sounds too exhausting, and you
would rather be an armchair activist who just wants to understand
change better, that’s fine too.)
How Change Happens also sheds light on why the relationships
between such activists are often fraught. People bring their own
worldviews to the question of change. Do we prefer conflict (‘speaking
truth to power’) or cooperation (‘winning friends and influencing
people’)? Do we see progress everywhere, and seek to accelerate its
path, or do we see (in our darker, more honest moments) a quixotic
struggle against power and injustice that is ultimately doomed to
defeat? Do we believe lasting and legitimate change is primarily driven
by the accumulation of power at grassroots/individual level, through
organization and challenging norms and beliefs? Or by reforms at
the levels of laws, policies, institutions, companies and elites? Or by
identifying and supporting ‘enlightened’ leaders? Do we think the aim
of development is to include poor people in the benefits of modernity
(money economy, technology, mobility) or to defend other cultures
and traditions and build an alternative to modernity? Do we want to
make the current system function better, or do we seek something
that tackles the deeper structures of power? The answer is ‘all of the
above’—this book tries to show how these different approaches fit
into the wider picture of change.
The book takes as its starting point Amartya Sen’s brilliant defin-
ition of development as the progressive expansion of the freedoms to
be and to do.2 It discusses political and social change, as well as some
of development’s economic aspects. It focuses on intended change,
even though a good deal of change is unintended or accidental
(the invention of the washing machine made a huge contribution to

2
Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ).


 HOW CHANGE HAPPENS

women’s empowerment, even though that probably wasn’t in the

minds of its inventors).
One of the curious insights I gleaned from writing the book is that
the same categories of analysis (power, norms, complex systems,
institutions, agency) seem to be helpful at all levels, whether consid-
ering change in a single community, a country, or at a global level.
Like Russian Dolls, or fractals, the same features reappear at different
scales as you zoom in and out. Those ways of thinking also help when
defending good things from attack (resisting the wrong kind of
change) and when trying to explain why change often doesn’t happen,
the deep rooted resistance of institutions, norms, and individuals that
often blocks the way.
How Change Happens is divided into four parts. The first sets out the
conceptual underpinning of the book, an effort to understand change
through the prism of complex systems, power, and social norms.
Perhaps it is the legacy of a long-distant physics degree, but at times
in the last few years, it has felt something like a unified field theory of
development is emerging from these discussions. Part I also wrestles
with the fact that books are inevitably linear creations: you start at the
beginning and (if it’s any good) read through to the end. That seems
terribly inappropriate for a discussion of non-linear complex systems,
and runs the risk that readers give up before getting to the ‘so what’
conclusion. I have therefore tried to boil down the final message of the
book into a one-page ‘power and systems approach’ in Part I, which
gives a taste of what is to come.
Part II discusses some of the main institutions that are both the
object and subject of most change processes: central government, legal
systems, political parties and other channels of accountability, the
international system, and large transnational corporations. Some of
this may feel like hard work, and certainly a long way from a feel-good
celebration of activism. I suspect many activists could use a quick
refresher on the history, politics, and internal structures of the institu-
tions they wish to influence if we are to find new ideas and possibilities
for promoting change and seizing moments of opportunity.


 INTRODUCTION

Part III discusses some of activism’s main players: citizen activists,

advocacy organizations, and the role of leadership. And the final part
explores the implications of my analysis for individual activists and
their organizations, fleshing out the power and systems approach.
The book is not a manual. Indeed one of its conclusions is that
reliance on checklist toolkits is one of the things that is holding
us back. Instead it offers a combination of analysis, questions, and
case studies, with the aim of helping readers look afresh at both
the obstacles and the enthralling processes of change going on all
around them, and to gain some new energy and ideas about how
to contribute.
Like most change processes, this book emerged rather than being
decided in advance. Hundreds of people contributed their ideas and
experiences; when we posted a draft version for comment, more than
 people downloaded it. I have made every effort to incorporate a
range of voices and opinions, but in the end, this is a book written by a
white, Western (and rapidly aging) male, and it inevitably echoes my
experiences, networks, culture, assumptions, and prejudices. Please
don’t forget that, while you’re reading it.
Not that ‘I’ am a fixed quantity. Researching and writing this book
has changed me in ways I probably won’t fully understand for some
time. I have always felt a tension between the desire to be a ‘finisher’—
dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s—and the urge to move on to new
ideas, to grab the next shiny shell on the beach. At university, I studied
physics but moonlighted for lectures on Joyce and Eliot, and wrote
truly execrable poetry. My personality assessments in things like the
Myers Briggs test are a mess. Most of the time, I don’t know what
I think or, like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, I seem to hold entirely
contradictory opinions at the same time.
Somehow, the act of writing made me acknowledge that ambiguity
and grow comfortable with it. You would think that writing a book,
with its words fixed forever and its pretensions to authority, would be
anathema to ambiguity, complexity, and change. Luckily books these
days are no longer tablets of stone, rather the more time-consuming


 HOW CHANGE HAPPENS

part of a wider conversation. In this case, the conversation will

continue after publication on my ‘From Poverty to Power’ blog and
on the ‘How Change Happens’ website. I look forward to hearing your
thoughts and arguments on all of the issues raised in this book—and
to changing my mind, preferably several times before breakfast.


 PART I

A POWER AND
SYSTEMS APPROACH

C hange may not be linear, but books are. One of the standard
frustrations for time-strapped readers is having to wade through
a couple of hundred pages before you get to the ‘so what’ section at the
end. Many do not make it, so I have cheated—here’s a brief preview of the
final chapter of the book, which sets out a ‘power and systems approach’
(PSA) for those seeking to achieve change in the world around them.
Since no amount of upfront analysis will enable us to predict the
erratic behaviour of a complex system, a PSA interweaves thought and
action, learning and adapting as we go. The purpose of initial study is to
enable us to place our bets intelligently. Crucial decisions come after that,
as we act, observe the results, and adjust according to what we learn.
A PSA encourages multiple strategies, rather than a single linear
approach, and views failure, iteration and adaptation as expected and
necessary, rather than a regrettable lapse. It covers our ways of
working—how we think and feel, as well as how we behave as
activists. It also suggests the kinds of questions we should be asking
(non-exhaustive—the list is as endless as our imagination).


