Between 1651 (imminently prior to Oliver Cromwell’s conquest of the nation) and 1751 (after the Jacobite uprising in 1745), Scotland, and Scots society, underwent highly significant political, constitutional and economic changes, including the execution of the Treaty of Union in 1707. Scotland’s growing economy at this time and its role in the development of overseas colonies were dependent on large numbers of labourers and ‘servants’. Yet relatively little is known about the legal status and rights of those who had to carry out that work (in the broadest sense of that word) at the behest of others in order to earn their subsistence. ‘Liberty’, or freedom, then as now, was seen to be an essential dignitary right, but the extent to which workers, labourers and ‘servants’ – far and away the largest subset of the Scottish population at the time – enjoyed meaningful liberty is still critically under-studied.

In 1687, the Court of Session found and declared that ‘we have no slaves in Scotland’ and that the status of ‘slave’ was unknown to the legal system (Reid v Scot of Hardin and his Lady). Similar observations were made by writers on Scots law during this period. Yet although juridical texts and positive court decisions of this time period would appear to suggest that Scots law turned its face away from recognising slavery, and even serfdom, as legal statuses, it is an inescapable fact that, per Professor Cairns, ‘slaves were a significant presence in eighteenth century Scotland’. Many labourers lacked the basic incidents of freedom, most particularly freedom of movement and meaningful economic freedom.

Against this background, this project aims to achieve the following objectives:

• to provide an account of the Scots law pertaining to liberty and labour in the period 1651-1751, focusing in particular on “serfs” and “slaves”;
• to enhance our understanding of the relationship between workers and the law in this time period more generally, considering issues of class, ‘dignity’ (in its narrow and broad senses) and status;
• to examine the extent to which significant political events such as conquest, revolution, peaceful union, colonial adventure and emergent capitalism shaped the law of Scotland as it pertains to freedom, dignity and servitude;
• to, in turn, examine how the peculiar Scots understanding of these issues might inform wider jurisprudential, and interdisciplinary, debates concerning slavery as an institutional legal status, as well as of the history of labour more generally;
• to relate the lessons that can be drawn from examination of this particular jurisdiction and time period to contemporary issues pertaining to labour law and dignity in work today.

The project will adopt a principally historical-doctrinal legal methodology and will consider published and manuscript legal texts of the day (e.g., Stair’s Institutions of the Law of Scotland; William Forbes’ Great Body of the Law of Scotland and like works) as well as all reported cases concerning liberty, labour and servitude in Scotland at the time. More than this, however, due consideration will be given to unreported cases, Privy Council and other such records, and contemporary as well as modern philosophical texts concerning liberty, labour and servitude. The project will involve extensive archival work – drawing principally on material available in the National Records of Scotland – but will also draw freely from available secondary sources concerning juridical status in Scots law. Although there has been considerable research done on the law of Scotland in the later eighteenth century, the matter of freedom and servitude in the time-period under consideration here is curiously under-explored. This project would, therefore, make a much-needed, overdue and extremely important and original contribution to knowledge which has the potential to shape our understanding of the law of status as it yet subsists today.

PG Certificate in Researcher Professional Development

PhD students at Strathclyde are required to undertake the PG Certificate in Researcher Professional Development, which is a formal credit-bearing academic award.

The award recognises and rewards the wide array of skills and experiences that postgraduate research students achieve during their PhD research.

Further information

Interviews process:

Applications will be reviewed by a selection panel after the closing date and incomplete applications will not be considered.

• Shortlisted applicants may be required to provide a short writing sample of up to 2,000 words
• Applicants shortlisted for interview will be notified w/b 23 November 2026
• Interviews will be conducted w/b 30 November 2026
• The successful applicant must be able to commence study on 1 January or 1 April 2027