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Newton-upon-Ayr
NEWTON-UPON-AYR, a small parish on the
coast of Kyle, Ayrshire. It is bounded on the north
by Prestwick; on the east by St. Quivox; on the
south by the river Ayr, which divides it from the
burgh and parish of Ayr; and on the west by the
frith of Clyde. It is an oblong, stretching north
and south, and broadest at the middle; and it measures 1½
mile in length, and a mile in extreme
breadth. The coast is flat, sandy, and of gloomy
aspect; yet, at the northern extremity, projects a
brief way in an inconsiderable rocky point. The
surface of the interior is very nearly a dead level,
and lies very slightly above high-water mark. The
soil is naturally a barren sand, but has been greatly
improved by intermixture with blue shale, fetched
up from the coal-mines. Nearly 350 acres are arable ; and
about 100 are waste or in pasture. The
coal-formation under-stretches the whole parish, but
has been much disturbed by the upheaving of trap,
and is exhausted in its workable coal-seams. An
apparently inexhaustible quarry of good freestone is
worked in the north. All the parish, excepting 9
or 10 acres, belongs to the freemen of the burgh of
Newton-upon-Ayr. Nearly all its features of interest, as
well as the mass of its inhabitants, belong
also to the burgh. Population, in 1801, 1,724; in
1831, 4,020. Houses 453. Assessed property, in
1815, not returned. This parish is in the presbytery of
Ayr, and synod of Glasgow and Ayr. Patron, Thirteen
delegates annually chosen by the freemen of the burgh.
Stipend £245;(1) glebe £13 10s.
The church was built by the freemen in 1777, and
enlarged in 1832. Sittings 1,032. By ecclesiastical
census in 1835 and 1836, the population was then
4,037; of whom 2,900 were churchmen, 990 were
dissenters, and 87 were nondescripts. The parish
was disjoined in 1779 from that of Monkton and Prestwick, by authority of the Commissioners for
the plantation of kirks; and the management of all
the civil affairs of the church was assigned to the
thirteen delegates who wield the patronage. The
teinds still belong to Monkton. In 1834, the parish-
school was attended by 116 scholars; and three non-
parochial schools by 198. Schoolmaster's salary
£34 4s. 4½d. with fees.
NEWTON-UPON-AYR, a burgh-of-barony in the above parish,
and a suburb of the royal burgh of Ayr, presses on one
side on the right bank of the river Ayr, and on another
on the frith of Clyde, and lies compactly on a third side
with Wallace-town, a conjoint suburb. The principal
street is about 2,100 feet long and 80 broad; but is far
from being neatly edificed. Three or four streets lie
between it and the sea, are regularly planned, and form a
new town; but as yet they are only partially built. Three
other small streets belong to the old town. The
council-house, erected about the commencement of the
present century, and the parish-church, are the only
public buildings, both very unpretending in architecture,
and the former surmounted by an humble steeple. The town,
within less than a century and a-half ago, consisted
entirely of one-story houses I thatched and of mean
appearance. Towering above 1 these, and situated in
Garden-street, amidst gardens and trees, stood
Newton-castle, the seat of the Baronet Wallace of
Craigie, a castellated edifice of the kind common in the
later feudal times. The town was, for a long time,
dependent chiefly on the collieries, and when they
ceased, it remained stationary; but, during the last 40
years, it has sprung into energy under the influence of
trade and manufacture. Ship-building and rope and
sail-making are the oldest occupations: in 1791, they
employed respectively 50 and 10 workmen; and, at the
present date, they hold their ancient ground, but have
made small if any advance. Four foundries employ about 50
workmen, and produce all sorts of iron and brass
machinery and tools. Two salt-pans are little more than a
nominal manufacture, and employ only four or five
persons. About 400 weavers, and upwards of 600
hand-sewers, work for the warehouses of Glasgow. The
finest kind of the famed Ayrshire needle-work is confined
to Ayr and its vicinity, and has a large number of its
fair workers, chiefly young women, in Newton. The
descendants of a colony of fishermen from Pitsligo, and
places in its vicinity in Aberdeen-shire, who long were a
peculiar race in dress and habits, and conducted an
extensive traffic, are now in a comparatively reduced
condition, employ themselves chiefly in white fishing,
and have no wider market than Ayr and its immediate
neighbourhood. Newton possesses a joint interest with Ayr
in the harbour of that town, has a railway to it from the
coal-mines in the parish of St. Quivox, and exports
nearly all the coals, the traffic in which constitutes
the chief part of the harbour's trade. Improvements which
to a great extent have been made on the harbour have not
been completed on the Newton side. A wooden lighthouse,
inelegant but useful, was erected on the north side in
1827, to supply the place of one which was built in 1790,
and undermined by the encroachments of the sea.
