WIGTON, a county situated at the south-west corner of Scotland, is bounded on the west by the Irish Channel, on the north by Ayrshire, on the east by Wigton Bay and the river Cree, and on the south by the Irish Sea. It is consequently bounded by water on all sides except the north. No part of the county is above thirteen miles from the sea. Its length from east to west is thirty-four miles; its mean breadth is twenty-four. It is divided into three districts, the Machers (flat country), lying between Wigton and Luce Bays; the Rhinns (peninsula), which comprehends the portion lying west of a line drawn between Luce Bay and Lochryan; and the Moors, which include the remainder, being more than a third of the whole county.

The following table shews the population of the county at different dates.
[table]

The increase in the number of the inhabitants between 1755 and 1831 has been 19,792; in other words, the population has been considerably more than doubled. The number of square miles in the county being 459, there are seventy-nine inhabitants to each square mile; the average of the whole of Scotland being about eighty. The number of families in 1831 was 7514; of inhabited houses, 6404; the number of persons to each family being 4·825; to each house, 5∙66l.

Wigton being a remote county, and having little intercourse with any other portion of the kingdom, the greater part of the present inhabitants can trace their descent through many generations; the only exception being in regard to Irish settlers, who are somewhat numerous, particularly in the towns and villages, and who, including their families, form about a fifth of the entire population of the county. The Gallovidians are of Celtic origin; and so late as the time of Queen Mary, Gaelic was their vernacular language. The surnames, which prevailed in the county four and five centuries ago, and even at a more remote period, still predominate, such as Macdowall, Mackerlie, Maculloch, Mackie, Macklcllan, Macguffie, Mackinnell, Macgowan, Macgeoch, Macgill, Macracken, Macnish, Adair, Dunbar, Agnew, Stewart, Gordon, Hannay, Broadfoot, Donnan, Milroy, Milwain. While old names and old families thus obtain, very few new ones, except so far as emigration from Ireland prevails, have been introduced. But not a few of the oldest and best families were originally of [7:21:883] Irish descent. From these circumstances it may be presumed, what is really the case, that the feudal feeling exists more strongly and generally in Wigtonshire than in any other county in the south of Scotland. Superstitious observances and traditionary legends abound. Belief in witches, in ghosts, in lucky and unlucky days, and other similar hereditary notions, are common throughout the county, particularly in the more remote and thinly inhabited parishes.

Poor-rates are unknown in this county, with the exception of one parish. Out of the whole population, there are only about 700 receiving parochial aid; that is, only one person in fifty-two is a pauper, being less than a third of the average of England. The aggregate annual amount distributed among these 700 persons is about L.1375, being rather less than L.2 for each pauper, or at the extraordinary low rate of 6d. per head of population. The lowness of this rate will be better appreciated when we state, that, previously to the new poor-law amendment act in 1834, the average burden in England was thirty-three times greater.

The climate, though characterized by considerable variations, and though, on the whole, subject to moisture, is regarded as salubrious. The instances of persons being able to follow their usual occupations, even at the age of eighty, are common. Alexander Credie, a native of the Machers, died in 1824, at the venerable age of 108.

The physical appearance of Wigtonshire is not varied. Even the district called the Moors is not distinguished by any considerable hills or eminences; and it has been remarked that there is no county in Scotland that rises so little above the level of the sea. Nor are there any important rivers; at least none of them is navigable except the Cree and the Bladenoch, both of which flow into Wigton Bay; the former being navigable for six miles, the latter for two. But, though not possessed of large and navigable rivers, this county abounds with spacious bays and harbours, namely, Lochryan on the north-west, which stretches about nine miles inland till it reaches Stranraer, where it terminates, its breadth varying from two to four miles; Luce Bay on the south, stretching inward about fifteen miles, its breadth regularly graduating from twenty miles at its mouth; and Wigton Bay, varying from eight miles in width, till it reaches the Cree, a distance of about ten miles. These two latter bays form two remarkable promontories, the Borough Head on the south-east, and the Mull of Galloway on the south-west, the two most southerly points in Scotland; the latter being about one mile and a half south of the former. The most important harbours are Carty on the Cree, Wigton on the Bladenoch, Garlieston on Wigton Bay, Isle of Whithorn near the Borough Head, Glenluce and Sandhead on Luce Bay, Port Logan and Portpatrick on the Irish Channel, and Stranraer and Cairnryan on Lochryan. The fresh-water lochs, though numerous, only occupy an aggregate of seven and a half square miles.

