How did they dance in the early nineteenth century?

This chapter examines Francis Peacock’s influence on the generation of teachers that came after him and considers how dance was taught between the publication of Sketches in 1805 and the mid-nineteenth century. It focuses on two dancing masters who were active in Aberdeenshire during the first half of the nineteenth century, Barclay Dun and William Scott, and on the contents of a notebook of dance instructions that Frederick Hill, an Aberdeenshire dance enthusiast, compiled in 1841. The chapter examines Dun’s views of how people should dance, poor teaching, good manners, grace and elegance. Unlike the English dancing master Thomas Wilson, Dun believed that Scottish steps fitted best with Scottish music. ‘Professor’ William Scott was an itinerant dancing master who began teaching in the 1840s and continued to teach for over 50 years. Some of the dances he taught in the mid-century are described in Frederick Hill’s ‘Notebook’ which contains instructions for over 70 social and solo dances taught by four itinerant dancing masters. The Notebook has two versions of the ‘Marquis of Huntly’s Highland Fling’ which are analysed to continue the story of the nineteenth-century development of the Highland Fling from Francis Peacock’s steps.