There's a very good article by Stuart Eydmann in the 1999 Folk Music Journal (Vol7 No5)entitled 'As Common as Blackberries: the First Hundred Years of the Accordion in Scotland, 1830 - 1930' which covers a lot of ground on the history of diatonic and chromatic instruments, on who preferred which and why - and which even covers the spelling of melodeon and accordion! (various manufacturers, retailers and players used different spellings at different times, in different places.

It's well worth reading - and available from the library at Cecil Sharp House. You can, I think,order and buy a photocopy of relevant article, if you haven't got the Journal and don't want to buy it.