The county abounds with towns and villages along the coast, but none of them is of great importance. Of Wigton, Whithorn, and Stranraer, a separate account has been given. Portpatrick, with a population of 1010, is situated on the Irish Channel, nearly opposite to Donaghadee, between which places two government mail steamers ply daily. The harbour is undergoing great repairs, and two piers are erecting by act of parliament; the estimated expense is L.150,000. Glenluce, population 821, is situated within 500 yards of the river Luce, and at the head of the bay of that name. Newton-Stewart, population 2241, lies on the banks of the Cree, eight miles north of Wigton. Garlieston, population 587, and the Isle of Whithorn, population 697, are both situated on the west coast of Wigton Bay, the latter being the port of Whithorn. Port-William, population 510, on Luce Bay, possesses a good harbour.

The soil of the three districts into which Wigtonshire is divided, the Rhinns, the Machers, and the Moors, is very different. The soil of the first two is for the most part a hazelly loam, dry, and well adapted for turnip husbandry; but in the barony of Baldoon, which is regarded as the Carse of Gowrie of the south of Scotland, and in the low-lying lands between Wigton and Newton-Stewart, there is a great extent (above 25,000 acres) of rich alluvial soil; while the remaining district (the Moors) is bleak and barren, chiefly devoted to pasture, with few spots fit for tillage, great portions of it being mossy land, partially covered with water, such as the flow of Glenluce. The most approved system of agriculture has been everywhere introduced, particularly in the Rhinns and Machers. Of the relative proportions of land in crop and in pasture, a correct idea may be formed from the fact, that out of 288,960 English acres which the county contains, 101,136, or about thirty-five per cent., are under cultivation; while 187,824, or about sixty-five per cent., are in pasture, including 4265 under wood. Property in land in Wigtonshire is very little subdivided. There are four or five large proprietors whose united estates embrace about the half of the county. There are comparatively few proprietors whose estates are under L.500. The average rent of land in 1810 was 8s. 6d. per acre; the aggregate rent in 1837 was L. 175,000, being about 12s. an acre. The valued rental of the county is L.67,642 Scotish, old valuation. Leases generally extend to nineteen years. Two agricultural societies have long existed in the county; and the class of farmers, in point of general intelligence and professional skill, is highly respectable.

Wigtonshire is devoid of mineral wealth, nor can it be said to possess any considerable manufactures. There is a whiskey distillery at the Bridge of Bladenoch, within a mile of Wigton, which consumes yearly about 16,000 bushels of barley, and gives employment to between twenty and thirty persons. A woollen manufactory was established in the parish of Kirkowan in 1822, which in 1838 employed thirty-nine hands. There are several small breweries scattered throughout the county. The salmon and white fishery is carried on at the mouths of some of the rivers and along various places on the coast, but to no very considerable extent. Exclusively of fishing boats and steamers, the county has ninety-six vessels; tonnage, 5371.