 HOW CHANGE HAPPENS

How we think/feel/work:  steps to help

us dance with the system

• Curiosity—study the history; ‘learn to dance with the system’.

• Humility—embrace uncertainty/ambiguity.
• Reflexivity—be conscious of your own role, prejudices, and
power.
• Include multiple perspectives, unusual suspects; be open to
different ways of seeing the world.

The questions we ask (and keep asking)

• What kind of change is involved (individual attitudes, social

norms, laws and policies, access to resources)?
• What precedents are there that we can learn from (positive
deviance, history, current political and social tides)?
• Power analysis: who are the stakeholders and what kind of
power is involved (look again—who have we forgotten?)
• What kind of approach makes sense for this change (traditional
project, advocacy, multiple parallel experiments, fast feedback
and rapid response)?
• What strategies are we going to try (delivering services, building
the broader enabling environment, demonstration projects,
convening and brokering, supporting local grassroots
organizations, advocacy)?
• Learning and course correction: how will we learn about the
impact of our actions or changes in context (e.g. critical
junctures)? Schedule regular time outs to take stock and
adapt accordingly.


 1

SYSTEMS THINKING
CHANGES EVERYTHING

The future is a dance between patterns and events

—Embracing Complexity1

P olitical and economic earthquakes are often sudden and unfore-

seeable, despite the false pundits who pop up later to claim they
predicted them all along. Take the fall of the Berlin Wall, the 
Global Financial Crisis, or the Arab Spring (and ensuing winter). Even
at a personal level, change is largely unpredictable: how many of us can
say our lives have gone according to the plans we had as -year-olds?
The essential mystery of the future poses a huge challenge to
activists. If change is only explicable in the rear-view mirror, how
can we accurately envision the future changes we seek, let alone
achieve them? How can we be sure our proposals will make things
better, and not fall victim to unintended consequences? People
employ many concepts to grapple with such questions. I find ‘systems’
and ‘complexity’ two of the most helpful.
A ‘system’ is an interconnected set of elements coherently organ-
ized in a way that achieves something. It is more than the sum of its
parts: a body is more than an aggregate of individual cells; a university
is not merely an agglomeration of individual students, professors,

1
Jean Boulton, Peter Allen, and Cliff Bowman, Embracing Complexity: Strategic Perspectives
for an Age of Turbulence (New York: Oxford University Press, ), p. . By permission of
Oxford University Press.


 HOW CHANGE HAPPENS

and buildings; an ecosystem is not just a set of individual plants

and animals.2
A defining property of human systems is complexity: because of the
sheer number of relationships and feedback loops among their many
elements, they cannot be reduced to simple chains of cause and effect.
Think of a crowd on a city street, or a flock of starlings wheeling in the
sky at dusk. Even with supercomputers, it is impossible to predict
the movement of any given person or starling, but there is order;
amazingly few collisions occur even on the most crowded streets.
In complex systems, change results from the interplay of many
diverse and apparently unrelated factors. Those of us engaged in
seeking change need to identify which elements are important and
understand how they interact.
My interest in systems thinking began when collecting stories for
my book From Poverty to Power (). The light-bulb moment came on
a visit to India’s Bundelkhand region, where the poor fishing commu-
nities of Tikamgarh had won rights to more than  large ponds. In
that struggle numerous factors interacted to create change. First, a
technological shift triggered changes in behaviour: the introduction of
new varieties of fish, which made the ponds more profitable, induced
landlords to seize ponds that had been communal. Conflict then built
pressure for government action: a group of twelve brave young fishers
in one village fought back, prompting a series of violent clashes that
radicalized and inspired other communities; women’s groups were
organized for the first time, taking control of nine ponds. Enlightened
politicians and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) helped pass
new laws and the police amazed everyone by enforcing them.
The fishing communities were the real heroes of the story. They
tenaciously faced down a violent campaign of intimidation, moved
from direct action to advocacy, and ended up winning not only access

2
Donella Meadows and Diana Wright, Thinking in Systems: A Primer (Abingdon:
Routledge, ).


Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
entertained towards the excisemen who were putting it in practice;
but no violence was used. Next day, there was shewn a continual
disposition to gather in the streets, which the magistrates as
constantly endeavoured to check; and a military party was
introduced to the town. At length, evening having drawn on, the
indignation of the populace could no longer be restrained. An elegant
house which Shawfield had built for himself, and furnished
handsomely, was attacked, and reduced to desolation,
notwithstanding every effort of the magistrates to induce the mob to
disperse. Next day, the mob rose again, and 1725.
came to the town-house in the centre of the
town, but in no formidable numbers. The military party was then
drawn out by their commander, Captain Bushell, in a hollow square,
in the centre of the crossing at the town-house, each side facing along
one of the four streets which meet there; when, some stones being
thrown at the soldiers, the officer gave way to anger, and without any
order from the provost, fired upon the multitude, of whom eight
were killed and many wounded. The multitude then flew to a guard-
house where arms were kept, armed themselves, and, ringing the
town-bell to give an alarm, were prepared to attack and destroy the
comparatively small military party, when, at the urgency of the
provost, the latter withdrew from the town, and sought refuge at
Dumbarton.
The news of this formidable riot, or rather insurrection, created
great excitement among a set of government authorities which had
lately come into office, amongst whom was Mr Duncan Forbes as
Lord Advocate. They took up the matter with a high hand. Attended
by a large body of troops, Forbes marched to Glasgow, and seized the
magistrates, under accusation of having favoured the mob, and
bringing them to Edinburgh, clapped them up in the Tolbooth. Such,
however, was the view generally taken of the malt-tax, that the
Glasgow provost and bailies were everywhere treated as martyrs for
their country, and as they passed through the streets of Edinburgh to
prison, some of the lately displaced government officials walked
bareheaded before them. By an appeal to the Court of Justiciary, as
to the legality of their mittimus, they were quickly liberated. The only
effectual vengeance the government could inflict, was an act
ordaining the community of Glasgow to pay Shawfield five thousand
pounds as compensation for the destruction of his house. The
feelings of the people of the west were grievously outraged by the
conduct of the government in this affair, and the more so that they
considered it as an injustice inflicted by friends. Was it for this, they
asked, that they had stood so stoutly for the Whig cause on every
trying occasion since the Revolution?
In August, the officials had a new trouble on their hands. The
Edinburgh brewers intimated an intention to discontinue brewing
ale. Duncan Forbes stood aghast at the idea of what might happen if
the people were wholly deprived of their accustomed beverage. After
all, the difficulty involved in a proposal to force men to go on in a
trade against their will was not too great to be encountered in those
days. The Edinburgh Evening Courant of 1725.
the 26th of August, quietly informs us that
‘Mr Carr, engraver to the Mint, who kept a brewery in this city, and
several others of the brewers, are incarcerate in the Canongate
Tolbooth, for not enacting themselves to continue their trade of
brewing, in terms of the Act of Sederunt of the Lords of Council and
Session.’ ‘The Twopenny ale,’ adds this respectable chronicle, ‘begins
to grow scarce here; notwithstanding which the city remains in
perfect tranquillity.’ Long before the unimaginable crisis of an entire
exhaustion of beer had arrived, forty of the brewers of Edinburgh,
and ten of Leith, thought proper to resume work, and the dissolution
of society was averted.[623]
Such were the troubles which Scotland experienced a hundred and
thirty-five years ago, at the prospect of a tax of twenty thousand
pounds per annum!

Christian Shaw, daughter of the Laird of July.

Bargarran, has been presented in her
girlhood as the cause of a number of prosecutions for witchcraft,
ending in the burning of no fewer than five women on Paisley Green.
[624]
As this young lady grew up to woman’s estate, she attained
distinction of a better kind, as the originator of one of the great
branches of industry for which her native province has since been
remarkable. She was actually the first person who introduced the
spinning of fine linen thread into Scotland. ‘Having acquired a
remarkable dexterity in spinning fine yarn, she conceived the idea of
manufacturing it into thread. Her first attempts in this way were
necessarily on a small scale. She executed almost every part of the
process with her own hands, and bleached her materials on a large
slate in one of the windows of the house. She succeeded so well,
however, in these essays, as to have sufficient encouragement to go
on, and to take the assistance of her younger sister and neighbours.
The then Lady Blantyre carried a parcel of her thread to Bath, and
disposed of it advantageously to some manufacturers of lace.... About
this time, a person who was connected with the family, happening to
be in Holland, found means to learn the secrets of the thread-
manufacture, which was carried on to a great extent in that country,
particularly the art of sorting and numbering the threads of different
sizes, and packing them up for sale, and the construction and
management of the twisting and twining machines. This knowledge
he communicated, on his return, to his 1725.
friends in Bargarran, and by means of it
they were enabled to conduct their manufacture with more
regularity, and to a greater extent. The young women of the
neighbourhood were taught to spin fine yarn, twining-mills were
erected, correspondences were established, and a profitable business
was carried on. Bargarran thread became extensively known, and
being ascertained by a stamp, bore a good price.’[625] By and by, the
work was undertaken by others, and in time it became a leading
manufacture of the district. About 1718, Christian Shaw married Mr
Miller, the minister of Kilmaurs parish, and it is presumed she
passed through the remainder of her life much in the same manner
as other persons in that respectable grade.
The newspapers of the time at which we are
now arrived, present the following
advertisement: ‘The Lady Bargarran and her
daughters having attained to a great
perfection in making, whitening, and twisting
of Sewing Threed, which is as cheap and
white, and known by experience to be much
stronger than the Dutch, to prevent people’s
being imposed upon by other Threed, which
Bargarran Coat of may be sold under the name of Bargarran
Arms. Threed, the Papers in which the Lady
Bargarran, and her daughters at Bargarran, or
Mrs Miller, her eldest daughter, at Johnston,
do put up their Threed, shall, for direction, have thereupon the above
coat of arms. Those who want the said Threed, which is to be sold
from fivepence to six shillings per ounce, may write to the Lady
Bargarran at Bargarran, or Mrs Miller at Johnston, near Paisley, to
the care of the Postmaster of Glasgow; and may call for the samen in
Edinburgh, at John Seton, merchant, his shop in the Parliament
Close, where they will be served either in wholesale or retail: and will
be served in the same manner at Glasgow, by William Selkirk,
merchant in Trongate.’
Crawford, in his History of Renfrewshire, tells us that the coat-
armorial worn by the Shaws of Bargarran bore—‘azure, three covered
cups or.’ There is something amusingly characteristic in the wife and
daughter of a far-descended Scottish gentleman beginning a business
in ‘threed,’ and putting the family arms on their wares.
After the long period during which 1725. Oct.
religious and political contentions absorbed
or repressed the intellectual energies of the people, the first native
who exhibited in his own country a purely scientific genius was Colin
Maclaurin—a man of Highland extraction (born in 1698), whose
biography relates that he was fitted to enter a university at eleven,
mastered at twelve the first six books of Euclid in a few days without
assistance, and gained the chair of mathematics in Marischal College,
Aberdeen, at nineteen, after a competitive examination of ten days.
Having gone to London, and there been introduced to Sir Isaac
Newton, Dr Clark, Sir Martin Folks, and other cultivators of science,
Maclaurin was encouraged to publish several mathematical treatises
which gave him an established reputation while still a young man.
At this time, the advanced years of Mr James Gregory, professor of
mathematics in the university of Edinburgh, making it necessary that
he should have an assistant, who should also be his successor, Mr
Maclaurin became a candidate for the situation, with the
recommendation of the illustrious Newton. The appointment lay
with the magistrates and town council of Edinburgh, who were the
patrons of the university—an arrangement which has been abolished
in our age, with little regard to the rights of property, and still less to
the practical good working of the connection. On this occasion there
were some circumstances alike honourable to Maclaurin, to Newton,
and to the Edinburgh municipality. Sir Isaac, hearing there was a
difficulty about salary for the new professor, the emoluments being
reserved for the old one, wrote to the lord provost of the city as
follows: ‘I am glad to understand that Mr Maclaurin is in good repute
amongst you for his skill in mathematics, for I think he deserves it
very well, and, to satisfy you that I do not flatter him, and also to
encourage him to accept the place of assisting Mr Gregory, in order
to succeed him, I am ready (if you please to give me leave) to
contribute twenty pounds per annum towards a provision for him till
Mr Gregory’s place becomes void, if I live so long.’ The town council
respectfully declined this generous offer, and made suitable
arrangements otherwise for the young professor.
Colin Maclaurin amply justified the recommendation of Sir Isaac
by the distinction he attained as a teacher, and his various original
contributions to geometry and physics. A general impulse was given
by him to the cultivation of science. When any remarkable
experiment was reported from other countries, there was a general
wish in Edinburgh to see it repeated by 1725.
Maclaurin; and when any comet or eclipse
was pending, his telescopes were sure to be in requisition.
Unfortunately, the career of this brilliant geometer was cut short in
consequence of a cold he caught while assisting to improve the
defences of Edinburgh against the army of Prince Charles Edward.
He lies under the south-west corner of the Greyfriars’ Church, where
a plain mural tablet arrests the attention of the student by telling that
he was elected to his chair, Newtono suadente, and calls on all to
take as a consolation, in that field of grief and terror, the thought that
the mind which was capable of producing such works must survive
the frail body.

