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Burgh of Kilmarnock
Kilmarnock, a parliamentary burgh, and the
most important town in the west of
Scotland south of Paisley, occupies a low site, amidst flat and tame
though
agriculturally rich scenery, on both sides of Kilmarnock water
immediately above its
point of confluence with the Irvine ; 9½ miles from Mauchline; 6½ from
Irvine; 12
from Ayr; 21 from Maybole; 32 from Girvan; 28 from Largs; 21½ from
Glasgow; and
63½ by way of Glasgow from Edinburgh. In the reign of James VI., it
was a mere
hamlet, dependent upon the neighbouring baronial mansion, Dean-castle;
and when,
through the wealth of the coal-mines in the vicinity and the
enterprising pursuits
which they suggested and facilitated, it rose to the stature of a
town, it had all
the ruggedness of aspect and the filthiedness of dress indicative of
the vocation of
a collier. At the close of last century it consisted solely of narrow
and irregular
streets, and was extensively edificed with mean thatched houses. But
two events
concurred with the influence of the improvement-spirit of the age, to
effect a rapid
and beautifying change on its appearance. In 1800, a desolating fire
broke out in
the lower part of the town called Nethertonholm, and, aided by drought
and a stiff
breeze, ran rapidly along both sides of the street, and made short and
full work of
demolishing a long array of thatched roofs; and it cleared the way and
afforded
occasion for a spirited effort, by subscription, both in the town and
among
patriotic persons at a distance, to replace the old roofs with
improved ones of
slate. About the same period, commissioners appointed by an act of
parliament which
had been obtained by the magistrates for improving the town,
unsparingly removed
nuisances, planned new streets, and speedily flung over the place a
renovated, airy,
and neat aspect. Yet the town is still remarkable for the utter
disproportion of its
breadth to its length, for the shortness, numerousness, and
irregularity of the thoroughfares at its nucleus, and for the
straggling and dispersed position of
several of its outskirts. At the south end of the town, on the left
bank of the
river Irvine, communicating with Kilmarnock by a bridge which carries
over the Ayr
and Glasgow turnpike, stands the small suburb of RICCARTON: which see.
From the
north end of the bridge, 700 yards above the confluence of Kilmarnock
water with the
Irvine, a street, bearing the names successively of Glencairn-street
and
King-street, runs due north, and in a straight line over a distance of
1,500 yards,
or more than ¾ of a mile, gradually approaching Kilmarnock water over
1,100
yards, running alongside of it for 320 yards, and then, as the river
makes a sudden
bend, passing over it, and opening into an open and irregular area,
the cross,
marketplace, or centre of the town. Nearly 400 yards from its southern
end, this
street expands into Glencairn-square, from the sides of which East
Shaw-street and
West Shaw-street, each about 200 yards in length, run off at right
angles with
Glencairn-street respectively to the rivers Irvine and Kilmarnock. Two
hundred
yards north of Glencairn-square, two very brief streets go off
eastward and
westward, the former sending off at a short distance unedificed
thoroughfares to
Richarland brewery, situated on the Irvine to Wellbeck-street, 320
yards eastward,
and to the slaughter-house 120 yards to the north. Opposite the last
of these
objects, Glencairn-street sends off Douglas-street 120 yards to
Kilmarnock water.
A little more than 400 yards farther north, the same street, or rather
the
continuation of it now bearing the name of King-street, sends off a
long zigzag but
otherwise regular street-line 120 yards eastward, 120 southward, 320
south-eastward, and again 200 southward to Irvine water, bearing as it
approaches
the river the name of Wellbeck-street. All the section of the town
which consists of
these streets, with the exception of the north end of King-street, is
quite
modern, and has a neat appearance, its houses presenting fronts of
polished
ashler, and a building material of fine freestone; yet it is entirely
destitute
of the attribute of compactness which is generally associated with the
idea of a
town, and exhibits mainly an elongated and slightly intersected
street-line
running nakedly down the peninsula formed by the two rivers, and a
subtending zigzag
street-line drawn across the peninsula. Portland-street, 380 yards
long,
Wellington-street 280, and Dean-street 4oO, are continuations nearly
due northward
of the Glencairn-street and King-street line, and, with these streets,
make the
extreme length of the town about 2,610 yards, or very nearly l½ mile.
