Medieval rights

Published on Saturday 5 August 2006 00:24

Q

COULD you direct me to a list/history of all the royal burghs in Scotland? I am interested in the heraldry of them as well. D Cranston, Cheshire

A

Burghs were essentially urban settlements that enjoyed trading privileges from medieval times until 1832, and which regulated their own affairs until the abolition of Scottish burghs in 1975.

There were three main types of burgh in Scotland: the royal, the parliamentary, and the police. Royal burghs were mostly sea ports and were created directly by the crown. Parliamentary burghs were created under the 19th-century Reform Acts in order to enlarge the burgh franchise, which had been confined to the royal burghs prior to 1832. Police burghs came about thanks to several 19th-century Police Acts, which allowed burghs to adopt policing, paving, lighting and cleansing powers.

Under the Policing of Towns (Scotland) Act 1850 and the General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Act 1862 these powers were extended to populous places, and the result was the creation of more than 100 police burghs. You may also find reference to burghs of barony or regality. These were burghs granted by the crown to a secular or ecclesiastical landowner.

Lists of Scottish royal burghs and police burghs are available on the Scottish Archive Network website (www.scan.org.uk). You should also find the following publication useful: Scottish Burgh & County Heraldry by RM Urquhart (1973). It gives a history of each Scottish burgh and county as well as a detailed description of each of the burgh and county coats of arms.

Q

MY FATHER WAS A STUDENT AT Aberdeen College of Art (and possibly Edinburgh College of Art) around 1900. I believe he also won travelling scholarships. How can I find out more? I Elder, Kelso

A

Scotland has four main schools of Art: Glasgow School of Art; Edinburgh College of Art; Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, a faculty of the University of Dundee; and what was Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen and is now part of Robert Gordon University. All were established in the 19th century, with the exception of Edinburgh College of Art, which opened in 1906. Gray's School of Art was inaugurated in 1885 and its archives are held by Aberdeen City Archives as part of its collection of records from Robert Gordon's College/Technical College.

Not many records survive from Gray's, but among those that do are fees cash books, general registers and enrolment records. You may not be able to find out much about your father's scholarships, but Aberdeen City Archives would be a good place to start.

• If you have a question for the Genealogy Clinic e-mail the team at [e-mail] We will endeavour to deal with all enquiries as quickly as possible, but we regret that we cannot enter into personal correspondence.

• ScotlandsPeople is a partnership between the General Register Office for Scotland, the National Archives of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon.