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The Royal Burgh of Irvine
IRVINE, a royal burgh and a sea-port, is
pleasantly
situated on the right bank of the river Irvine, ¾ of a
mile east from the basin, but 2 miles from it along
the channel of the river, and a mile in a direct line
north-east of the nearest point of the frith of Clyde.
The town is 11 miles north of Ayr; 25
south-south-west of Glasgow; 34 south of Greenock; 3
south of Kilwinning; 7 south-east of Saltcoats; 6½
west of Kilmarnock; and 67 distant from Edinburgh.
The site of the main body of the town is a rising
ground, of a sandy soil, stretching parallel with the
river. At a point ¼ of a mile north of Annack
water, and the same distance east of Irvine water, is
the Townhead or commencement of the Main-street.
This thoroughfare stretches from end to end of the
town, running about 600 yards in a direction north of
west, and then over a further distance of about 500
yards, assuming a more northerly direction. Over
its whole length, excepting a small part in the centre
mid-distance, it is spacious and airy, and wears an
appearance superior to that of the principal street of
most Scottish towns of its size. Expanding southward
of it, and partly lying between the first 450 yards of
it and Irvine river, are the Golf-fields, traced or
studded northward on the western side, or the
river's bank, by the minister's glebe, the
washing-house, the powder-house, chapel wall, or the
site of the quondam chapel of St. Mary, and finally,
on a swell of the ground, the parish-church. The
last of these objects is an oblong edifice 80 feet by
60, built in 1774, surmounted at the north-west end by
a very beautiful spire, commodiously fitted up in the
interior, and, in all respects, highly creditable to
the town. Three hundred yards from the
commencement of the Main-street one thoroughfare of
very brief length leads off into the Golf-fields, and
another 400 yards long, called Cotton-street, leads
off in the opposite direction. At the further
extremity of the latter street stand the Gas works,
and one of the dissenting meeting-houses. Nearly 200
yards down from the debouch of Cotton-street, the
Main-street, having already sent off a briefer
thoroughfare to the church, sends off one of 220 yards
in length to the river; and immediately after it is
itself bisected into two thoroughfares by the
town-hall and the jail. These buildings are plain
and substantial, bearing a marked resemblance to the
town-hall of Annan; and, owing to the spaciousness of
the street, do not offer by any means such an
obstruction to the carriage-way as their very
obtrusive position would seem to threaten. About 80
yards below them, the Main-street reaches what may be
esteemed the centre of the town. From this point a
street of great burghal importance goes off, over a
distance of 200 yards, to a bridge communicating
across Irvine river with the suburbs and the harbour;
and another little built upon, yet having on its north
side near its exit the office of Ayr bank, goes off in
an opposite direction, pointing the way to Glasgow,
and at a distance of 530 yards passing the Gas works,
and receiving at an acute angle the termination of
Cotton-street. Three other streets complete the
grouping of the burgh, —one nearly parallel with
Main-street on its east side, but very partially
edificed, —another parallel to it on its west side,
but compactly edificed over only a brief distance,
—and a third, going off from it at a point 200 yards
below the centre of the town, diverging at an angle of
about 45 degrees, and going down over a distance of
220 yards to the Slaughter-house. All the three
dissenting places of worship are neat edifices. A
little west of the northern termination of Main-street
stands the Academy, built in 1814, at a cost of
£2,250, both an honour and an ornament to the town.
The town has an excellent news-room and
subscription library; branch-offices of the Ayr bank,
the Ayrshire bank, and the British Linen company's
bank; and several mills whose appearance and machinery
surpass those of any others in the county. The
bridge which connects the town with its suburbs was
built in 1826, and is the most spacious and handsome
in Ayrshire. These suburbs consist chiefly of two
streets, straight and uniformly edificed, —the one,
called Halfway, leading right across the isthmus,
formed by the elongated horseshoe bend of the river,
to the harbour of the town, —and the other, called
Fullarton, running up at a right angle from the
bridge, or parallel with the river, and pointing the
way to Ayr. These suburbs, though not within the
royalty, are comprehended within the parliamentary
boundaries; and they were recently erected into a
quoad sacra parish, and have a neat new church, with
between 800 and 1,000 sittings. On a line with the
west end of Halfway, where the river, just before
expanding into its basin or estuary, suddenly bends
from a southerly to a westerly course, is the pier or
harbour, —lined, for about 220 yards, with buildings,
and sending out a pierhead upwards of 500 yards into
the basin. North of the west end of Halfway is a
building-yard, where ship-architecture is conducted to
a noticeable extent.