But Wigtonshire, from the general progress of the arts of peace, now enjoys advantages unknown there even a few years ago. Remote as is her situation, she is reaping all the advantages which steam navigation is calculated to confer. Two steam-boats regularly ply between her leading ports and Whitehaven and Liverpool, so that a ready and advantageous market is opened for her sheep, black cattle, and agricultural produce. A farmer can now send his stock and his corn to Liverpool, and get them disposed of in the shortest time, at the market price, and for ready money. Formerly the case was quite otherwise; corndealers and drovers travelled the country, buying grain and cattle, with the view of shipping them to an English market. Their purchases were seldom if ever made with cash: on the contrary, it was almost the invariable practice to grant bills for payment, at four or six months. These were not always men of capital, and the business which they followed was, from its very nature, a most precarious one; so that, in proportion to their numbers, a greater proportion of such provincial dealers is known to have become bankrupt than of any other class of men. Hence the great risk and eventual losses to which (as is known to the present writer) the farmers in Wigtonshire were continually exposed, and the general bankruptcy and distress that periodically ensued. In addition to the steamers which regularly ply between Wigtonshire and England, there are two steam-boats which sail weekly between Stranraer and Glasgow, so that the inhabitants of this remote county have [7:21:884]now the ready and frequent command of the best markets both in Scotland and England, either for buying or selling. We have already referred to the two government steamers that daily ply between Portpatrick and Donaghadee. But while steam-navigation has been productive of such important. advantages as we have described, it has been attended with other results, which, though favourable in a national point of view, are unfavourable to the district. The traffic and travelling that had formerly prevailed between Ireland and England via Portpatrick, through Galloway, have been in a great measure turned into a new channel, and this county has in consequence proportionally suffered. There is now very little travelling by this route; and the steamers plying from almost every Irish port to Liverpool or Holyhead, engross almost the whole of the travelling of which Galloway formerly enjoyed the advantage. Nor is this all; the importation of Irish horses and black cattle at Portpatrick has diminished to a similar extent. It appears from the New Statistical Account of Scotland, No. 22, p. 153, that whereas the number of such stock imported at Portpatrick was 17,275 in 1790, and 20,000 in 1812; it was only 1080 in 1837. We may here mention, that the mail-coach was first introduced into Galloway in 1804, and that it has since continued to run daily between Dumfries and Portpatrick. There is not, and never was, an opposition coach in Wigtonshire.

This county is distinguished for the antiquity and number of its religious houses. The oldest church built of stone in Scotland was situated at Whithorn, as mentioned in our account of that borough; and in the 12th century a monastery of the Premonstratensian order was founded there by Fergus, Lord of Galloway. The same individual established another abbey of the same order called Saulseat (Sedes Animarum) near Stranraer. Roland, grandson of Fergus, founded, in 1190, the abbey of Glenluce, for monks of the Cistertian order; and the abbey of Wigton was established in 1262, for Black Friars, by Lady Dervorgille of Galloway. (Murray’s Literary History of Galloway, pp. 12, 24, 26, 30, 2d edit. Edinb. 1822, 8vo.) There are also the remains of numerous subsidiary churches and chapels, built either for the use of some baron, or for the advantage of the remote inhabitants of a large parish. At the Reformation, Wigtonshire contained twenty-one parish churches, exclusive of the various subsidiary chapels referred to. Parishes have now been more judiciously arranged: in some cases three have been united into one; and though three new parishes have been erected, the total number is reduced to seventeen.

Several eminent characters were natives of this county, namely, St Ninian, who founded at Leucophibia, now Whithorn, the bishopric of Candida Casa, or Galloway, and who died in the fifth century; Gavin Dunbar, tutor to James V. and afterwards archbishop of Glasgow, and lord chancellor of the kingdom; Sir Patrick Vans, ambassador to Denmark in the time of James Vl., and a lord of session; Patrick Hannay the poet, son to Hannay of Sorbie; Andrew Macdowall, Lord Bankton, author of Institutes of the Law of Scotland; Dr Macgill of Ayr, and Dr Mackenzie of Portpatrick, two eminent divines, the latter author of Ocean, Stella, and other poems; and Major Stewart Maxwell, author of the Battle of the Bridge. Some distinguished men, both laymen and clergymen, such as Archbishop Beaton, prior of Whithorn; Bishop Cowper; Lord Stair, the famous lawyer; his son, the first earl of Stair; and grandson, Marshal Stair, were connected with the county, either by office or the possession of property.

