Scotland in Eclipse

by Andrew Dewar Gibb

200 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

Andrew Dewar Gibb was a Scottish advocate, barrister, professor and politician. He taught law at Edinburgh and Cambridge, and was Regius Professor of Law at the University of Glasgow from 1934 to 1958. He was the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) from 1936 to 1940.

Born in Paisley, Gibb was educated at Trinity College, Glenalmond, and the University of Glasgow, where he graduated with an MA in 1910 and an LLB in 1913.

Gibb became an advocate in 1914. During World War I he served in France with the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, achieving the rank of major. He was adjutant to Winston Churchill during the short period in 1916 when Churchill was the battalion's commanding officer. Gibb became a member of the English bar in 1917 and practiced as a barrister in England. In 1929 he was appointed as lecturer in English law at the University of Edinburgh, and from 1931 to 1934 he was lecturer in Scots law at the University of Cambridge.

Gibb was politically active throughout his adult life. He began his political career in the 1920s as a supporter of the Unionist Party, and stood unsuccessfully as a Unionist parliamentary candidate for Hamilton in 1924, and for Greenock in 1929. He came to the view that Scotland had been ill served by the union of 1707. His book Scotland in Eclipse (1930) linked the economic depression with a wider cultural malaise in Scotland. In particular, he believed that Scotland's status as a partner in the imperial mission had been compromised by her lowly status in the United Kingdom. While he moved towards a Scottish nationalist position, he also retained a right-wing world view, and imperial questions remained prominent in his writings.

Gibb's involvement in Scottish nationalism came initially as a member of the Scottish Party, which had been founded as a counterbalance to the left-wing National Party of Scotland. In 1934, he became a founder member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), and was the second leader of the SNP, serving from 1936 until 1940, when he resigned from the position due to what he regarded as the party's rapid lurch to the left.