Old Photographs Stanley Perthshire Scotland

Old photograph of cottages in Stanley, Perthshire, Scotland. The village of Stanley gains its name ultimately from Lady Amelia Stanley, the daughter of James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby. In the 1600s the area around Stanley was part of the estate of Earls of Atholl and was also the location of Inverbervie Castle. In 1659 the castle was renamed Stanley House in honour of the wedding of John Murray, 1st Marquess of Atholl and Lady Stanley. When the village was built in the 1700s it took the name Stanley after the nearby house. John Murray, the 4th Duke of Atholl, decided, in the 18th century to harness of the nearby River Tay to power a cotton mill., Richard Arkwright, an inventor of cotton-spinning machinery was persuade by, George Dempster, when Dempster was visiting Cromford in Derbyshire, to come to Scotland to set up a cotton mill in Stanley as well as one at New Lanark. Stanley Mills, opened in 1787 and by its 10th year employed 350 people. The village was built to house the workers of the mill. Work on the village began in 1784. It was designed by the Duke of Atholl’s factor James Stobie. By 1799 the Village’s population was around 400, however, in 1831 it had reached around 2000 residents about half of whom worked in the mill.



All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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