A North Briton (adjective North British) is a term used for a Scottish person, either by self-identification as a Scottish Unionist, or bestowed upon Scottish people as an indicator they are from the north of Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Simillarly, the term North Britain can also mean Scotland.
After the Act of Union 1707, Scotland was sometimes referred to as "North Britain". In 1707, the Royal Scots Greys were renamed the "Royal North British Dragoons". In Rob Roy (1817), Sir Walter Scott refers to a Scottish person in England as a North Briton, sometimes in the mouth of an English character but also in the authorial voice.
"Why, a Scotch sort of a gentleman, as I said before," returned mine host; "they are all gentle, ye mun know, though they ha' narra shirt to back; but this is a decentish hallion—a canny North Briton as e'er cross'd Berwick Bridge — I trow he's a dealer in cattle." —Rob Roy, Scott
The term is seldom used in contemporary prose, and is now considered pejorative or comedic in usage, typically as an assult on Scottish nationalism and Scottish national identity, or used to describe people who are sympathetic to the United Kingdom.
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Use
Newspapers
- See also: The North Briton
The North Briton and New North Briton were newspapers in the 18th and 19th centuries, and in 1844 there was also a North British Advertiser. The North British Review was founded in 1844 by members of the Free Church of Scotland as a Scottish "national review" for those unsatisfied with the secular Edinburgh Review or the conservative Quarterly Review. It continued until 1871 [1][2].
Railways
The North British Railway ran a number of east coast routes and was the company involved in the 1879 Tay Bridge Disaster. In the grouping of railway companies in 1923 it was absorbed into the London and North Eastern Railway. The eponymous "North British Hotel" in Edinburgh was renamed as Balmoral Hotel in the 1980s, though the original name still appears on the stonework. The Glasgow-based North British Locomotive Company, formed in 1908, was for a time the largest steam locomotive manufacturer in Europe.
