County Names

[hanes teulu]

The list of the Lords temporal attending the 17 Mar 1715 Westminster parliament included those from Edinburghshire, Elginshire, Fifeshire, Forfarshire, Hadingtonshire and Linlithgowshire.

George Mackenzies' "A few brief and modest reflections ...." published 26 May 1703 mentions Forfarshire and Edinburghshire.   

[RJ_Paton]

Only guessing but does ' shire ' not relate to ' the sheriffdom of ' suggesting there had to be a Sheriff appointed by the powers that were.   How far back does that go .... did William Wallace not give a good kickin' to the Sheriff of Lanark, sometime back in the 1200s ?

David I in the 12th century (1124-1153) is credited by some, with starting the System of Sheriffdoms in Scotland and he is also said to have reformed the local administration system and began the creation and use of Burgh's as administrative units. But major land reform was still some way off and larger area boundaries were still based on the old Thanedom boundaries.
An atlas published in 1603/1604 just after James VI took the English crown makes no reference to the Counties that we know today but several maps published from 1630's onwards did refer to "Shyres" and certainly by the Act of Union in 1707 reference there was made to the 33 Counties of Scotland

Added : There are several of these maps available on the National Library of Scotland Site

[Ian Nelson]

So in 1707 there were 33 Counties.   Did Scotland have any Counts ?  We had Earls, is that the same thing ?  Are the wives of Earls referred to as Countesses ?
I think we should be told.  Who knows?
cheers, Ian

[hdw]

I find it very annoying that some of the old counties have disappeared in local government reforms, especially that Kincardineshire and Banffshire have been swallowed up by Aberdeenshire, so that you get ridiculous anomalies like "Banff, Aberdeenshire" and "Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire". And the Highland counties are subsumed under "Highland".

Harry

[Forfarian]

I concur entirely.

Though only about a third of Banffshire is now in so-called Aberdeenshire. Most of it is in the much enlarged Moray.

And the lumping together of such a huge area as Highland is very unfortunate.

[hanes teulu]

29 Lords Temporal representing a "shire" were sent to the 1715 Parliament. In alphabetical order,  sandwiched between the shires of Kincardinshire and Lanerkshire (sic) is "Stew. of Kirkudbrig."

Presumably this is Kirkudbright and reminds me of starting work many years ago. I was being trained by a Scot and a few days in I told him "The report from the Kirkudbright (pronouncing it "Cur cud bright") office has arrived." He exploded - and something like "Cy coo bree" was the correct pronunciation. Sadly, I blotted my copy book again a few days later when the report from "Lur wick" arrived!

Sadly, we lost some of our ancient counties under the 1974 Maud reforms when we were reduced to 8 from 13.

[Ian Nelson]

Heading south through Dalmellington one enters ' The Stewartry of Kirkcudbright ' which I interpret as Stewardry.   However, the Kirk of Cuthbert is pronounced by Ayrshire folks as Kir Koo bry.  Lazy we are, cheers, Ian

[hanes teulu]

Ian,
Diolch/thanks for the confirmation. To me, it will forever be "Cur-cud-bright."

[Ian Nelson]

dive into Youtube, or better still, Freetube and look up the World Famous in Scotland song - ' The Wee Kircudbright Centipede '
cheers, Ian