The
line, however, from King-street northward is but partially editiced,
and, for some
distance, is bending and rather narrow. Nowhere, too, is the town
broader than 700
yards; and over a very considerable part of its length it has but a
single street.
From the north side of the central area, at a point eastward of the
commencement of
Portland street, and slightly radiating from that thoroughfare,
High-street runs
along 600 yards, till it is pent up by a small bend of the river. A
brief street
intersects it 150 yards from its south end, and sends off northward a
thoroughfare
parallel with Portland-street and High-street, and running between
them. From the
south side of the central area go off two brief thoroughfares
respectively
north-eastward and south-eastward, the latter leading down to the
academy situated
within a curve of the river. From the north side of the area also two
streets
debouch. The more southerly of these runs past the Laigh kirk 220
yards, to a
point near Kilmarnock house, and the depot of the Kilmarnock and Troon
railway, and
forms the longest side of a nearly pentagonal district of buildings
which has five exterior streets, and two
intersecting ones, all brief and more or less irregular, and on whose
outskirts are
the cattle-market and the gas-works.
The town, as a whole, has a pleasing and airy aspect, abounds in good
and even
elegant shops, and exhibits a fair display of public buildings. At the
north end
of King-street is a very broad bridge over Kilmarnock water, which not
only carries
across a spacious roadway, but also bears aloft on its east side the
town-house and
the butcher-market. The town-house, built in 1805, is a neat structure
of two
stories, surmounted by a belfry; and contains a court-room and public
offices.
The Exchange buildings, erected in 1814, are of pleasing architecture,
and have a
large hall, which serves both as a well-furnished news-room, and as a
place of
mercantile resort. A very handsome and commodious inn, erected by the
merchants' society, is not a little ornamental to the town. The
Ayrshire
banking company's office, immediately opposite to it, is likewise a verv fine
edifice. The academy, the workhouse, the free-school, and five bridges
over
Kilmarnock water, and one over the Irvine, if not elegant structures,
are at least
agreeable for their utility. Kilmarnock-house arrests attention and
excites musing
thoughts, from its having been the mansion whence the last Earl of
Kilmarnock
issued to take part in the enterprise which cost him his life and the
forfeiture
of his title and estates. The Laigh kirk is remarkable for having
spacious square
staircases at the angles leading to the galleries, and still more so
for the event
which occasioned their peculiar conformation, as well as the
re-edification of the
entire structure. In 1801, while a crowded congregation were
assembling on a
Lord's day for public worship, the falling of a piece of plaster from
the ceiling of
the former church, excited a general and sudden fear in the masses who
were already
seated in the galleries that the roof was about to come down, and
prompted a
universal pell-mell rush to the stairs. A stream of persons who were
in the act of
ascending were met by the headlong torrent of the mass moving
downward, precipitated
to the bottom, and made the lowest stratum of a broad high pile of
human beings
vainly struggling to move off from the rush in the rear, and too
numerous
to be speedily extricated by the efforts of parties clearing the
passages below.
About 30 persons died from suffocation on the spot; and numbers more
received
serious and permanent damage to their health. The place of worship
being now very
wisely and philanthropically condemned by the heritors, its successor,
the present
edifice, was constructed more on the principle of securing confidence
in its
strength and facilities, than with a view to contribute an
architectural decoration
to the town. The High church aspires to be, in some degree, a
counterpart of the
conspicuous and very elegant church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, at
Charing-cross,
London; and,though it wants the portico, that very important part of
the original,
and is destitute of many of the ornaments of its model, and sends
aloft a tower of
only 80 feet in height, and, in general, is much curtailed in its
proportions, it
will pass as a decidedly fine piece of ecclesiastical architecture,
and has been
regarded as the most successful production of the Scottish architect,
Gibb. Its
roof, as to its interior ceiling, displays much taste, and is
supported by two rows
of very beautiful composite pillars. St. Marnoch's church is a Gothic
edifice, with an imposing front and a sumptuous tower. The Relief
church is
probably the most pretending and the neatest of the numerous places of
worship
belonging to the religious denomination with which it is connected;
and, being surmounted by a lofty spire, is a conspicuous and arresting
object in the
scenic groupings of the town. The Independent chapel possesses
neatness in the
exterior, and some novelty and pleasing arrangement in the interior.