The post from Edinburgh to London Nov. 20.

continued to be carried on horseback, and
was of course liable to casualties of what now appear to us of a
strange character. That which left Edinburgh on Saturday the 20th
November 1725, was never heard of after it passed Berwick. ‘A most
diligent search has been made, but neither the boy, the horse, nor the
packet, has yet been heard of. The boy, after passing Goswick, having
a part of the sands to ride which divide the Holy Island from the
mainland, it is supposed he has missed his way, and rode towards
the sea, where he and his horse have both perished.’[626]
A mail due at Edinburgh one day at the close of January 1734, was
apologised for by the postmaster as late. ‘It seems the post-boy who
rides the stage from Haddington to Edinburgh is perished in the
river Tyne, the mail this morning being taken out of that river.’ That
due on the 10th of October in the preceding year did not reach its
destination till the evening of the 11th. ‘It seems the post-boy [so
called, although most likely a middle-aged man], who made the stage
between Dunbar and Haddington, being in liquor, fell off. The horse
was afterwards found at Linplum, but without the mail, saddle, or
bridle.’[627]
On the 9th December 1735, we have the following announcement:
‘The London post did not come on till this day at noon, on occasion
of the badness of the roads.’—Cal. Merc.
As a variety upon these kinds of accident, and equally indicating
the simplicity of the institution in those days, may be noticed a
mistake of February 1720, when, ‘instead of the mail should have
come in yesterday (Sunday), we had our 1725.
own mail of Thursday last returned‘—the
presumption being that the mail for Edinburgh had been in like
manner sent back from some unknown point in the road, to London.
And this mistake happened once more in December 1728, the bag
despatched on a Saturday night being returned the second Sunday
morning after; ‘’tis reckoned this mistake happened about half-way
on the road.’[628]
The immediate practical business of the Post-office of Edinburgh
appears to have been conducted, down to the reign of George I., in a
shop in the High Street, by a succession of persons named Mean or
Mein, the descendants of the lady who threw her stool at the bishop’s
head in St Giles’s in 1637; thence it was promoted to a flat in the east
side of the Parliament Close; thence, again, in the reign of George
III., to a detached house behind the north side of the Cowgate. We
find that, in 1718, it had a ‘manager’ at two hundred a year, a clerk at
fifty, a comptroller, an assistant at an annual salary of twenty-five
pounds, and three letter-carriers at five shillings a week. In 1748, this
establishment was little changed, excepting that there were added an
‘apprehender of private letter-carriers,’ and a ‘clerk to the Irish
correspondents.’[629] There is a faithful tradition in the office, which I
see no reason to doubt, that one day, not long after the rebellion of
1745, the London bag came to Edinburgh with but one letter in it,
being one addressed to the British Linen Company.
In 1758, a memorial of traders to the Convention of Burghs
expressed impatience with the existing arrangements of the post
between Edinburgh and London, which, owing to a delay of about a
day at Newcastle, and a pause at York, with other impediments,
occupied 131 hours. It was urged that the three posts which passed
weekly between the two capitals should depart from Edinburgh at
such a time as, reaching Newcastle in 21 hours, they might be in time
for immediate dispatch by the post thence to London, and so give a
return to correspondence with the metropolis in seven or eight days,
instead of about eleven, as at present.[630]
It may be curious to trace the progress of business in this
important office, as far as the central Scottish establishment is
concerned. The number of persons employed in 1788 was 31; in
1828, it was 82; in 1840, when the universal 1725.
penny post was set on foot, it reached 136;
in 1860, it was 244. The number of letters delivered in Edinburgh in
a week in 1824 was 27,381; in 1860, it amounted to 156,000. The
number of letters passing through Edinburgh per week in 1824 was
53,000; in 1860, it was 420,000. At the same time, the number of
bags despatched from Edinburgh daily was 369, weighing forty-nine
hundredweight. At the time when these notes were drawn up, the
establishment had become too large for a spacious and handsome
building erected in 1819, and another office of ampler proportions
was about to be erected.

Wodrow notes that at this time the Dec.

