Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland .. - National Library of Scotland

——PETERHEADan Act of parliament that was then obtained. TheNorth Harbour was begun in 1818, after designs byTelford, and was improved in 1821, 1837, and 1855.I"rom the nature of the place vessels in both harbourswere often windbound for considerable periods, and theloss arising from this was so great, that in 1850 a canalwas formed through tlie isthmus between the harbours,so that vessels could be warped from the one to theother. It is spanned by a cast ii-on swing bridge erectedat a cost of £8000. In 1872-73, and 1875-76, freshacts of parliament, authorising further improvements,•were obtained and new works carried out, and a middleharbour formed. There are now three basins hewn outof solid rock and covering an area of 21i acres, and thetotal expenditure for harbour purposes has been in allnearly £300,000, of which the sum of £200,000 hasbeen expended since 1859. The depth of the basinsvaries from 12 to 18 feet at spring tides, but at mediumlow water is only 5 to 74 feet. Off the North Harbourare two graving docks. The present amount of debt is£109,603, but the revenue has risen from £100 in 1800,and £i000 in 1849, to £8260 in 1883. About half therevenue is derived from fishing-boats and half fromgeneral trade. The management is vested in the presesof the governors of the Merchant Maiden Hospital inEdinburgh, the provost of Peterhead, and 13 electedtrustees. Prior to 1715, and again during the Peninsularwar, the harbour was protected by small forts at theentrance, but these have vanished.Peterhead was made a head port in 1838, its limitsextending southward to the mouth of the Ythan, andwestward to the Powk Burn. It includes the sub-portsor creeks of Boddam, Fraserburgh, Pittullie, and Kosehearty.The number of vessels belonging to the port withtheir tonnage has been, at various dates, as follows :year. Vessels. Tonnage.1795 2S over 3,0001S37 82 11,0221861 80 13,6871S76 70 9,9161884 61 7,243Of these, in 1875, 5 vessels of 1388 tons, and in 18846 of 1274 tons, were steamers. Of the ships owned inthe port 6 sailing ships (of from 130 to 430 tons) and 3steamers (295, 307, and 41 2 tons) are engaged in the Greenlandseal and whale fishing, a trade that has been carriedon since 1788, when the first whaler was fitted out.Though it has been more vigorously prosecuted fromPeterhead than from any other British port the tradehas had great fluctuations. From 1788 till 1803 only1 ship went to the north every year ; from 1804 to 1814there were from 2 to 7 every year ; from 1814 to 1830the number was from 8 to 16, and by 1857 this hadrisen to 32. Since then, however, it has again declined,till in 1884 there were only 9 vessels. The followingtable shows the tonnage of vessels that entered fromand to foreign and colonial ports and coastwise, withcargoes and baUast, at various dates :Entered.Cleared.Year. British. Foreign, Total. British. Foreign. Total.186618671874188342,60430,76767,34458,4973,8944,96411,80829,34246,39835,73179,15287,83934,78327,50170,45466,8593805,05910,81529,45935,16332,56081,26986,318Of the total, 864 vessels of 87,839 tons, that entered in1883, 186 of 27,432 tons were in ballast, and 670 of61,681 tons were coasters; whilst the total, 840 of86,318 tons, of those that cleared, included 388 ships inballast of 34,398 tons and 580 coasters of 48,952 tons.The principal exports are agricultural produce, herring,and other fish, oil, and gTanite ; and the principal importsare timber, lime, coal, wool, salt, flour, iron, andPETERHEADsoft goods. The amount of customs in 1861 was £2039,in 1872 £1724, in 1881 £1944, and in 1882 £1452.Peterhead is also the centre of one of the twenty-sixherring fishery districts into which Scotland is divided,and embraces all the villages lying between Buchanhavenand Newburgh, both inclusive. To the districtthere belonged, in 1882, 338 first-class boats, 211 secondclassboats, and 176 third-class boats, employing 1692fisher men and boys, and of these to Peterhead itselfthere belonged 118 first-class, 38 second-class, and 55third-class boats, mth 440 resident fisher men and boys.In the same year the total number of persons employedin connection with the herring fishery in thedistrict was 7253, the value of the boats employed was£48,298, of the nets £59,150, and of the lines £10,088.The number of boats actually fishing in the district,most of them from Peterhead itself, whither they aredrawn by the possibOity of getting in and out of theharbour at low water, was 822, and the number ofbarrels of herring caught by them 185,704, 156,026^ ofwhich were exported to the Continent, mostly to Libau,Konigsberg, Danzig, Stettin, and Hamburg. The totalnumber of cod, ling, and hake cured within the districtin 1882 was 44,597. During the herring fishing seasonthe population of the town is increased by from 3000 to4000 individuals connected with this industry.The manufactui'e of linen was once carried on, but isnow extinct. A woollen manufactory was started inthe Kirktown in the early part of the present century,and produced excellent superfine cloth. After languishingand disappearing for a time altogether, it wasrevived in 1854 by a company by whom the manufactureof woollens of different sorts is still vigorouslyprosecuted. The other industries, besides those mentionedin connection with the parish, are saw-mills, afoundry, boat building yards, a rope-work, granitepolishing, and brewing.Municipality, etc.—Under the superiority of theGovernors of the Merchant Maiden Hospital the communityacquired a separate government in 1774, andafter the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, and thesubsequent Act of 1833, when the burgh became parliamentary,a keen dispute long existed whether theremaining portion of the moss-lands, commonage, andpasturage originally granted to the community by theEarl Marisehal, fell to be managed by the baron-bailieand a committee of the feuars, or by the new magistrates; and the community of feuars stiU attends tocertain matters. Municipalaffairs are managed bya provost, 3 bailies, a treasurer,and 7 councillors.The council acts also asthe police commission, andthe police force is unitedwith that of the county.Water is brought in pipesfrom a copious spring 2Jmiles distant, and gas issupplied by a joint-stockcompany formed in 1833,and with their works inLong-gate Street. TheSeal of Peterhead.town has a head post officewith money order, savings' bank, insurance, and telegraphdepartments, branches of the Commercial, North of Scotland,Town and County, and Union banks, a branch of theNational Security Savings' Bank, agencies of 21 insurancecompanies, consulates for Denmark, France, Germany,Norway and Sweden, and Russia, and severalhotels. The newspapers are the Independent East AberdeenshireObserver (1862), published every Tuesday andFriday, and the Liberal Peterhead Sentiiiel (1856), publishedevery Wednesday. Among the miscellaneous institutionsmay be noticed two masonic lodges, the PeterheadAssociation for Science, Literature, and Arts (1835),with a museum, the nucleus of the collection in whichwas bequeathed by the late Mr Adam Arbuthnot ; areading society (1808), and a Mechanics' Institute (1836),203