Other edifices
in the town, whether civil or ecclesiastical, suggest ideas rather of
direct
adaptation to their respective uses, than of accidental or ornate
properties.
Kilmarnock is the well-known seat of very important manufactures, —
chiefly in the
departments of carpets, shawls, boots and shoes, bonnets and leather.
Its
advantages, as to position and facilities, are abundance of coal, the circumjacency
of a rich agricultural district to supply it amply and cheaply with
provisions,
healthiness of climate, populousness of neighbourhood, and the current
through it,
or at its side, of two considerable streams; and these are so rich as
very fully to
compensate its only disadvantage, the necessity of land-carriage over
a distance of
6 or 7 miles to a port, and were speedily seen in much, if not all, of
their value
by the clear eye of the improvement-spirit which, during last century,
peregrinated
athwart Scotland. Though the incorporations of the town are of long
standing — the
bonnet - makers having been incorporated in 1647, and the skinners in
1656, and the
other bodies possessing documents which, while of later date, are
ratifications of
former grants — yet during many years and several generations, the
manufactures were
very limited as to both variety and amount. 'Kilmarnock bonnets,' and
'Kilmarnock
cowls,' or those broad flat bonnets which are extensively worn by the
peasantry of
the Lowlands, and those red and blue striped nightcaps which still
figure
grotesquely on venerable or hoary heads, and have often provoked the
flash of wit
and the scathing of satire, were, for a long period, the only
productions by which
the town's manufacturing character was known or maintained an
existence. About 100
years ago, three or four individuals conducted the principal trade,
buying serges
and other woollen articles from private manufacturers, and exporting
them to
Holland. The demand for woollen goods afterwards increasing, a company
was formed,
and laid the foundation of the modern and hitherto uniformly
flourishing
productiveness of the place, by the erection of a woollen factory.
About the same
time was introduced the trade for which Kilmarnock, Ayr, and Irvine,
continue to be
noted, — the making of shoes and boots. Some fifteen years before the
close of the
century, spinning-jennies for cotton, and a carding and spinning
machine for coarse
wool, were erected. In 1791, when the Old Statistical Account of the
parish was
written, there were annually manufactured, as to value, £21,400
carpets, £21,216
shoes and boots, £15,500 leather, £6,500 printed calicoes, £3,700
snuff and tobacco,
£3,500 leather-gloves, £2,251 cotton-cloth, £2,000 cabinet-work,
£1,200 milled caps
and mitts, and £7,800 bonnets, coverlets, blankets, plaidings, serges,
mancoes,
saddlers' cloth, saddlery, knit stockings, iron, and dyers'-work.