The burgh commissioners report very laconically
respecting Irvine :— "It has no trade excepting that
of coal, which is not increasing. There are many
respectable inhabitants in the town, and some villas
round it." Yet, so far back as the year 1790, the port
had, in strict connection with the town, 51 vessels,
aggregately of 3,682 tons, and navigated by 305
sailors, besides other vessels nominally belonging to
it, but properly connected with Saltcoats and Largs.
In 1837, the vessels had increased in number to 106,
aggregately of 11,535 tons. So prosperous, too, have
recently been the affairs of the harbour, that though
the trustees were empowered to levy additional rates
from vessels, and a pontage from vehicles to
compensate the costs of repairing the harbour and
rebuilding the bridge, they had no need to use their
new powers as regarded the harbour, but found the old
rates sufficient to defray all expenses. Irvine being
the nearest port to Kilmarnock, has shared the results
of that town's increase in manufacturing
productiveness and importance. Besides shipping vast
quantities of coals both coastwise and for Ireland,
the town, with its dependencies, exports very largely
carpeting, tanned leather, rye-grass seed, and tree
plants, and also, on a smaller scale, cotton yarn,
cotton cloth, herrings, sheep-skins tawed, and other
articles; and it imports from Ireland oats, butter,
orchard produce, feathers, untanned hides, linen
cloth, quilts, limestone, and other articles, and from
America timber, staves, and spars, as well as exports
to the latter market carpeting, woollen cloth, and
articles of leather manufacture. The harbour has a
regular custom-house establishment. Across the mouth
of the basin—as at the mouth of the river Ayr —is a
bar which long very seriously impeded navigation, and
which even yet prevents the entrance of vessels of any
considerable burden. The depth of water from the quay
to the bar is generally from 9 to 11 feet at spring
tides; and in high storms, with the wind from the
south or south-west, it is sometimes 16 feet. Vessels
of larger size than 80 or 100 tons are obliged to take
in or deliver part of their cargoes on the outer side
of the bar. The dues levied at the port during the 5
years preceding 1832, averaged about £430 a-year. The
want of a separate police for the harbour is
frequently felt as a great inconvenience.
The manufactures of the town are far from being either
on the decline or unworthy of notice. About the year
1790, hand-sewing was introduced by a Glasgow
manufacturing house, and, at the end of 3 years,
employed only about 70 young women; but it has so
greatly increased, that of late years one agent alone
has repeatedly paid away £8,000 in wages. The weaving
of book-muslins, jaconets, and checks, employs many
individuals. In 1838, the number of hand-looms alone
was 580. The earnings by hand-sewing vary with the
fashion of the goods, from 6d.
to 1s. 3d. per day. The average clear wages for
weaving is 7s. per week. The best paid work in Irvine
is book-muslins; 4 ells of a certain fineness of
which, paid at 6¼d. per ell, may be worked per day of
14 hours. The weavers of the town, as to their average
condition, are on a par with shoemakers and labourers.
Many persons are employed in carting coals from the
collieries to the harbour ; and most of
the population of Halfway and Fullarton—amounting, in
1836, to 2,571 —are connected with the port either as
seamen, as ship-carpenters, or in other capacities. In
consequence of a fall in the prices procured for coals
in Ireland, a reduction of about 7s. 6d. per month was
made, not long ago, on the wages of the seamen. The
town has manufactories in rope-making, tanning and
dressing leather, constructing anchors and cables,
distilling whisky, making magnesia, and fabricating
various articles of artisanship. The affairs of the
burgh are managed by a provost, 2 bailies, a
dean-of-guild, a treasurer, and 12 councillors.
