Victorian Devolution in the UK

The title says it all. Can anyone think of a scenario or chain of events which would have resulted in a parliament in Edinburgh by 1836, with a POD no earlier than 1830?

The parliament can have as few or as many powers as you want, but it must maintain some relationship with Westminster.

Bonus points if the same, or similar, setup is in place in Ireland.

It's a tough one, but I'm trying to write a timeline based on this premis.
 
Cheating answer: England becomes inhospitable to the British government for some reason, so it reconvenes up north.

Relationship with Westminster is that it hopes to be able to return there.
 
Well, had Parnell not gone off with Kitty O'Shea, Irish home rule would probably have happened in about 1887. Alternatively, just have the Act of Union between Ireland and the UK not pass in 1808.

Scotland is harder, as there really wasn't a massive cultural difference between Lowland Scotland and England at the time (that started to be revived later, with Scott and Burns and such).
 
Scotland is harder, as there really wasn't a massive cultural difference between Lowland Scotland and England at the time (that started to be revived later, with Scott and Burns and such).

It's actually easier than you think. Remember, the Tories were always opposed to Irish home rule - however, as a counter-proposal to the proposals from the Whigs on Irish home rule, the Tories ended up (for some strange reason) ended up supporting Home Rule for Scotland instead (since Scotland was prime Tory country and, in the mindset of a Tory, granting Scotland Home Rule would ensure that Scotland would always vote for Tories). Yes, there wasn't much cultural difference between the Scottish Lowlands and (Northern) England, but when politics is the only reason cultural differences don't matter.

When the Tories got into Government, however, Home Rule for Scotland fell by the wayside and was forgotten. This, however, could be rectified with an easy POD - don't let the Tories forget about their promise of Home Rule for Scotland, and thus you'd have that thing going.
 
Scotland is harder, as there really wasn't a massive cultural difference between Lowland Scotland and England at the time (that started to be revived later, with Scott and Burns and such).

That's only partly true. Scottish people followed a different religion, obeyed a different legal code, and felt themselves different from Englishmen. The kilts-tartans-kings-and-thistles romanticism of Scott drew on a sense of self that already existed, and took things that appealed to the sensibilities of a firm Tory like Scott (rugged Highlanders, quiet Protestantism, feudal virtue) without the things that didn't (the 'evangelical' bit of the kirk, radicalism, modernity). It was also quite different from Burns - through they overlapped inasmuch as they admired the hardy Caledonian son of the soil, Burns was a radical who felt no need to display his knees to anyone.

There was indeed a fairly serious prospect of Scottish home rule several times in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. I'm afraid 1836 is much too early: did you mean 1936? You want it to be after the coming of the railway to Edinburgh (1842) and Tory supremacy in much of Scotland.

A lot of fun a Tartan Tory Scotland would have been... a mainland Stormont.
 
It was 1836 I was thinking of, which is why it's so difficult....!

There were a number of opportunities for Home Rule to be achieved in the late 19th-early 20th centuries which would have been easier to work with, but for the purpose of this timeline it was 1836 I was looking for. I'm playing a game of Victoria 2, which starts in 1836, and I need a justification for the country being at least autonomous in order to write an AAR I'm planning.

I apologise for the tall order boys, I certainly couldn't think of any chain of events which would lead to devolution that early, hence my question.

Actually - did the Tories really dominate Victorian Scotland? I thought the place was a bit of a Liberal stronghold for most of the 19th century, so any theoretically devolved legislature would have been more Liberal than Conservative, no?
 
It was 1836 I was thinking of, which is why it's so difficult....!

There were a number of opportunities for Home Rule to be achieved in the late 19th-early 20th centuries which would have been easier to work with, but for the purpose of this timeline it was 1836 I was looking for. I'm playing a game of Victoria 2, which starts in 1836, and I need a justification for the country being at least autonomous in order to write an AAR I'm planning.

I apologise for the tall order boys, I certainly couldn't think of any chain of events which would lead to devolution that early, hence my question.

When's the PoD? You could have had the Union as such never happen (it wasn't inevitable) and Scotland as a seperate country in personal union, although that would mean pretty drastic changes all around.

Actually - did the Tories really dominate Victorian Scotland? I thought the place was a bit of a Liberal stronghold for most of the 19th century, so any theoretically devolved legislature would have been more Liberal than Conservative, no?

Rural Scotland either side of the central belt was Tory country still in the 1950s. There were occasions when the Liberals did well in Scotland, but that tended to be when they were doing well everywhere; generally, we were a Tory (or rather a Conservative and Unionist) stronghold. The Highlands liked Radical politics, for the same reason as they liked the Frees: both were against landlords, and as far as Highland pasttimes go, hating landlords is up there with Shinty and bestiality. :p;)

Less facetiously, though, a 19th century Scottish parliament would be interesting and difficult to predict. After all, we don't know its electorate and the nature of its constituencies. When we're talking about the 1880s (or, hey, the 1920s), though, the strong influence of the kirk and sectarianism is regrettably beyond doubt.
 
When's the PoD? You could have had the Union as such never happen (it wasn't inevitable) and Scotland as a seperate country in personal union, although that would mean pretty drastic changes all around.

I was trying to keep the POD as close to 1836 as possible in order to minimise game breaking butterflies. Ideally, the Scottish Parliament/Assembly would hold its first meeting on January 1.

One thing I considered doing was presenting it as effectively a relocation of the system as it worked at Westminster. Scottish legislation was still essentially separate and - if Devine is right, at any rate - there was a de facto Scottish legislative body already, it just sat in Westminster as a 'sub-parliament', dealing with much of the day-to-day running of everything north of the border.

Now, if I could find some need, some political neccessity to move that to Edinburgh, I'd be laughing.
 
Now, if I could find some need, some political neccessity to move that to Edinburgh, I'd be laughing.

One of the later Napoleons is a little off his rocker and pulls an initially successful (but eventual failure) attempt at invading the UK their could very well be an impetus to move Parliament as far away from France as possible while staying within Britain.
 
When's the PoD? You could have had the Union as such never happen (it wasn't inevitable) and Scotland as a seperate country in personal union, although that would mean pretty drastic changes all around.



Rural Scotland either side of the central belt was Tory country still in the 1950s. There were occasions when the Liberals did well in Scotland, but that tended to be when they were doing well everywhere; generally, we were a Tory (or rather a Conservative and Unionist) stronghold. The Highlands liked Radical politics, for the same reason as they liked the Frees: both were against landlords, and as far as Highland pasttimes go, hating landlords is up there with Shinty and bestiality. :p;)

Less facetiously, though, a 19th century Scottish parliament would be interesting and difficult to predict. After all, we don't know its electorate and the nature of its constituencies. When we're talking about the 1880s (or, hey, the 1920s), though, the strong influence of the kirk and sectarianism is regrettably beyond doubt.
IBC, I think Scotland's support for the Unionist Party in the 20th century really dates from the late 19th century and the emergence of Home Rule as an issue in the 1880s rather than having been present through the Victorian era. Before the Great Reform Act Scotland was controlled by Tory landlords - after it the country swung to Liberalism/Whiggery in reaction, and after the Peelite split of the Conservatives the party never really had an awful lot of success north of the Border until the rise of the Liberal Unionists. The county seats tended to be split half and half between Tories and Liberals/Whigs, but the burgh seats were very solidly Liberal.

I do agree though that a Home Rule Parliament in Scotland has the potential to be a mainland Stormont, especially if the Tories strongly identify themselves with the Kirk and the parts of the Free Kirk that were not opposed to the principle of Establishment.
 
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