Newton-upon-Ayr has so curious a burgh-constitution that
a pretty full digest of the account of it in the Report
of the Commissioners on Municipal corporations cannot
fail to gratify. The date of the erection of the burgh is
not known. Its origin is traditionally ascribed to a
grant by Robert the Bruce, in favour of 48 of the
inhabitants, who had distinguished themselves in his
service at Bannock-burn in 1314. No satisfactory evidence
of this can be referred to; but it is matter of history
that Robert was at the parliament held at Ayr, 26th
April, 1315, when the crown of Scotland was settled on
him and his descendants; and it appears certain that the
erection of the burgh of Newton must have occurred some
time between 1208-14 and 1440. King James VI. granted a
new charter to the burgh in 1595, proceeding upon the
narrative, inter alia, of certain ancient writings and
title-deeds having been exhibited to his Majesty and his
treasurer, 'quibus antiqua fundatio erectio et libertas
dicti burgi clare et lucido testantur, quamvis occasione
bellorum pestis temporumq. turbulentorum intra regnum
n'rum pro tempore occurentium, antiqui evidenti litere et
infeomenta dicti burgi, destructa combusta et consumpta
fuisse.' After the clause granting of new, and erecting
the burgh, there is in the charter the following clause:
'Cum potestate etiam et plenaria libertate dictis
burgensibus et inhabitantibus dicti burgi ac eoruin
successoribus, eor. terras communes acras et particatas
ejusdem partiendi ac dividenli, et easdem in feudifirmam
assedationem seu rentale aut alias prout eis magis
videbitur expediens et commodius, burgensibus ac liberis
civibus et incolis ejusdem burgi et nullis aliis
assedandi et locandi.' The number of burgesses amongst
whom this partition was made competent is not mentioned
in this charter, but minutes or entries in the old
records have been exhibited by the present magistrates,
to establish that they then amounted to 48. In 1600, King
James VI. granted another charter, narrating that the
erection of the burgh of Newton was beyond the memory of
man, and that the lands and others therein mentioned had
been given and disponed 'burgensibus liberis et
inhabitantibus ejusdem eorum heredibus et successoribus,
de quibus ultra hominum memoriam in possessione
extiterunt.' It then ratifies and confirms the charter of
1595, 'cum integris contentis privilegiis et
immunitatibus in eodem specificatis;' and all other prior
rights granted 'prefato burgo de Newtoun de Air
burgensibus et inhabitantibus ejusd. eorumq.
predecessoribus heredibus et successoribus quibuscunq.'
There is then a disposition of new of the burgh and its
pertinents 'prefato burgo ac balivis consulibus
burgensibus et liberis incolis ejusdem eorumq.