Municipal constituency in 1840, 178. The
corporation-property is considerable—including among
other items, 422 acres of arable land, the town's
mills, the town-house, with its shops, the public
meal-market, shambles and washing-houses —and yielded,
in 1832, with town's customs and market-dues, a
revenue of £1,497 19s. 7d. The ordinary expenditure
is, in general, so much less than the amount of
revenue, as to admit of extensive repairs upon the
burgh-property, and occasionally of the purchase of
additions to the common good. The jurisdiction of the
magistrates does not extend to the suburbs; and their
patronage is limited to the election of their
officers, who draw salaries to the aggregate amount of
£115 14s. a-year. The burgh court is the only one in
which they preside ; but, no sheriff court being held
in the town, it has very important jurisdiction.
Affairs of police are managed by the magistrates, and
maintained at the cost of the burgh fund. The jail is
in use, not only for Irvine itself, and for the
populous towns of Salt-coats, Ardrossan, Largs, and
the adjacent country, but for the large manufacturing
town of Kilmarnock,. —in fact, for nearly all the
district of Cunningham ; and it is extremely
incommodious and inconvenient. Though Irvine has both
burgesses and guild-brethren, the magistrates are not
rigid In compelling strangers to enter, and usually
allow them to become domesticated before they demand
entry dues. In 1832, there were 225 guild-brethren,
and 72 burgesses. There are 6 incorporated trades, —
shoemakers, coopers, tailors, weavers, hammermen, and
squaremen; but they have acknowledged the inutility of
their privileges, or demonstrated their impolicy and
injurious consequences, more than kindred bodies in
most of the towns of
Scotland. -Fullarton, or about one-third of the
suburban appendage of Irvine, is a burgh-of-barony,
and claims a separate jurisdiction of its own, but has
no resident magistrate. As the burghal authorities
have no power to impose any police-assessment, it is
neither lighted, watched, nor cleaned like the rest of
the town; and lying in a direct line between the burgh
and the harbour, it becomes an easy retreat to
delinquents for evading the pursuit or awards of
justice. -Irvine unites with Ayr, Rothsay, Inverary,
and Campbelltown in returning a member to parliament.
Constituency, in 1840, 244. The town has weekly
markets on Tuesday and Friday, and annual fairs in
January, May, and August. Population, in 1831, 7,034.
Of these, 4,518 were within the old royalty, and 2,510
were in Fullarton and Halfway.
Irvine is a very ancient royal burgh. A charter of the
supposed date of 1308 is still extant, granted by King
Robert Bruce in consequence of the services of the
inhabitants in the wars of the succession. Twelve
renewals and confirmations of their rights by
successive monarchs, evince the importance which the
burgh continued to maintain down to 1641, when all
their immunities were formally ratified by parliament.
From a charter granted by Robert II., it appears to
have once had jurisdiction over the whole of
Cunningham; but it could not long maintain its ascendency against encroachments on the part of
neighbouring barons. Its armorial bearings are a lion
rampant-guardant, having a sword in one of his
forepaws, and a sceptre in the other, with the motto,
"Tandem bona causa triumphat;" and these are
sculptured over the entry to the council-chamber in
the town-hall. -In August, 1839, Irvine became
temporarily crowded with an influx of strangers,
pouring in from sea and highway to witness the
fooleries of the Eglinton tournament. -The
town is distinguished as the birth-place of James
Montgomery, the poet, and Gait, the novelist.
Montgomery's father long officiated as minister in the
little chapel, still known as 'the Moravian kirk;' and
the poet was born in a house near it, on the north
side of the entrance to an alley, called Braid close.
Gait's natal spot was a neat two-story house, on the
south side of the Main-street, near its northern
termination. Burns' name, too - how different in its
moral associations from the odoriferous one of
Montgomery! —is connected in a degree with the town;
for here —though in what precise locality is disputed
—the bard tried to establish himself as a
flax-dresser, and suffered a severe reverse in the
burning of his shop—Irvine, at one time, gave the
title of Viscount, in the Scottish peerage, to an
English family who had no property in its vicinity.
The first Viscount Irvine, was Henry, the eldest
surviving son of Sir Arthur Ingram of Temple Newsom,
neur Leeds, and received the title in 1661. Charles,
the 9th and last Viscount, died in 1778.
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