peeblesshire-1967-vol-1/03_048

Transcription

INTRODUCTION: GENERAL

wool and cloth, carried from Peebles to Edinburgh, Leith, Berwick, and other centres by pack-
horse, as was the wool from the king's sheep in Ettrick Forest in the 16th century. ¹ Halyburton's
Ledger of 1492-1503 records the export of a type of cloth, known as "Peebles white", to
Antwerp where it was to be dyed red. ² But the surviving records certainly do not suggest that
the burgh enjoyed any great prosperity as a trading centre, and when the first detailed report
becomes available at the end of the 17th century it is stated that "they have no forraigne trade,
and that ther inland trade is verrie mean and inconsiderable". ³ The only incorporated trade
was that of the weavers, who received a seal of cause in 1563, but the crafts of cordiners,
tailors, hammermen, whipmen and men-servants were also granted certain privileges during
the 17th and 18th centuries.
In 1572 "Peblis tovne" was represented at a weapon-showing by 140 men, ⁴ while about
forty years later the stent rolls enumerate 133 householders; ⁵ Buchan's suggestion that the
total population of the burgh at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries numbered "perhaps
about 1000" ⁶ is thus unlikely to be an over-estimate. Nor did the town expand much in the
17th and 18th centuries, although the author of the Statistical Account, writing in 1794, was
able to report that "woolen, linen, and cotton weavers are making greater exertions, and larger
houses are built for them," and to note the recent establishment of a lint mill and of a distillery
nearby. ⁷ At that time the population of the old and new towns together numbered 1480, and
by 1830 it had risen only to 2100; ⁸ five years later the Commissioners of Municipal Corpora-
tions reported that "Peebles is an inland town, and not distinguished for any trade or manu-
facture. It is not increasing in population". ⁹ In the second half of the 19th century, however,
the successful establishment of the woollen industry brought a new prosperity to the town, and
in a period of fairly rapid expansion the population more than doubled itself in half a century.
At the same time communications were improved by the advent of the railway and the town
began to attract attention as a health resort, a hydropathic establishment being opened in 1878.
(ii) Innerleithen. Innerleithen, the only other burgh in the county, began to develop as a
centre of textile manufacture at the end of the 18th century, the initial impetus being provided
by Alexander Brodie, a wealthy iron-master, who established a woollen factory
(No. 588) there+ in 1788-90 "from the patriotic purpose of promoting a spirit of industry in the
vicinity of the place which gave him birth". ¹⁰ At about the same time the medicinal properties
of the local mineral springs began to acquire some celebrity, and their popularity was enhanced
by the identification of Innerleithen as the setting of Sir Walter Scott's novel St. Ronan's Well,
published in 1827. With the introduction of steam power in the second quarter of the 19th
century the textile industry expanded, and a number of new factories were erected (cf. No.
589); the village had by now far outgrown its original nucleus in the vicinity of the parish
church, and with an increasing population and developing manufactures a successful applica-
tion for burgh status was made in 1868. ¹¹

1 T.A., vi (1531-8), 261.
2 Ledger of Andrew Halyburton, 1492-1503, lxxii and 275.
3 Register containeing The State and Condition of Every Burgh
within the Kingdome of Scotland, in the year 1692, in Miscellany
of The Scottish Burgh Records Society (1881), 126 ff.
4 Peebles Chrs., 339 ff.
5 Renwick, R., The Burgh of Peebles: Gleanings from its Records,
1604-52 (2nd ed., 1912), 27 f.
6 Buchan, Peeblesshire, ii, 32.
7 Stat. Acct., xii, 1 ff.
8 N.S.A., iii (Peeblesshire), 12.
9 Reports of Commissioners on Municipal Corporations, xxiii
(1835-6), Local Reports, part II, 293.
10 Stat. Acct., xix (1797), 598
11 Buchan, Peeblesshire, ii, 424 ff.

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