As Burn’s Day on January 25 approaches, and hundreds of people prepare to converge on Turakina for the 151st Highland Games on 31 January, what do you know about the Scots? That they play the bagpipes and wear a lot of tartan?

If you are a foodie, images of black pudding, haggis, neeps and tatties—with shortbread and a fine Scotch or two on the side—might come to mind. Perhaps you have a Scottish ancestor—about 25 percent of pre-1920 migrants to New Zealand were Scots.

And what about those Scots who came to New Zealand? Didn’t they all go to Dunedin? There were those that came to Waipu via Canada too—mostly from the Highlands. Weren’t they evicted with only their kilts to make way for sheep?

With the upcoming events of January, it is timely to pause for a moment to reflect on who the real Scots were who made their home in New Zealand and helped to shape the nation.

To begin with, relatively few were from the Highlands and few, if any, were claymore-wielding clansmen. Seventy-five percent of all of New Zealand’s Scots migrants came from the Lowlands or Borders—mostly Lanarkshire and Midlothian (the counties that include Glasgow and Edinburgh). This was in line with the population distribution of Scotland at the time.

Although these increasingly industrialised lowland areas were the original home of most of the Scots who came to New Zealand from around 1840, the majority of those emigrating had an agricultural background. Scottish shepherds and farm managers were highly sought after, especially on the large Canterbury sheep runs.

While it is true that a great many of New Zealand’s Scots settled in Otago, there was actually no part of the country that didn’t receive some Scottish settlers. There were significant pockets of Scots in Amuri and Cheviot in Canterbury, and in and around Turakina and Fordell just south of Whanganui. Regardless of how many Scots an area of New Zealand received, every region was settled by a more-or-less perfect geographical cross-section of Scots.

At around 25 percent of British migrants up to 1920, there were proportionately far more Scots in New Zealand than there were in the British Isles, where they made up just 10 percent of the population. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, the Scots seem also to have had a disproportionate influence on many aspects of New Zealand society—foremost among these is our education system.

Thanks to Scotland-born politicians, girls secondary schools were set up alongside boys’ schools from early on. In general, our school system followed the more egalitarian Scottish system rather than the more elitist English system, ensuring education for all.

New Zealand universities were open to women from their inception and have also followed the Scottish rather than the English model, despite English migrants making up 50 percent of New Zealand’s early settlers.
Scottish culture is pervasive in New Zealand in everyday ways too—seen, for example, in our tendency to say ‘wee’ when we mean small, and our frequent inclusion of Auld Lang Syne to conclude ceremonies. In fact New Zealand’s enthusiastic celebration of New Year’s Eve, and our public holidays on 1 and 2 January, are also inherited from our Scottish ancestors and their celebration of Hogmanay.

On 25 January, let us raise a glass in memory of Robert Burns—or a cup of tea in memory of his nephew the Reverend Thomas Burns, a founder of Dunedin—and to that quarter of New Zealand’s early European migrants who came from Scotland and helped to shape the nation we know today.