In this edition of History Scotland, we have learnt about how other countries viewed Scotland from 2,000 years ago onwards (p.22), but what of those Scots who left their home country either temporarily or permanently? The Society has a rich seam of published material on Scots overseas which shows how these men and women viewed their adopted contry. The subject of this column, William Melrose, was a 19th-century tea merchant in China, a somewhat more traditional occupation for Scots travelling, working and living in Asia.
William Melrose came from a respectable Edinburgh family, and sojourned twice in China as employee and manager in his father’s firm, Andrew Melrose and Company. The letters and papers presented in this volume deal with the 1840s and 50s, the early years of the opening of free trade between Britain and China in the wake of the first opium war (1839-42).