Since that date
the town has boldly and rapidly advanced in all the ancient
departments of its
manufacture, and has made very important additions in the articles of
printed
shawls, gauzes, and muslins of the finest texture, and some small
addition likewise
in the department of silk fabrics. Almost a characteristic property of
the town is
boldness and blitheness of enterprise, issuing uniformly in success,
or, at worst,
in encouragement. In 1824, at a time when muslin-weaving was the work
of an ill-fed
drudge, the manufacture of worsted printed shawls was introduced to
the Greenholm
printfield of this town, and to Scotland, by an inventive and spirited
calico-printer, Mr. William Hall, and, not only at the moment greatly
relieved the muslin-weavers, by providing them with
remunerating employment, but almost instantaneously grew to be one of
the most
important manufactures of Kilmarnock. So early as from 31st May, 1830,
to 1st June,
1831, only four years after its introduction, it employed about 1,200
weavers and
200 printers, and produced no fewer than 1,128,814 shawls, aggregately
worth about
£200,000. In 1837, the annual aggregate value was estimated at
£230,000. - The carpet-manufactory may, amidst conflicting claims, be
regarded as now the staple
of Kilmarnock. Even 20 or 25 years ago, it rivalled that of
Kidderminster in
England, and had no competitor in Scotland; and about that time, or a
little later,
it was greatly improved by the mechanical inventions of Mr. Thomas
Morton, a citizen
who gives name to a locality in the vicinity of the Gas-works, who
taught his
townsmen at once to save time and labour, and to achieve accuracy and
an extensive
variety in their patterns, and who, so early as 1826, received public
demonstrations
from the manufacturers of the town of the debt of obligation which
they felt his
genius had imposed. During the year 1830-1, upwards of 1,000 weavers
were employed
in producing Brussels, Venetian, and Scottish carpets and rugs, the
quality and
patterns of which were not surpassed by any in the country. Three
chief classes of
carpets are manufactured, all of which are woven with harness, —
Brussels carpets, of
the kinds called "points" and "combers," —Wilton carpets, woven
exactly like the
former except that the brass wires(1)
are graved, and that the rib is
out open with a
sharp knife after it has been fastened, —and Scotch carpets of three
qualities, 9
porters, 10½, and 13½. With the Wilton carpets Buckingham palace was
furnished.
Another very beautiful fabric called Persians, is woven in the town
for
fire-screens, the weft being tied into perpendicular warps by the
hand, after the
manner of making rugs. The designs are beautifully executed from
patterns procured
from Berlin, prepared there for ladies' work, and found to be
well-adapted to this
fabric, and better executed than any which can be obtained at home.
The wages of the
carpet and rug weavers run from 12s. to 14s. per week nett, and
occasionally higher.
The yearly value of the carpet manufacture was estimated, in 1837, at
£150,000. The
total number of hand-looms in the town, in the various departments of
woollen,
cotton, and silk, was, in 1828, 1,150, and, in 1838, 1,892; and in the
latter year,
1,800 of the number were harness-looms. The carpet-factories are six
in number, and
recently have all been either rebuilt or very much enlarged. Six
mills, five of them
on Kilmarnock water, and the 6th and the largest on the Irvine, are
employed
principally in spinning woollen or worsted yarn for the carpet
factories and
bonnet-makers. The annual manufacture of bonnets now exceeds 18,000
dozens in
number, and amounts to about £12,000 in value. The manufacture of
boots and shoes
was estimated, as to the animal worth of the produce, in 1831, about
£32,000, and,
in 1837, about £50,000. The manufacture of leather, in the latter of
these years,
was set down in value at £45,000. Mr. Thomas Morton, the same
ingenious mechanist to
whom the carpet manufacturers acknowledge so much obligation,
introduced the rather
novel manufacture of telescopes, constructed at his private expense a
valuable
observatory with suitable apparatus, and mounted there some telescopes
of such power and superior construction that be was invited to furnish
copies or duplicates
of them to other observatories. Of miscellaneous manufactures,
including linens,
cottons, silks, hose, telescopes, machinery, saddlery, hats, tobacco
and candles,
the value of annual produce may range between £70,000 and £100,000.
The gas-works of
Kilmarnock were erected in 1823, by a joint-stock company holding £10
shares, and
managed by a committee of twelve. The town has branch-offices of the
Bank of
Scotland, the Ayr Bank, the Commercial Bank of Scotland, and the
Ayrshire Banking
company. The weekly markets are held on Tuesday and Friday; and the
annual fairs on
Shrove Tuesday, the 2d Tuesday of May, the 3d Wednesday of July, and
the 3d
Wednesday of October, O.S. The institutions, additional to those
already
incidentally noticed, are a Reservoir company, a Building company, a
dispensary, an
Agricultural society, a Merchants' society, a Society of procurators,
a Male and a
Female Benevolent society, a Female society for religious purposes, a
Parochial
association in aid of the missions of the General Assembly and other
bodies, a
public library, a parochial library, some circulating libraries, and a
Philosophical
institution. The town has a weekly newspaper, the 'Kilmarnock
Journal,' and is
noted for having been the birth-place of the first edition of Burns'
poems.
