Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 5

PETERHEAD
an Act of parliament that was then obtained. The
North Harbour was begun in 1818, after designs by
Telford, and was improved in 1821, 1837, and 1855.
I"rom the nature of the place vessels in both harbours
were often windbound for considerable periods, and the
loss arising from this was so great, that in 1850 a canal
was formed through tlie isthmus between the harbours,
so that vessels could be warped from the one to the
other. It is spanned by a cast ii-on swing bridge erected
at a cost of £8000. In 1872-73, and 1875-76, fresh
acts of parliament, authorising further improvements,
•were obtained and new works carried out, and a middle
harbour formed. There are now three basins hewn out
of solid rock and covering an area of 21i acres, and the
total expenditure for harbour purposes has been in all
nearly £300,000, of which the sum of £200,000 has
been expended since 1859. The depth of the basins
varies from 12 to 18 feet at spring tides, but at medium
low water is only 5 to 74 feet. Off the North Harbour
are two graving docks. The present amount of debt is
£109,603, but the revenue has risen from £100 in 1800,
and £i000 in 1849, to £8260 in 1883. About half the
revenue is derived from fishing-boats and half from
general trade. The management is vested in the preses
of the governors of the Merchant Maiden Hospital in
Edinburgh, the provost of Peterhead, and 13 elected
trustees. Prior to 1715, and again during the Peninsular
war, the harbour was protected by small forts at the
entrance, but these have vanished.
Peterhead was made a head port in 1838, its limits
extending southward to the mouth of the Ythan, and
westward to the Powk Burn. It includes the sub-ports
or creeks of Boddam, Fraserburgh, Pittullie, and Kose-
hearty. The number of vessels belonging to the port with
their tonnage has been, at various dates, as follows : —
year.
Vessels.
Tonnage.
1795
2S
over 3,000
1S37
82
11,022
1861
80
13,687
1S76
70
9,916
1884
61
7,243
Of these, in 1875, 5 vessels of 1388 tons, and in 1884
6 of 1274 tons, were steamers. Of the ships owned in
the port 6 sailing ships (of from 130 to 430 tons) and 3
steamers (295, 307, and 41 2 tons) are engaged in the Green-
land seal and whale fishing, a trade that has been carried
on since 1788, when the first whaler was fitted out.
Though it has been more vigorously prosecuted from
Peterhead than from any other British port the trade
has had great fluctuations. From 1788 till 1803 only
1 ship went to the north every year ; from 1804 to 1814
there were from 2 to 7 every year ; from 1814 to 1830
the number was from 8 to 16, and by 1857 this had
risen to 32. Since then, however, it has again declined,
till in 1884 there were only 9 vessels. The following
table shows the tonnage of vessels that entered from
and to foreign and colonial ports and coastwise, with
cargoes and baUast, at various dates : —
Entered.
Cleared.
Year.
British.
Foreign,
Total.
British.
Foreign.
Total.
1866
1867
1874
1883
42,604
30,767
67,344
58,497
3,894
4,964
11,808
29,342
46,398
35,731
79,152
87,839
34,783
27,501
70,454
66,859
380
5,059
10,815
29,459
35,163
32,560
81,269
86,318
Of the total, 864 vessels of 87,839 tons, that entered in
1883, 186 of 27,432 tons were in ballast, and 670 of
61,681 tons were coasters; whilst the total, 840 of
86,318 tons, of those that cleared, included 388 ships in
ballast of 34,398 tons and 580 coasters of 48,952 tons.
The principal exports are agricultural produce, herring,
and other fish, oil, and gTanite ; and the principal im-
ports are timber, lime, coal, wool, salt, flour, iron, and
PETERHEAD
soft goods. The amount of customs in 1861 was £2039,
in 1872 £1724, in 1881 £1944, and in 1882 £1452.
Peterhead is also the centre of one of the twenty-six
herring fishery districts into which Scotland is divided,
and embraces all the villages lying between Buchan-
haven and Newburgh, both inclusive. To the district
there belonged, in 1882, 338 first-class boats, 211 second-
class boats, and 176 third-class boats, employing 1692
fisher men and boys, and of these to Peterhead itself
there belonged 118 first-class, 38 second-class, and 55
third-class boats, mth 440 resident fisher men and boys.
In the same year the total number of persons em-
ployed in connection with the herring fishery in the
district was 7253, the value of the boats employed was
£48,298, of the nets £59,150, and of the lines £10,088.
The number of boats actually fishing in the district,
most of them from Peterhead itself, whither they are
drawn by the possibOity of getting in and out of the
harbour at low water, was 822, and the number of
barrels of herring caught by them 185,704, 156,026^ of
which were exported to the Continent, mostly to Libau,
Konigsberg, Danzig, Stettin, and Hamburg. The total
number of cod, ling, and hake cured within the district
in 1882 was 44,597. During the herring fishing season
the population of the town is increased by from 3000 to
4000 individuals connected with this industry.
The manufactui'e of linen was once carried on, but is
now extinct. A woollen manufactory was started in
the Kirktown in the early part of the present century,
and produced excellent superfine cloth. After languish-
ing and disappearing for a time altogether, it was
revived in 1854 by a company by whom the manufac-
ture of woollens of different sorts is still vigorously
prosecuted. The other industries, besides those men-
tioned in connection with the parish, are saw-mills, a
foundry, boat building yards, a rope-work, granite
polishing, and brewing.
Municipality, etc. — Under the superiority of the
Governors of the Merchant Maiden Hospital the com-
munity acquired a separate government in 1774, and
after the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, and the
subsequent Act of 1833, when the burgh became parlia-
mentary, a keen dispute long existed whether the
remaining portion of the moss-lands, commonage, and
pasturage originally granted to the community by the
Earl Marisehal, fell to be managed by the baron-bailie
and a committee of the feuars, or by the new magis-
trates ; and the community of feuars stiU attends to
certain matters. Munici-
pal affairs are managed by
a provost, 3 bailies, a trea-
surer, and 7 councillors.
The council acts also as
the police commission, and
the police force is united
with that of the county.
Water is brought in pipes
from a copious spring 2J
miles distant, and gas is
supplied by a joint-stock
company formed in 1833,
and with their works in
Long-gate Street. The
town has a head post office
with money order, savings' bank, insurance, and telegraph
departments, branches of the Commercial, North of Scot-
land, Town and County, and Union banks, a branch of the
National Security Savings' Bank, agencies of 21 insur-
ance companies, consulates for Denmark, France, Ger-
many, Norway and Sweden, and Russia, and several
hotels. The newspapers are the Independent East Aber-
deenshire Observer (1862), published every Tuesday and
Friday, and the Liberal Peterhead Sentiiiel (1856), pub-
lished every Wednesday. Among the miscellaneous insti-
tutions may be noticed two masonic lodges, the Peterhead
Association for Science, Literature, and Arts (1835),
with a museum, the nucleus of the collection in which
was bequeathed by the late Mr Adam Arbuthnot ; a
reading society (1808), and a Mechanics' Institute (1836),
203
Seal of Peterhead.