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Counties,
parishes and burghs
An important process took place from the
twelfth century onwards, when Scotland was divided into counties,
parishes and burghs. Counties had their origin in sheriffdoms and
stewartries (sheriffs and stewards were royal officials and judges).
Parishes were originally a way of dividing up the country into small
areas, each of which would support a local church and clergy. Burghs
were towns which enjoyed special privileges relating the regulation
of trade and industry, and a certain amount of autonomy. From the
seventeenth century until the mid-19th century 'local government'
in Scotland is often characterised as rule by church and gentry
(in parishes and counties) and by burgess oligarchy in the burghs.
Modern local government
Social, economic, political and religious
changes all played their part in the evolution of local government
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The creation of parliamentary
and police burghs, civil parishes, school boards, and a host of
other local authorities transformed local government and improved
the living conditions of miullions of Scots in the face of enormous
problems such as population growth, industrial pollution, disease
and rising crime rates. In 1889 county councils were created with
wide powers over landward areas (outwith burghs). The first half
of the twentieth century saw further rationalisation of local government,
with more powers accruing to county councils and larger burghs.
The division of counties, burghs and parishes was abolished in 1975,
when regional, district and island councils were imposed under the
Local Government (Scotland) Act 1974. This two-tier system was,
in turn, abolished in 1996, when the current unitary authorities
were created.
Local government records
Local authorities carried out so many functions
that records produced by local government provide evidence for the
study of many aspects of society. They are used by every conceivable
type of archive user: from academic historians to genealogists and
local historians; from professional legal researchers to members
of the general public. Most local government records have passed
to the archives or library services of current local authorities,
but there are important exceptions (such as records of local authorities
held by the National Archives of Scotland and burgh records held
by universities).
Links to other SCAN pages on local government
Counties and parishess
Burghs
Post 1975 local
government
New Towns
Local government
functions and records
Bibliography and links
Ann E Whetstone, Scottish County Government
in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Edinburgh, 1981);
Cecil Sinclair, Exploring Scottish Local History (Edinburgh,
1994); R M Urquhart, The Burghs of Scotland (Motherwell,
1989-1992, 5 vols).
Websites:
Scottish
Local Government Information Unit
Convention
of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)
The
Scottish Executive Library website
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1.
Where can I see minutes of the meetings of a current local authority
or its committees?
2.
Where can I see minutes of the meetings of a regional or district
council or its committees?
3.
Where can I see a copy of Strathclyde Region's Strathclyde Structure
Plan, or its component parts?
4.
What was a stewartry?
5.
What was a police burgh?
6.
Did a particular town or suburb have a police force at one time?
7.
How can valuation rolls help me prove I was a council tenant for
a number of years (for example, to claim a discount when purchasing
a council house)?
To find out which parish and county an island
belonged to, enter the Gazetteer.
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