Scotland and the Flemish People

Alex Fleming, alumnus and honorary graduate of St Andrews University, spoke to the Club by Zoom from the USA. Retirement had enabled him to investigate his family name and he soon discovered that very little had been written about Flemish immigrants to Scotland. ‘Scotland and the Flemish People’ is the title of a book edited by Alex and Professor Roger Mason, based on the major research project that they undertook together with two doctoral students.

‘Flemings’, as they were collectively known, may well be the largest group of immigrants to have come to Scotland. They began arriving shortly after William the Conqueror’s invasion of England and continued to do so at various times over the succeeding centuries. Why did they come, given that Scotland was for much of this period a comparatively poor country, whereas Flanders was prosperous and sophisticated? There were perhaps two reasons. The laws of primogeniture in Flanders meant that family estates went to the eldest son, leaving other sons landless. Many younger sons fought with William the Conqueror, were rewarded with land and then gradually moved northwards to Scotland. Later arrivals were mainly merchants and craftsmen. There was considerable trade with Flanders in the Middle Ages, especially wool, and this resulted in regular contact between the two countries, with many Flemings choosing to settle in Scotland permanently.

Dr Fleming highlighted our apparent unawareness of this comparatively major immigration into Scotland. He surmised the reason might be the way the Flemish, after a couple of generations, melded completely into Scottish society. They left their mark in some of our architecture (pantiled roofs and crow-stepped gables), in various castles and mottes scattered through much of Scotland and in many of our familiar surnames: not just Fleming but also Lindsay, Murray and Sutherland, for example. There is also a suggestion that the Flemish may have influenced the development of golf, but Dr Fleming wisely left that for another day!