merchants of Glasgow, in despair of the
colonial tobacco-trade, were beginning to think of ventures in other
directions, as the East Indies, and the Greenland whale-fishing.
Meanwhile, a Fishery Company, some time since set up at
Edinburgh, was languishing, the officials eating up more than the
profit. ‘As far as I can see,’ says the worthy minister of Eastwood, ‘till
the Lord send more righteousness and equity, and of a public spirit,
no company or copartnery among us will do any good.’
 In the ensuing August, the same chronicler notes some important
points in the progress of Glasgow, without giving us any hint of
improvement in respect of righteousness. ‘This summer,’ says he,
‘there seems to be a very great inclination through the country to
improve our manufactory, and especially linen and hemp. They
speak of a considerable society in Glasgow of the most topping
merchants, who are about to set up a manufactory of linen, which
will keep six hundred poor people at work. The gentlemen, by their
influence, seem much to stir up country-people, and to encourage
good tradesmen, and some care is taken to keep linen and webs
exactly to standard, and to see that the stuff be good and
marketable.... What will come of it, I know not. I have seen frequent
attempts of this nature come to very little.’[631]
It is gratifying to think that the year 1725, which is so sadly
memorable in the history of Glasgow on account of the ‘Shawfield
Mob,’ really did become the epoch of that vast system of textile
manufacture for which the city has since been so celebrated. The first
efforts of her looms were confined to linen 1725.
cloth, lawns, and cambrics. Seven years
later, one of her enterprising citizens, a Mr Alexander Harvie, ‘at the
risk of his life, brought away from Haerlem two inkle-looms and a
workman,’[632] and was thus enabled to introduce the manufacture of
inkles into his native town, where it long flourished. The
establishment of the cotton-manufacture in and around Glasgow was
the work of a subsequent age, and need not be dwelt upon here.
Considering the engrossing nature of the pursuits of commerce, it
is remarkably creditable to Glasgow that her university has always
been maintained in a high state of efficiency, and that she has never
allowed the honours of literature to be wholly diverted to her more
serene sister of the east. So far had printing and publishing advanced
in Glasgow in the reign of the second George, that, in 1740, a type-
founding establishment was commenced there, being the first to the
north of the Tweed. The immediate credit of this good work is due to
Mr Alexander Wilson, a native of St Andrews. He subsequently
became professor of practical astronomy in the Glasgow University,
and there, in 1769, worked out the long-received theory of the solar
spots, which suggests their being breaches in a luminous envelope of
the sun’s body.
 Favoured by the presence of a type-foundry, two citizens of
Glasgow named Faulls, but who subsequently printed their name as
Foulis, commenced the business of typography in 1741, and soon
became distinguished for their accurate and elegant work,
particularly in the printing of the classics. Eager to produce what
might be esteemed an immaculate edition of Horace, they caused the
successive proof-sheets, after revision, to be hung up at the gate of
the university, with the offer of a reward for the discovery of an error.
Before 1747, the Messrs Foulis had produced editions of eighteen
classics, all of them beautiful specimens of typography.
After all, the merchants of infant Glasgow were able to overcome
the difficulties which an iniquitous rivalry threw in the way of their
tobacco-trade. It went on gradually increasing till a sudden stop was
put to it by the revolt of the American colonies, when it had reached
an annual importation of about fifty thousand hogsheads, being the
great bulk of what was consumed in the three kingdoms. In the early
days of the trade, when capital was not abundant, the custom was for
a very small group of the more considerable merchants to advance
two or three hundred pounds each, and ask 1725.
the lesser men around them to add such
shares as they pleased; by these means to make purchase of goods
suited for use in Virginia, which were sent out under the care of a
supercargo, to be exchanged for a lading of tobacco. ‘The first
adventure ... was sent under the sole charge of the captain of the
vessel. This person, though a shrewd man, knew nothing of accounts;
and when he was asked by his employers, on his return, for a
statement of how the adventure had turned out, told them he could
give them none, but there were its proceeds, and threw down upon
the table a large hoggar (stocking) stuffed to the top with coin [being
of course the money-surplus of the goods sent out, after the cargo of
tobacco was paid for]. The company conceived that if an uneducated
person had been so successful, their gains would have been still
greater if a person versed in accounts had been sent out. Under this
impression, they immediately despatched a second adventure with a
supercargo highly recommended for a knowledge of accounts, who
produced to them a beautifully made-out statement of his
transactions, but no hoggar.’[633]
 Afterwards, the groups of adventurers associated little more than
their credit in the getting up of cargoes of goods for the colonial
market, and these were not in general paid till the return of the
tobacco, at the distance perhaps of a twelvemonth. When the
manager of the copartnery was ready to discharge its obligations, he
summoned the various furnishers of the goods to a tavern, where,
over a measure of wine to each, paid for by themselves, he handed
them the amount of their various claims, receiving a discharged
account in return. In such retreats all important matters of business
were then transacted. They were in many instances kept by the
female relations of merchants who had not been successful in
business; and in selecting one whereto to summon the furnishers of
goods for payment, the manager would generally have an eye to a
benevolent design in favour of the family of an associate of former
days.
As the century rolled on, and transactions increased in magnitude,
luxury and pride crept in, men learned to garnish their discourse
with strange oaths, and the Wodrow pre-requisite of ‘righteousness’
was always less and less heard of. The wealth of the Tobacco Lords,
as the men pre-eminent in the trade were called, reached an amount
which made them the wonder of their 1725.
country. One named Glassford, during the
Seven Years’ War, had twenty-five vessels engaged in the business,
and was said to trade for half a million.[634] They formed a kind of
aristocracy in their native city, throwing all tolerably successful
industry in other walks into the shade. Old people, not long
deceased, used to describe them as seen every day on the Exchange,
or a piece of pavement in Argyle Street so called, walking about in
long scarlet cloaks and bushy wigs, objects of awful respect to their
fellow-citizens, who, if desirous of speaking to one of them on
business, found it necessary to walk on the other side of the street,
till they should be fortunate enough to catch his eye, and be signalled
across. All this came to an end with the breaking out of the American
war; when, however, the irrepressible energies and wealth of that
wonderful people of the west speedily found new fields of operation
—cotton, timber, iron, chemicals, ship-building, and (in sober
sincerity) what not?
 The Tennis Court theatricals of spring 1726.
1715 probably did not long hold their
ground. Thereafter, we hear of no further amusement of the kind
being in any fashion attempted in Edinburgh till 1719, when ‘some
young gentlemen’ performed The Orphan and the Cheats of Scapin,
but most probably in a very private manner, though Allan Ramsay
consented to introduce the performance with a prologue.[635] Among
the Wodrow pamphlets preserved in the Advocates’ Library, is a
broadside containing ‘Verses spoken after the performance of
Otway’s tragedy, called The Orphan, at a private meeting in
Edinburgh, December 9, 1719, by a boy in the University [added in
manuscript, “Mr Mitchell”].’ He ends with a threat to meet adverse
critics in the King’s Park. Edinburgh was about the same time
occasionally regaled with the visits of a certain Signora Violante, who
trooped about the three kingdoms for the exhibition of feats in
tumbling and posture-making.[636]
It would appear that the first Scottish theatricals not quite
insignificant were presented in the winter 1725–26, when Anthony
Aston, a performer not without his fame, came to Edinburgh with a
company of comedians, and was so far favourably received that he
ventured to return in the ensuing year. On that occasion, Allan
Ramsay composed for him the following prologue, conveying to us
some notion of the feelings with which the 1726.
venture was regarded:
‘“Tis I, dear Caledonians, blythesome Tony,
That oft, last winter, pleased the brave and bonny,
With medley, merry song, and comic scene:
Your kindness then has brought me here again,
After a circuit round the Queen of Isles,
To gain your friendship and approving smiles.
Experience bids me hope—though, south the Tweed,
The dastards said: “He never will succeed:
What! such a country look for any good in,
That does not relish plays, nor pork, nor pudding!”
Thus great Columbus, by an idiot crew,
Was ridiculed at first for his just view;
Yet his undaunted spirit ne’er gave ground,
Till he a new and better world had found.
So I—laugh on—the simile is bold;
But, faith! ’tis just: for till this body’s cold,
 Columbus-like, I’ll push for fame and gold.’[637]

