7 - Overviewing: Distant Perspectives in theBorders

Summary

Sir John Sinclair was frustrated by what he saw as theeccentric diversity of styles employed by thevarious contributors to the original Statistical Account. Heendeavoured to standardise and improve the existingcounty surveys, with George Robertson's 1793 Midlothian report (seeChapter 6) as the model. Sinclair had Midlothian in mind when herepeatedly wrote to the Reverend Robert Douglas(1747–1820), minister of Galashiels, about updatingthe surveys of two large counties in the Bordersregion of southern Scotland. In May 1796 Sinclairasked of Douglas: ‘what progress has been made incompleting the Roxburghshire survey according to themodel of that of Lancashire, and of Mid Lothian’.Two weeks later, Sinclair emphasised again thatDouglas should include ‘statistical tables likethose of Mid Lothian’. In July 1796 he remindedDouglas that ‘Statistical Tables such as those inthe Mid Lothian Survey are particularly desirable.’In October he wrote: ‘I hope that you have gotStatistical Tables similar to those of Mid Lothian.’Yet another reference to ‘the model of Mid Lothian’came three weeks later.

An increasingly active editor, Sinclair wanted anoverview of all the different regional research thatwas ongoing. In Douglas he found a trusty sub-editorfor south-east Scotland who also recognised the needto pro-duce information in a regular, uniformmanner, so that it could fit cleanly into the widersurveying project. Douglas even took care to omit‘Provincial phrases’ from the surveys, so that theywould be more ‘generally understood’. However,professedly social-scientific projects rarelyovercome the particularities of place, and Douglascertainly struggled to survey a region he describedas ‘aukward [sic] in its shape, and unequal in itssurface’. As this chapter shows, Sinclair's andDouglas's attempts to standardise their countysurveys came up against the incommensurability ofunique places, which required distinct methodologiesfor their faithful rendering. In attempting tosurvey particular features of these Borderscounties, Douglas encountered a range of competingperspectives. And as these ‘local’ interpretationswere passed up a chain from distant peripheries to apublishing centre, multiple epistemologicalchallenges – as well as the challenge ofgeographical distance – had to be surmounted.