McNish was born into a large family, he was 9th of 11 children. His father was a journeyman shoemaker, an apprentice who had never become a master, and life must have been tough for McNish. We don’t know an awful lot about his past or his childhood but he was educated. This wasn’t that surprising in Scotland at the time. Most parishes in Scotland had had primary education for over 150 years before McNish’s birth in 1874. As a consequence, Scotland had considerably higher standards of literacy than the rest of the UK. This education wasn’t the Latin or Greek of the English Public School system but mathematics, arithmetic, writing, reading, science and reason. These educated men became the administrators, the engineers and the doctors of the Empire, the men who bolted it together.
Progression at home was often closed to them by an unsympathetic class system and lack of opportunity so foreign lands beckoned and there were a disproportionately large number of Scots working and living in the colonies and dominions and in the United States . Trade made many wealthy, the colony of Hong Kong, the Australian sheep farming magnates, Mid-West ranchers, Canada and India. Where these Scots went, they took their religion and their work culture with them. This insignificant nation, stuck on the poor lands in the north of the island of Britain had, by partnership with her traditional foe, England, to the south and, through the fortune of sitting on rich coal seams had an impact on world history far greater than it had any right to.
Key to this impact was the education system. Scotland had more schools per capita and twice the number of universities than England. Since the last attempt by the Stuart dynasty to regain the crown (1745) the Scots had put the energy once spent on the blood feud and religious violence, into expression of their nationhood in the only routes open to it. Following the relocation of the Government to London (1707) the Kirk (church), the legal system and the education system were always and still are, specific to Scotland and this kick-started what became known as the Enlightenment. Edinburgh and Glasgow became leading cities in the Enlightenment that spread across Europe and it is no fluke that Hume, Adam Smith, Mills, Carlyle, Raeburn, Ramsay and Boswell were Scots.
Jonathan Israel argues the Scottish enlightenment was "predominantly liberal Calvinist, Newtonian, and 'design' oriented in character which played a major role in the further development of the transatlantic Enlightenment". The contemporary Scot had more in common with a citizen of Philadelphia than one of London. This doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t have been a loyal subject of the King or Queen but that he shared a similar faith and similar liberal ideals about freedom of speech. It’s important to understand this background to understand why McNish was likely, more than anyone on the expedition, to clash with Shackleton.
Scots like McNish were brought up NOT to know their place, that was the point and the proof of this in McNish’s case was his adherence to his strict Calvinist faith throughout his life. This doesn’t mean to say that he would have been unable to fit into a disciplined hierarchy but he would only have submitted to the leadership of others if reason in doing so prevailed. The moment any situation resolved where reason and logic were being defied by his leader, he would have ceased to respect that hierarchy. Understanding how and why McNish was this way is critical to understanding why this intelligent and educated man clashed with Shackleton at a critical moment on the ice
The importance of Port Glasgow in the new infrastructure of the Clyde was highlighted by the development of the world’s first reliable steam boat service on 15th August 1812 which ran from the centre of Glasgow to Greenock, stopping at Port Glasgow, the first of the three main Clyde port towns. The Comet was revolutionary and could make 5mph into a strong headwind. A day’s journey was cut to a couple of hours, a fast link for passengers and one of the earliest examples of an integrated transport system in the world.
The British Empire was grown and based on trade first and foremost. As it grew, the demand for ships, steel and coal was unprecedented. The ports of the Clyde: Glasgow, Port Glasgow, Greenock, Gourock became some of the most important ship building towns in the world as every major British industrial coastal city geared up to become the shipbuilding centre of the world. Inland the coal mines and steel works of churned out the raw materials and in offices in all the ports, naval architects planned bigger and faster ships.
37.