Tourists and travellers : women's non-fictional writing about Scotland, 1770-1830

189 Pages·2010·1.504 MB·English

by  Betty Hagglund

Tourists and Travellers
TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE
Series Editors: Professor Mike Robinson, Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change, Leeds
Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK and Dr Alison Phipps, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Understanding tourism’s relationships with culture(s) and vice versa, is of ever-increasing
signifi cance in a globalising world. This series will critically examine the dynamic inter-
relationships between tourism and culture(s). Theoretical explorations, research-informed
analyses, and detailed historical reviews from a variety of disciplinary perspectives are
invited to consider such relationships.
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TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE
Series Editors: Professor Mike Robinson, Centre for Tourism and
Cultural Change, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK and
Dr Alison Phipps, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Tourists and Travellers
Women’s Non-fi ctional Writing about
Scotland, 1770–1830
Betty Hagglund

CHANNEL VIEW PUBLICATIONS
Bristol • Buffalo • Toronto
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Hagglund, Betty.
Tourists and Travellers: Women’s Non-fi ctional Writing about Scotland, 1770–1830/Betty
Hagglund.
Tourism and Cultural Change: 18
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Scotland–Description and travel. 2. Travelers’ writings, English–History and criticism.
3. Women travelers–Scotland–History–18th century. 4. Women travelers–Scotland–
History–19th century. 5. Tourism–Scotland–History–18th century. 6. Tourism–Scotland–
History–19th century. I. Title. II. Series.
DA850.H34 2009
914.1104’73–dc22 2009033596
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-84541-118-3 (hbk)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84541-117-6 (pbk)
Channel View Publications

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Copyright © 2010 Betty Hagglund.
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Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii
1 Tourists and Travellers: Women’s Non-fictional Writing about
Scotland 1770(cid:1)1830. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
2 The Growth of English Tourism in Scotland in the 18th and
19th Centuries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
3 Travelling to Criticise: A Journey to the Highlands of
Scotland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
4 ‘Every Thing Worth Seeing’: Sarah Murray’s Companion and
Useful Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54
5 Anne Grant of Laggan and the Myth of the Highlands. . . . . . . .77
6 From Traveller to Tourist: Dorothy Wordsworth’s Two
Scottish Tours. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98
7 Interrupting the Aesthetic: Sarah Hazlitt’s Journal. . . . . . . . . . .126
8 Epilogue: From Individual Travel to Mass Tourism, Scotland
1770(cid:1)1830. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .142
Appendix 1 Accounts of Travel in Scotland Written by Women
during the Period 1740(cid:1)1830 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .145
Appendix 2 Guidebooks to Scotland before 1826. . . . . . . . . . . . . .150

Appendix 3 Authorship of Journey to the Highlands of
Scotland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .155
Appendix 4 Dorothy Wordsworth’s Reading of Travel Books. . . . .158
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .162
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .174
v

Acknowledgments
Many individuals and institutions have contributed to the development
of this book. All have given generously of their time and expertise and
I am deeply grateful for their help. It would be impossible to mention
them all but particular thanks are due to the staff of the British Library,
particularly the Rare Books Room; the University of Birmingham
Library; Birmingham Central Library, particularly the departments of
Local Studies and History and of Arts, Language and Literature; the
libraryoftheBirminghamandMidlandInstitute;theNationalLibraryof
Scotland; Birmingham City Archives; Glasgow University Library; the
Bodleian Library; Essex Record Office; the University of Southampton
Library; Bedfordshire Record Office; the Library of the University of
Pennsylvania; St Mary Abbots Church, Kensington; the John Rylands
Library; the Portico Library, Manchester; the National Register of
Archives;andKensingtonandChelseaCentralLibrary.Toall,mysincere
thanks.
Colleagues at Nottingham Trent University and at the University of
Birmingham have challenged me, supported me and encouraged me,
often making me think about travel and travel writing in new and
exciting ways. So too have my colleagues and friends from the
International Society for Travel Writing and the series of international
Borders and Crossings conferences. Nigel Wood, Marcus Walsh, Tim
YoungsandMarkStoreywereinvolvedintheearlystagesofthisproject
and I am grateful for their input.
Particular thanks go to my fellow members of the Early Career
Research group which met for a year at the University of Birmingham:
EmmaCaroll,CatherineDilleandOriettaDaRold.Theircarefulreading
and detailed criticism of early chapter drafts was invaluable in shaping
the final product, and the cake was delicious!
ThankyoutoChannelViewPublications,particularlySarahWilliams,
for their unfailing belief in the project and for being such a pleasure to
work with.
Gill Coffin provided the maps and worked with her usual care and
good humour on the project.
vii
viii TouristsandTravellers
Parts of chapter five appeared in ‘‘‘Not absolutely a native, nor
entirely a stranger’’: The Journeys of Anne Grant’, Perspectives on Travel
Writing, ed. by Glenn Hooper and Tim Youngs, Studies in European
Cultural Transition, vol. 19 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), pp. 41-54 and are
used with permission.
The front cover illustration depicts Inverary Castle, Argyllshire and
has been taken from Richard Ayton, A Voyage round Great Britain
undertakeninthesummeroftheyearof1813,WithaSeriesofViews...drawn
andengravedbyWilliamDaniell(London:Longman,Hurst,Rees,Orme&
Brown,1814-1825). ItisreproducedwiththepermissionofBirmingham
Libraries and Archives.
And last but notleast, my thanks to Gill,for whose unfailingsupport
I am ever grateful.
Chapter1
TouristsandTravellers:Women’s
Non-fictionalWritingabout
(cid:1)
Scotland1770 1830
Inthisbook,Iconsiderthetravels,andthetravelandothernon-fictional
writings, of five women who travelled within Scotland during the late
18th and early 19th century: the anonymous author of A Journey to the
Highlands of Scotland; Sarah Murray (later known as Sarah Aust); Anne
Grant of Laggan; Dorothy Wordsworth; and Sarah Hazlitt. During this
period, travel and tourism in Scotland changed radically, from a time
when there were very few travellers and no provision for those that did
come, through to Scotland’s emergence as a fully organised tourist
destination with the necessary physical and economic infrastructure.
Simultaneous with these changes, came changes in writing.
This book, therefore, sets out to explore the changing nature of travel
andoftravelwritinginandaboutScotlandduringthelatteryearsofthe
18thcenturyandtheearlyyearsofthe19thcentury,focusingspecifically
onhow thesefivewomentravelledandrepresentedthosetravels.These
five women were, of course, not the only women to travel in and write
about Scotland at this time.1 Nor do I wish to claim for them a
representative role. Each of the women is different; each speaks with

her own distinctive voice. Nevertheless, as Tim Youngs has noted:
Travellers do not simply record what they see... They journey with
preconceptions. They observe and write according to established
models, having these in mind even when they wish to query or
departfromthem.Noonewhotravelsandwritesoftheirexperience
can be said to be writing purely as an individual. Descriptions
and judgements reveal the values of class, gender, and nationality.
(1994: 209)
WhilebroadlyinagreementwithYoungs,Iwouldarguefurtherthatthe
geographical location of the travels may be as influential as the class,
genderandnationalityofthewriter.MydiscussionisuniquetoScotland
and to the period 1770(cid:1)1830. This is not to imply that there are no
1
2 TouristsandTravellers
parallelstobefoundelsewhere;ratheritistorecogniseandtoemphasise
that any discussion of travel writing must take account of the specific
historical and geographical factors operating upon the traveller/writer.
This assertion is by no means noncontentious, and there are those who
have claimed, forexample,that women travel writersshow ‘a similarity
of reaction to the foreign environment, despite variations in time and
place’ (Foster, 1990: 173) (Foster’s argument is based on her work on
women’stravel writingsfromItaly,America and theFarEast). Ihopeto
demonstrate,however,thatthewritingsofthefivewomenconsideredin
this book areall firmly situated in Scotland at a particular time and that
this has a direct effect not only on their subject matter, but also on the
ways in which they write. I would argue further that, of all literary
genres,travelwritingisperhapsthemostfirmlysitedintimeandspace.
In her study of 18th- and 19th-century Scottish women travel writers,
Dorothy McMillan wrote:
Itakeasmystartingpointthatallliteratureoftraveloperatesbetween
notionsof‘‘here’’and ‘‘there’’and the audience for such writingmay
sometimes be in both places at the same time, just as the writer too
may shift positions in significant ways. (1997: 119)
McMillan’s statement underlines the complex interplay between audi-
ence,writerandgeography.Justasthegeographiclocationofthetravels
affects both the content and the way in which they are written, so too
does the geographic and cultural location of the intended audience.
Youngs has pointed out that:
Travel writers are at once establishing their cultural affinities with,
and spatial, experiential difference from, their readers. Travel
writing... is an exp ression of identity based on sameness to and
yet remoteness from the members of the home society.
Moreover, travel writers are able to make ‘‘use of this textual,
physical and cultural space for an exploration and affirmation or
reconstitution of identity’’. (1994: 3)
A second theme running through this book is an examination of the
rhetorical strategies that each of the women uses to represent herself as
writerandtravellerwithinherwork.Withinthebroadframeworkofthe
changing nature of travel in Scotland, each of these five women writers
represented herself and her travels in very different ways. The
anonymous author of A Journey to the Highlands of Scotland defined
herself as a ‘Sentimental Traveller’ in the style of Laurence Sterne. Anne
Grant, although born in Glasgow and raised in the American colonies,