Old Photograph Sailing Ships Harbour Aberdeen Scotland

Old photograph of Sailing Ships in the harbour in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. People have lived in the area of Aberdeen Harbor for at the mouths of the Rivers Dee and Don for more than eight thousand years. Archaeologists have discovered evidence of prehistoric villages there. Modern Aberdeen Harbor was originally two separate burghs, Old Aberdeen and New Aberdeen. New Aberdeen was a fishing a trading village. William the Lion granted the first charter to Aberdeen in 1179. Aberdeen won status as a Royal Burgh from Robert the Bruce in 1319, granting the town property-owning and financial independence rights. Aberdeen Harbor was controlled by the English during the Wars of Scottish Independence, and Robert the Bruce besieged and destroyed Aberdeen Castle in 1308 after he massacred the English garrison. In 1336, Edward III of England burned the city, but when it was rebuilt, it was named New Aberdeen. