ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the origins and development of the temperance movement in Scotland from the 1820s to the 1840s. Particular emphasis is placed on the ideas and attitudes which contributed to the making of a profoundly influential cultural phenomenon during the nineteenth century and beyond. The Scottish temperance crusade emphatically had urban roots, and the associational infrastructure that was consolidated was, from the outset, based on local communities that related to a coordinating central body. As an illustration of the relative success of this strategy, the experience of two pioneering organizations, the Glasgow and West of Scotland Temperance Society (later the Scottish Temperance Society) and the Western Scottish Temperance Union, will be considered and contrasted. Despite some marked differences between their aims and ideological outlook, they shared a key figure in their leadership, whose presence was regarded as authoritative and motivational. John Dunlop was described as the ‘father’ or ‘founder’ of the movement in Britain, and his role in promoting the virtues of abstinence through associational culture provided a framework of action that prevailed within temperance circles into the early twentieth century.
