selkirk-1957/02_041

Transcription

INTRODUCTION: GENERAL

though without success; and 12 years later, when
Robert Scott, stocking-weaver and wool-comber,
proposed to set up in the burgh, the Council re-
sponded to his request for help by providing a house
for him, feeling that his settlement there would be
for the good of the town. ¹ By the end of the century
the writer of the Statistical Account of Scotland was
able to report the establishment of an incle ² manu-
factory employing fifty hands, a stocking manu-
factory on a small scale and a tannery near by. ³ There
was little change at the time of the New Statistical
Account, which mentions a fulling mill but reports
that the incle manufactory has ceased. ⁴ It was only in
the years immediately following this that the influx
of manufacturers from Galashiels brought an import-
ant mechanised textile trade to the burgh. ⁵

1 Ibid., sub anno.
2 A kind of linen tape, or thread from which this is made.
3 Stat. Acct., ii (1792), 438 f.

4. THE BURGH OF GALASHIELS

Galashiels, the only other burgh in the county, has
not the antiquity of Selkirk. Originally a forest stead,
it formed part of the estates of the Pringle family in
the 16th century and was created a burgh of barony
in 1599. ⁶ In 1632 it passed with other Pringle pro-
perty to the Scotts of Gala, who retained their
superiority of the burgh until 1850. The rise of
modern Galashiels, however, is due almost entirely
to the establishment there of the woollen cloth in-
dustry at the end of the 18th century, the Gala Water
providing power for the mills. The town expanded
rapidly in the following century and became a
Parliamentary burgh in 1868.

4 N.S.A., iii (Selkirkshire), 4.
5 Craig-Brown. Selkirkshire, ii, 178 ff.
6 Ibid., i, 484.

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