The prevalent feeling on the subject in authoritative circles may be

inferred from the conduct of the magistracy and clergy. An act of
council being passed, prohibiting Mr Aston from acting within the
limits of their jurisdiction, the presbytery met, and appointed a
deputation to wait upon the magistrates, and thank them ‘for the just
zeal they had shewn in the matter.’ A committee was at the same
time appointed to draw up an act and exhortation against the
frequenting of stage-plays, which, by their order, was read from all
the pulpits in the district.[638]
Wodrow talks of Aston’s proceedings as ‘filling up our cup of sin.’
‘Three or four noblemen—some of them ruling elders—combined to
favour the comedians, giving them such a warrant as they thought
their peerage entitled them to give. Three or four of the Lords of
Session were favourable to them, and yet no direct interlocutor was
given them, empowering them to set up. The matter took several
different shapes, and many different decisions were given by the
Lords, which concerned circumstances rather than the direct
lawfulness of their plays.’ Wodrow speaks of a large attendance,
especially at their tragedies, the Mourning Bride having had a run of
three nights. ‘A vast deal of money, in this 1726.
time of scarcity, is spent this way most
sinfully.’ They even ‘talk of building a public playhouse at
Edinburgh.’
To the great vexation of the ecclesiastical authorities, the decree of
the magistrates was appealed against in the Court of Session, with
what were believed to be good hopes of success. Just at that crisis, we
find Mr Wodrow writing in great concern on the subject, from his
Renfrewshire manse, to Mr George Drummond, commissioner of
customs in Edinburgh (November 27, 1727). He states that his
parishioner, Lord Pollock, one of the judges, was unfortunately
detained at home, being ‘considerably failed, and very crazy;’ so he
could not attend the court to give his vote. ‘I pray God may order
matters so as to prevent my fears in this matter.... I desire to have it
on my heart, and shall stir up some who, I hope, are praying persons,
to be concerned in it. However it go, I think the magistrates of
Edinburgh may have peace in the honest appearance they have made
against those seminaries of idleness, looseness, and sin.’[639]
 There was, however, no legal means of putting down Mr Aston.
The magistrates’ interdict was suspended, and from that time the
players had only to contend with public opinion.[640]
Serious onlookers are eager to note other Feb. 12.
symptoms of the alarming progress of
levity. A private letter-writer remarks, under our marginal date, that,
‘notwithstanding the general complaint of scarcity of money, there
were never so many diversions in one winter.... There is scarce one
night passes without either medley, concert, or assembly, and these
entertainments generally conclude with some private marriage, of
which we have a vast number ... such as Sir Edward Gibson and Mrs
Maitland, a cousin of the Earl of Lauderdale; M‘Dowal and a
daughter of Dr Stirling; a son of Bailie Hay with Regent Scott’s
daughter; and my Lord Bruce is to be married regularly to Mrs
Robertson, who has above £3000, this very night.’
A few days after, the same writer reports a private marriage as
discovered between the son of Sir John Dalrymple and ‘Matthew
Crawford’s daughter.’ ‘Sir John seems pretty much disobliged that
his son should not have asked his consent, though it’s thought he will
soon get over all difficulties.’ The eccentric 1726.
Earl of Rosebery ‘has been for a
considerable time in prison, where it’s believed he will spend the
remainder of his days with his good friend Burnbank.’
A few weeks later, an abduction in the old style was perpetrated by
a Highlander upon ‘a niece of Mr Moubray the wright,’ not above
twelve years of age, whose gouvernante had betrayed her upon a
promise of a thousand merks, the young lady having £3000 of
fortune. Mr Moubray ‘luckily catched them near to Queensferry, as
they were coming to town to be married.’ ‘The gouvernante is
committed to prison, as is also the gentleman.’[641]
In May, Mr Wodrow adverts to a rumour that there were some
clubs in Edinburgh, very secretly conducted, composed of gentlemen
of atheistical opinions. They were understood to be offshoots of a
similar fraternity in London, rejoicing in the name of the Hell-fire
Club, as signifying the disregard of the members for the thing
referred to. Wodrow whispers with horror, that the secretary of the
Hell-fire Club, a Scotsman, was reported to have come to Edinburgh
to plant these affiliated societies. ‘He fell into melancholy, as it was
called, but probably horror of conscience and despair, and at length
turned mad. Nobody was allowed to see him, and physicians
prescribed bathing for him, and he died mad at the first bathing. The
Lord pity us,’ concludes Mr Wodrow; ‘wickedness is come to a
terrible height!’[642]
There is among the Wodrow pamphlets a broadside giving an
account of the Hell-fire Clubs, Sulphur Societies, and Demirep
Dragons then in vogue. It includes a list of persons of quality
engaged in these fraternities, and the various names they bore—as
Elisha the Prophet, the King of Hell, Old Pluto, the Old Dragon, Lady
Envy, the Lady Gomorrah, &c. An edict had been issued against them
by the government, reciting that there was reason to suspect that, in
the cities of London and Westminster, there were scandalous clubs
or societies of young persons, who meet together, and in
blasphemous language insult God and his holy religion, and corrupt
the morals of one another. The justices of the peace were enjoined to
be diligent in rooting out such schools of profanity.
The Hell-fire Club seems to have projected itself strongly on the
popular imagination in Scotland, for the peasantry still occasionally
speak of it with bated breath and whispering horror. Many wicked
lairds are talked of, who belonged to the 1726.
Hell-fire Club, and who came to bad ends,
as might have been expected on grounds involving no reference to
miracle.
Public combats with sword and rapier were among the
amusements of the age. They took place regularly in London, at a
place called the Bear Garden, and at an amphitheatre in the Oxford
Road; likewise at Hockley. It seems scarcely credible that not only
was this practice permitted, but it was customary for the men who
were to cut and slash at each other in the evening, to parade through
the streets in the forenoon, in fancy dresses, with drums beating and
colours flying, as an advertisement of the performance.
Sometimes, when one of these modern gladiators attained to fame,
he would go to a provincial city, and announce himself as willing to
fight all-comers on a public stage for any sum that might be agreed
upon. Such persons seem most frequently to have been natives of the
sister-island. One Andrew Bryan, an Irishman, described as ‘a clean
young man’—that is, a well-made, nimble person—came to
Edinburgh, in June 1726, as a gladiatorial star, and challenged any
who might choose to take him up. For days he paraded the streets
with his drum, without meeting a combatant, and several gentlemen
of the city began to feel annoyed at his vapourings, when at length
the challenger was answered. There had at this time retired to
Edinburgh an old Killiecrankie soldier, named Donald Bane—a man
who had attained the distinction of a sergeantcy, who had taught the
broadsword exercise, who had fought creditably in all the wars of
William and Anne in succession, but was withal much of a
scapegrace, though a good-humoured one, as fully appears from a
little autobiography which he published, along with the rules of the
art of defence. Though now sixty-two, and inclined to repent of much
of his earlier career, Donald retained enough of his original spirit to
be disposed to try a turn at sharps with Bryan; so, meeting him in the
street one day, he sent his foot through the drum, as an indication
that he accepted the challenge. Gentlefolks were interested when
they heard of it, and one learned person thought proper to compose
for Bane a regular answer to the challenge in Latin verse—
‘Ipse ego, Donaldus Banus, formâ albus et altus,
Nunc huic Andreæ thrasoni occurrere deero,’ &c.

The combat took place at the date noted, on a stage erected for the
purpose behind Holyrood Palace, in the 1726. June 23.
presence of a great number of noblemen,
gentlemen, military officers, and others. It was conducted with much
formality, and lasted several hours, with a variety of weapons; and
not till Bryan had received seven wounds from his unscathed
antagonist, did he feel the necessity of giving in. The victory of the
Highland veteran seems to have given rise to great exultation, and he
was crowned with praises in both prose and rhyme. He was
compared to Ajax overcoming Thersites; and one Latin wit remarked
in a quatrain, that the stains of the two former Donald Banes of
Scottish history were wiped off by the third. A more fortunate result
for us was the publication of Bane’s autobiography,[643] containing a
number of characteristic anecdotes.
Little more than two years after the combat of Bane and Bryan, a
similar encounter is noted in the Edinburgh Courant as taking place
in the Tennis Court at Holyrood, between ‘Campbell the Scots, and
Clerk the Irish gladiator,’ when the former received a wound in the
face, and the second sustained seven in the body.

At an election for the county of Roxburgh Aug. 8.

at Jedburgh, a quarrel arose between Sir
Gilbert Elliot of Stobbs, a candidate, and Colonel Stewart of
Stewartfield, who opposed him. Colonel Stewart, who was ‘a huffing,
hectoring person,’ is said to have given great provocation, and
gentlemen afterwards admitted that Stobbs was called upon by the
laws of honour to take notice of the offence. According to a petition
to the Court of Session from the son of Stewart, Elliot stabbed him as
he sat in his chair on the opposite side of a table, with his sword by
his side.
The homicide took refuge in Holland, but was soon enabled by a
pardon to return to his own country.[644]

The correspondence of General Wade Aug. 9.

[645]
with the Secretary of State Townsend,
makes us aware that at this time several of the attainted gentlemen of
1715 had returned to Scotland, in the hope of obtaining a pardon, or
at least of being permitted to remain undisturbed. The general
humanely pleads for their being pardoned on a formal submission.
Amongst them was Alexander Robertson of Struan, chief of the clan
Robertson, a gentleman who had fought for 1726.
the Stuarts both at Killiecrankie and
Sheriffmuir, and who is further memorable for his convivial habits
and his gifts in the writing of pure, but somewhat dull English
poetry.
In the year of the Revolution, being a youth of twenty at the
university of St Andrews, Struan accepted a commission in some
forces then hastily proposed to be raised for James VII.; and, keeping
up this military connection, he joined the Highland army of Lord
Dundee, but was taken prisoner by the enemy, September 1689, and
thrown into the Edinburgh Tolbooth. Here a piece of Highland
gratitude served him a good turn. Four years before, when the
Perthshire loyalists were hounded out to ravage the lands of the
unfortunate Argyle, the late Laird of Struan had, for humane
reasons, pleaded for leave to stay at home and take care of the
country. The now restored Earl of Argyle, remembering this kindness
to his family, interceded for young Robertson, and procured his
liberation in exchange for Sir Robert Maxwell of Pollock, who was in
the hands of the Highlanders. Struan then passed into France, and
joined the exiled king, hoping ere long to return and see the old
régime restored; and in his absence, the Scottish parliament
declared him forfaulted. He spent many years of melancholy exile in
France, enduring the greatest hardships that a gentleman could be
subjected to, having no dependence but upon occasional remittances
from his mother. Being at length enabled to return to Perthshire, he
once more forfeited all but life by joining in the insurrection of 1715.
For nine years more he underwent a new exile in the greatest poverty
and hardship, while, to add to his mortifications, a disloyal sister,
hight ‘Mrs Margaret,’ contrived to worm herself into the possession
of his forfeited estates.
In France, Struan had for a fellow in misfortune a certain
Professor John Menzies, under whom he had studied at St Andrews,
and who seems to have been an old gentleman of some humour.
There is extant a letter of Menzies to Struan, giving him advice about
his health, and which seems worthy of preservation for the hints it
gives as to the habits of these expatriated Scotch Jacobites. It bears
to have been written in answer to one in which Struan had spoken of
being ill:
‘Paris, March 20.