The history of Wigtonshire, as part of Galloway, is not uninteresting. The aborigines, who were of Celtic origin, were the Novantes ; their chief towns Leucophibia, the present Whithorn, and Perigonium, on the Rerigonius Sinus, or Lochryan. The Mull of Galloway was called Promon torium Novantium. Galloway was invaded by the Romans. On the retirement (448) of that warlike people, it was successively overrun by the Anglo-Saxons of Northumbria, and by the Picts. But notwithstanding their falling successively under the dominion of these various people, the original Celtic inhabitants of Galloway were never entirely displaced; their characteristic customs and manners continued to predominate, and remains of such may be traced even at this day. They were distinguished for daring heroism and intrepidity, insomuch that they obtained the appellation of the wild Scots of Galloway, and obtained from the Scotish kings the privilege of forming the van in every battle at which they were present. The province was for upwards of a century an independent province, governed by its own princes or lords. Alan, who died in 1234, was the last of the ancient Lords of Galloway. John Balliol was grandson of Alan by his daughter Lady Dervorgille, and thus possessed extensive estates both in Wigtonshire and the stewartry of Kirkcudbright. The county of Wigton, with the title of earl, was conferred (1341) by David II. on Sir Malcolm Fleming; but Fleming, amid the distraction of the times, was obliged, in 1372, to dispose of his estates (though he retained the title) to Archibald Douglas. From this date the Douglases reigned supreme till their forfeiture in 1453. The county was then parcelled out among different families, many of which still remain; and the Agnews of Lochnaw were created heritable sheriffs. This office remained in their family till the abolition of hereditary jurisdictions in 1747, with the exception of seventeen years previous to the revolution, when Graham of Claverhouse and his brother Colonel David Graham were appointed joint-sheriffs. (Chalmers’s Caledonia, vol. i. passim; Murray, ut supra; New Stat. Acc. of Scotland, sec. Wigtonshire.) (c. I.)

WigtoN, a royal borough, and the capital of the county of the same name, is situated on a detached eminence about 200 feet above the level of the sea, at the confluence of the Bladenoch with Wigton Bay, and 105 miles south-south-west from Edinburgh. It consists mainly of one street about 600 yards in length, and, though narrow at the two extremities, so wide in the centre as to admit of a square containing a bowling-green and spacious walks. The houses are well built and substantial; some of them are old, and the town altogether has a respectable and venerable appearance. It can boast, however, neither of trade nor manufactures. The harbour is within a quarter of a mile of the borough, and the dues are let for the small sum of L.26 per annum. There are fourteen vessels belonging to Wigton, the aggregate tonnage being about 880. A steam-boat plies between this port and Whitehaven and Liverpool once a fortnight during the year. A branch bank has been established here since 1784. A packet plies daily between Wigton and Creetown, on the opposite side of the bay, a distance of about four miles. The population, which has long been nearly stationary, was 1837 in 1831. In addition to the parish church, there is a dissenting chapel; the only other public building is the town-hall, which also includes a jail. Wigton was created a royal borough in the time of David II. The number of councillors is eighteen. The municipal revenue is about L.350. The borough unites with Whithorn, Stranraer, and New Galloway in sending a representative to the House of Commons. The number of registered voters in Wigton in 1840-1 was 102.

The town can boast of great antiquity. The first church here was consecrated to St Machute, an obscure saint, who died in 554. It originally belonged to the priory of Whithorn, but was afterwards a free rectory, the minister of it being a member of the chapter of the cathedral. The eastern gate of the present parish church is supposed to have formed part of St Machute’s church. In the churchyard there are monuments to the memory of several martyrs [7:21:885]who suffered during the reigns of Charles II. and James VII., particularly those in honour of two female martyrs, who were drowned in the Bladenoch in 1685. Wigton was the site of a monastery, founded in 1267, for Dominican friars, by Dervorgille, daughter of Alan, the last lord of Galloway, and mother of John Balliol the Scotish king. This monastery never attained to eminence, and no remains of its ruins can now be traced. This latter remark is also applicable to the castle of Wigton, once a place of great importance. It fell into the hands of Edward I. in 1291. (c. I.)

Wigton , a market-town of the county of Cumberland. It is in the ward of Cumberland, twelve miles from Carlisle, and 305 miles from London, in the vicinity of the ruins of an ancient Roman work called Caer Leol. The market is on Tuesday. The population amounted in 1821 to 4056, and in 1831 to 4885; but the parish comprehends three other townships, and in 1831 contained 6501 inhabitants.