Galashiels

Galashiels, the chief seat in Scotland of the Scotch tweed manufacture, occupies 2½ miles of the narrow valley of the Gala, immediately above the junction of that river with the Tweed. Till 1891 situated partly in Roxburghshire and partly in Selkirkshire, for judicial purposes it had been fixed by an act passed in 1867 as within the county of Selkirk. It is 33½ miles SSE of Edinburgh, and 4 WNW. of Melrose. In the 15th century it is spoken of as 'the forest-steading of Galashiels;' and its tower, demolished about 1814, was then occupied by the Douglasses. In 1599 it was made a burgh of barony, having then 400 inhabitants. As early as 1581 wool was here manufactured into cloth, and in 1790 the value of the cloth so manufactured was £1000. So great, however, has been the progress of the woollen trade of the town during the present century, that in 1890 the estimated value of tweeds manufactured was no less than one million and a quarter sterling. By the Reform Act of 1868 it was made a parliamentary burgh, and along with Hawick and Selkirk sends a member to parliament. A local act of parliament was obtained in 1876, under which the bounds of the burgh were extended for municipal purposes, and a water-supply introduced. Galashiels' chief claim to notice is its manufacturing enterprise. It has 23 woollen factories containing 120 'setts' of carding engines, with 100,562 spindles. The goods manufactured are almost exclusively the well-known woollen cloth called Scotch tweed. The mills are almost entirely dependent on steam for motive power. The town has also the largest and best-appointed skinnery in Scotland. Its valuation rose from £29,838 in 1872 to £62,667 in 1889. Pop. (1831) 2209; (1861) 6433; (1871) 10,312; (1881) 15,330; (1891) 17,367, of whom 17,252 were within the extended burgh. See T. Craig-Brown's History of Selkirkshire (1886).