Social history of Scottish homicide, 1836-1869

This project is a qualitative examination of homicide in Scotland during the period 1836-1869, putting homicide in geographical, environmental and social context. Using the quantitative research in the history of crime in nineteenth-century Scotland as a point of departure, and engaging with the Scottish criminal justice system, the Lord Advocate’s Precognitions, consisting of declarations of the accused and witness statements for homicide cases reaching Scotland’s High Court of Justiciary, are used to demonstrate the ways in which specific social structures and social interactions provided greater opportunity for conflict and higher propensity for unlawful killing. It is argued that these scenarios were more likely during the period of rapid industrialization and social dislocation occurring in Scotland in the mid-nineteenth century.