successoribus in proprietate et hereditate,' with all the
privileges and immunities in the use or possession of the
burgesses and inhabitants, and their predecessors in
times past. And there is a revocation of all rights to
others prejudicial to the grant in this charter, on the
narrative, 'Ac nos inde volentes burgenses et
inhabitantes dicti burgi eorumq. heredes aut successores
nullatenus ledi nec prejudicari in eorum t'riis prediis
possessionibus privilegiis et libertatibus ejusdem ipsis
eorumq. predecessoribus per nos nrosq. nobilissimos
progenitores temporibus preteritis concessis et
confectis, sed ut eadem cum prefato burgo burgensibus et
liberis ejusdem eorumq. heredibus et successoribus pro
perpetuo tempore futuro absq. ullo obstaculo seu
impedimento remanebunt.' After the grant of the lands and
others to the burgesses, and their heirs and successors,
this charter of 1600 proceeds to confer on them the power
of electing bailies, treasurer, burgess councillors, and
other officers necessary for the government of the burgh,
and also the usual privileges of trade, and of holding
fairs and markets; and, generally, the privileges and
powers conferred by a grant of burgh, especially in
regard to jurisdiction." From records of their own which
have, from a very ancient period, been kept by the
freemen, the following points were sought to be
established, —that prior to the date of the existing
charters, the territorial possessions of the burgh were
enjoyed by the individual freemen patrimonially, each
having in old times had his own " daill" given to him, at
the periodical partition of the lands, "according to the
auld ordour used and wont," —that the right of a freeman
was heritable as well as patrimonial, inasmuch as sons,
—whom failing, sons-in-law, —were entitled to succeed to
the right on the father's demise, and to enter to the
freedom in his stead, —that the number of freemen
entitled to "daills" of the common property was limited,
and in 1604, the date of the first daill after the
existing charters, the limitation was held and understood
to be precisely 48, which is said to have been agreeable
to the established law and custom, — and that this
ancient heritable and patrimonial right of the 48 freemen
to have each his "daill" of the common property was
subjected, in 1604, to the burden of paying a very large
debt which had been contracted on the lands. The state of
possession, from the earliest period till the present, is
alleged to have been conformable with this patrimonial
and heritable character of the right. The casting of the
"daills" is regularly recorded; and, except between 1604
and 1771, even the particular lots and names are
mentioned. A cast which took place in 1771, was, with the
view of remedying evils which resulted from the short
duration of former casts, ordained to continue 57 years.
At the expiration of that cast in 1828, a surpassingly
bold one was made, ordaining the continuance of the lots
to be for 999 years. Till the date of this remarkable
resolution, the patrimonial rights were never the subject
of separate personal titles, and the record in the
community books of the entrance of a freeman, and of the
right which that entrance gave him to a share of the
common property, constituted the only title to his
"daill;" but, in 1833, the community resolved that the
magistrates and council should grant feu-rights, for
payment of an illusory feu-duty to such of the freemen as
should choose to hold their possessions by charter and
sasine. —The community have, from the operation of
various causes, had vacancies in their number, and have
uniformly wielded the power of disposing of them by sale.
Non-residence in burgh incurred, in early times, a
forfeiture of right; the operation of the original law of
succession, which admitted only sons or sons-in-law,
produced, while it was in force, many vacancies for want
of proper heirs ; and the commission of crimes or
misdemeanors, and the non-payment of the proportion of
the original debt, have always been understood to incur a
nullification of rights. Admissions to the vacancies
occasioned by these means are regularly entered in the
minute-books, and were procured by a money-payment, which
latterly was ordained to be £30. The rights of sons and
sons-in-law to succeed to their fathers freedom was
recognised in the earliest times; and in the minutes of
date 16th December, 1680, in appointing a new cast, it
was ordained, "the said daills to be this day casten and
dewydit by lot to those who lineallie succeed to the
samyn, according to the former acts, and the antiquitie
of freemen and burgesses, as the several acts of the said
toune do prescrive." But subsequently the right was
extended to the widows of freemen; and rules were drawn
up, and have been uniformly observed, by which daughters
as well as sons, and collaterals as well as descendants,
have been admitted to the succession. Few instances of
sales of the rights of freemen occurred till within the
last half century. The value of the right, indeed, was
comparatively trifling till the discovery of a rich seam
of coal in the lands, about the year 1765. Since that
date the right of freedom has become a valuable property,
and the list of transferences that have taken place
within the last 40 years shows about 30 freedoms that
have passed into the possession of singular successors,
the price varying, at different dates, from £70 to £500.