‘D. S.—I have been out of town a little for my own health, which has kept me
some days from receiving or answering your last, in which you speak of some
indisposition of yours. I hope that before now it is 1726.
over of itself by a little quiet and temperance, and
that thereby nature has done its own business, which it rarely fails to do when one
gives it elbow-room, and when it is not quite spent. “When that comes, the house
soon comes down altogether. This I have always found in my own case. Whenever I
was jaded by ill hours and company, and the consequences of that, I have still
retired a little to some convenient hermitage in the country, with two or three
doses of rhubarb, and as many of salts. That washes the Augean stable, and for the
rest I drink milk and whey, and sometimes a very little wine and water. No
company but Horace and Homer, and such old gentlemen that drink no more now.
I walk much, eat little, and sleep a great deal. And by this cool and sober and
innocent diet, nature gets up its head again, and the horse that was jaded and worn
out grows strong again, so that he can jog on some stages of the farce of life
without stumbling or breaking his neck. This is a consultation I give you gratis
from my own practice and never-failing experience, which is always the best
physician. And I am satisfied it would do in your case, where I reckon nature is
haill at the heart still, after all your cruel usage of it.
‘As to all those pricklings and startings of the nerves, they come from the ill habit
of the blood and body, brought on by ill diet and sharp or earthy wine, as your
Orleans wine is reckoned to be—for there are crab-grapes as there are crab-apples,
and sloes as well as muscadines.
‘There are great differences of constitutions. Those of a sanguine can drink your
champagne or cyder all their life, and old Davy Flood has drunk punch these fifty
years daily. Whereas a short time of the lemons that’s in punch would eat out the
bottom of my stomach, or make me a cripple. Much champagne, too, would
destroy my nerves, though I like its spirit and taste dearly. But it will not do, that
is, it never did well with me when I was young and strong; now much less. My
meaning in this dissertation about wine and constitutions is plainly this, first, to
recommend to you frequent retraites, in order to be absolutely cool, quiet, and
sober, with a little gentle physic now and then, in order to give time and help to
nature to recover. And when you will needs drink wine—that it be of the haill and
old south-country wines, Hermitage, Coté Rotis, Cahors, &c., with a little water
still, since there is a heat in them.
‘As to any external tremblings or ailings of the nerves, pray make constant usage
of Hungary-water to your head and nosethrills, and 1726.
behind your ears—of which I have found an infinite
effect and advantage of a long time, for I have been very often in the very same case
you describe, and these have always been my certain cures. Repetatur quantum
sufficit, and I will warrant you.

‘Write again, and God bless you.’[646]

Struan was now successful in obtaining a pardon, and for the

remainder of his days he lived in the cultivation of the bottle and the
muse at his estate in Rannoch. Only prevented by old age from
risking all once again in the adventure of Prince Charlie, he died
quietly in 1749, having reached his eighty-first year. So venerable a
chief, who had used both the sword of Mars and the lyre of Apollo in
the cause of the Stuarts, could not pass from the world notelessly.
His funeral was of a character to be described as a great provincial
fête. It was computed that two thousand persons, including the
noblemen and gentlemen of the district, assembled at his house to
carry him to his last resting-place, which was distant eighteen
English miles; and for all of these there was entertainment provided
according to their different ranks.[647]
 Having taken personal surveys of the Highlands in the two
preceding years, General Wade was prepared, in this, to commence
the making of those roads which he reported to be so necessary for
the reduction of the country to obedience, peace, and civilisation. He
contemplated that, after the example set by the Romans sixteen
hundred years before, the work might be done by the soldiers, on an
allowance of extra pay; and five hundred were selected as sufficient
for the purpose. Engineers and surveyors he brought down from
England, one being the Edmund Burt to whom we have been
indebted for so much information regarding the Highlands at this
period, through the medium of the letters he wrote during his long
residence in this country.[648]
‘In the summer seasons [during eleven 1726.
years], five hundred of the soldiers from the
barracks and other quarters about the Highlands were employed in
those works in different stations. The private men were allowed
sixpence a day, over and above their pay as soldiers. A corporal had
eightpence, and a sergeant a shilling. But this extra pay was only for
working-days, which were often interrupted by violent storms of
wind and rain. These parties of men were under the command of
proper officers, who were all subalterns, and received two shillings
and sixpence per diem, to defray their extraordinary expense in
building huts, making necessary provision for their tables from
distant parts (unavoidable, though unwelcome visits), and other
incidents arising from their wild situation.’[649]
A Scottish gentleman, who visited the Highlands in 1737,
discovered the roads completed, and was surprised by the
improvements which he found to have arisen from them, amongst
which he gratefully notes the existence of civilised places for the
entertainment of travellers. It pleased him to put his observations
into verse—rather dull and prosaic verse it is, one must admit—yet
on that very account the more useful now-a-days, by reason of the
clearness of the information it gives.[650] After speaking of Wade’s
success in carrying out the Disarming Act, and his suppression of
disorders by the garrisons and Highland companies, he proceeds to
treat of the roads, which had impressed him as a work of great merit.
It seemed to him as an undertaking in no slight degree arduous,
considering the limited means and art which then existed, to extend
firm roads across Highland morasses, to cut out paths along rough
hillsides, and to protect the way when it was formed from the
subsequent violent action of Highland torrents and inundations. One
of the most difficult parts of the first road was that traversing the
broad, lofty mountain called Corryarrack, near to Fort Augustus. It is
ascended on the south side by a series of zigzags, no less than
thirteen in number. The general expended great care and diligence in
the work, even to the invention of a balsam for healing the wounds
and hurts inflicted on the men by accident.
In the forming of the numerous bridges required upon the roads,
there was one natural difficulty, in addition to all others, in the want
of easily hewn stone. The bridge of five arches across the Tay at
Weem was considered as a marvellous work at the time. In another
part of the country, an unusually rugged 1726.
river gave Wade and his people a great deal
of trouble. The men, oppressed with heat during the day, and chilled
with frosts as they bivouacked on the ground at night, were getting
dispirited, when the general bethought him of a happy expedient.
‘A fatted ox he ordered to be bought,
The best through all the country could be sought.
His horns well polished and with ribbons graced,
A piper likewise played before the beast.
Such, were in days of yore for victims led,
And on the sacrifice a feast was made.
The ox for slaughter he devotes, and then
Gives for a gratis feast unto his men.
Quick and with joy a bonfire they prepare,
Of turf and heath, and brushwood fagots, where
The fatted ox is roasted all together;
Next of the hide they make a pot of leather,
In which the lungs and tripe cut down they boil,
With flour and tallow mixed in lieu of oil.
Then beef and pudding plentifully eat,
With store of cheering Husque[651] to their meat.
Their spir’ts thus raised, their work becomes a play,
New vigour drives all former stops away.
The place from that received another name,
And Oxbridge rises to all future fame.’

We derive some interesting facts about Wade’s proceedings at this

time from his correspondence, still in manuscript.[652]