Kilmarnock was made a burgh-of-barony in 1591, by a charter of novo
damus in favour
of Thomas, Lord Boyd, holding of the Prince and Steward of Scotland.
According to
this and subsequent charters, ratified by a charter from the Crown in
1702, power
was given to the inhabitants to act as in other free burghs-of-barony,
and to the
magistrates to present annually a leet of five persons to the
superior, from which
he should choose two bailies for the succeeding year. In 1700, the
magistrates
purchased from the superior the whole customs and common good of the
burgh. After
the passing of the act 3 and 4 William IV., cap. 77, on the 9th
August, 1831, an
invitation was given by the magistrates and town-council to the
burgesses to elect
annually eight persons, each rated at £12 rent and upwards in the
police books for
their dwelling-houses, from among whom the council should choose by
ballot four new
councillors, and no opposition being made by the superior, the
invitation was acted
on, and passed into a law. The governing body are a provost, four
bailies, a
treasurer, and eleven councillors. Constituency, both municipal and
parliamentary,
in 1839-40, 630. The property of the burgh was valued to the
Commissioners on
Municipal corporations at £3,675 5s. 9d.; and the debts due to it
stated at £989 16s. 11½d. The revenue during the year preceding their
inquiry was £380 11s. 6¼d.;
and the expenditure £256 14s. 9d. In 1839-40 it amounted to £644 18s.
10d. The
magistrates exercise the jurisdiction reserved by the jurisdiction act
to
burghs-of-barony then independent of the superior; they entertain
civil causes to
any pecuniary amount in the bailie-court, and are assisted by the
town-clerk as
assessor; they exercise, in the bailie-court, the functions of the
dean-of-guild's
jurisdiction; they exercise a criminal jurisdiction in cases of
assault, but remit
other cases to the sheriff; they hold in turn what is called the
convenue court,
which exercises a summary jurisdiction, upon a verbal citation in
cases not
exceeding 6s. 8d. sterling, and proceeds by poinding and arrest-ment;
and they
appoint the town-officers, and five of the fifteen directors of the
academy, with
whom lies the appointment of the masters. The fee payable by a
stranger entering
burgess is £4 4s. The incorporated trades, with their respective
numbers in 1833, and the entry-fee they severally exact from a
stranger, are the skinners,
25, £3 6s. 8d., — the tailors, 33, £6 6s., — the weavers, 49, £1 11s.
6d.,
-the bonnet-makers, 23, £7, —and the shoemakers,
74, £6 13s.4d. None of them has more than £300 of funds, and two of
them have less
than £100. The police of the town is regulated by an act of parliament
passed in
1810, and is excelled by that of no town in Scotland for its vigour
and utility.
Kilmarnock unites with Dumbarton, Port-Glasgow, Renfrew, and
Rutherglen, in
sending a member to parliament. Population, in 1831, 16,072; in 1841,
17,844.
The noble family of Boyd, the Earls of Kilmarnock, were descendants of
Simon,
brother of Walter, first Lord High Steward of Scotland. In 1661
William, 9th Lord
Boyd, was created Earl of Kilmarnock. In 1745 William, the 4th Earl,
took part in
the rebellion under Prince Charles Edward, and on the 18th August,
1746, was
beheaded, along with Lord Baltnerino, on Tower-hill. The eldest of his
three sons
became, in right of his mother, Lady Ann Livingstone, Earl of Errol;
and in 1831,
his grandson, William, Earl of Errol, was created Earl of Kilmarnock
in the peerage
of Great Britain.
(1) The ribbed appearance on a Brussels carpet in produced by the
insertion of long
brass wires between the shuts of the woollen web, so as to raise the
warps, the
wires being drawn out afterwards in succession. The selling price to
the wholesale
merchant of Scotch carpets, in 1839, was 2s. 10d. per yard; of
Brussels carpets, 4s. 3d.
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