The mode of transference, from the peculiarity of the
right, has necessarily been peculiar. The freeman wishing
to dispose of his right renounces it in favour of the
community, at a fixed price, to be given out of new by
them to the purchaser. It was at one time customary for
the community to purchase rights of freedom to be
disposed of by public roup to the highest bidder. In
these cases, the renunciation by the freeman ceding his
right was in favour of the community ad remanentiam. But,
in other cases, the renunciation was the mere form by
which the right of the person with whom the old freeman
had transacted was completed. The freedoms are said to
have been, in some instances, attached and sold by
creditors; and the freemen, as the heritable possessors
ot their respective lots, have been held liable for the
proportion of teinds payable from their lands. The
freemen, in addition to the property divided by daills,
have, at various times, obtained, out of the common
property of the burgh, steadings of ground for building-
to be held in feu for payment of a feu-duty, and
have had them laid off into 48 lots, in the same manner
as the duills. A considerable tract of the burgh
property remains undivided and possessed in common; and
in the year 1831-2, it yielded £134 16s.
of rental. The coal revenue, and the rent of the
common moor, have invariably been divided among
the 48 freemen. The other revenues are received
by the treasurer, and disbursed under the direction |
of the community at their discretion; the amount;
has always been annually exhausted in improving
file lands, and in defraying expenses of management;
and any surplus which remained of the funds divided
among the freemen has likewise been usually employed in
the improvement of lands. A large amount
of the common fund, however, was employed in
building a church at the epoch of the erection of the
parish. The revenue of the burgh, for the year
preceding Michaelmas 1832, was stated to be £436
12s. 6d.; the expenditure for the same year £347
5s.; and the debts then due by the burgh £1,300.
Poor's stent is the only assessment by the magistrates
and council; it is levied from all houses above £2, by a
collector named by the council, and is distributed by the
kirk-session; and (luring 10 years
preceding 1833, it amounted to 4d. per pound of real
rent. The cess levied is very trifling. The council
of the burgh consists of two bailies, one treasurer,
and six councillors, who are annually elected by the
burgesses. They possess all the jurisdiction in point
of law, which burghs-of-barony, independent of the
superior, prior to 1748, are entitled to claim. But
they have been accustomed to exercise jurisdiction
only in processes of sequestration for rent and petty
breaches of the peace. Even this limited jurisdiction has
not extended to above six cases annually
since 1820. There are no incorporated trades within
the burgh enjoying exclusive privileges. But the
freemen annually, at the Beltan (May-day) Court
held by them, enact, that no unfreeinan shall trade
or manufacture within the bounds of the burgh without
leave. The law, however, has not been enforced for 40
years, all persons being permitted to
trade without licence or fees of any sort. The
magistrates and council have no patronage; but the
office-bearers of the burgh, viz., clerk, treasurer,
and officer, are appointed by the community of freemen,
and such of their eldest sons as are entered as
young freemen. The magistrates and treasurer get
£5 per annum each, and the clerk £10 yearly, the
officer £5 5s. The only fees paid to the clerk and
officers consist of 2s. 6d. on the entry of every
freeman. "It is impossible," say the Commissioners,
"to close this account of the burgh of Newton-upon-Ayr
without observing that the rights of the
community, as regards the property originally conferred
upon this burgh, have, by the successive encroachments of
the freemen, been placed upon a
very peculiar footing; and it well deserves being
considered whether some steps should not be taken
for vindicating the public interests against such
encroachments, and still more for the prevention of
similar encroachments in future. In so far as the
freemen have lately directed their efforts to the
conversion of a temporary title of possession, nowise
incompatible with the eventual resumption of the subjects
when required for the public service of the burgh, —into
a permanent feudal right, which is intended to divest the
burgh for ever of all interest in their own estate, —the
Commissioners think it may be questioned whether every
such usurpation be not illegal, and at variance with the
chartered rights of
the community." Newton is comprehended within
the parliamentary boundaries of Ayr. No actual
list of the £10 proprietors or occupiers has been
furnished; but, in 1833, there were 218 occupants
of £5 yearly and upwards, -about 100 of whom
were computed to have tenements at or above
£10. The population of the town, according to
the New Statistical Account written in 1837 was
then 3.768.
{1 Consisting of £60 from the burgh, modified by decree of
the Court-of-teinds; £90 from the exchequer; and a
gratuity of £95 from the burgh since 1833, and depending
upon the letting of the seats.}
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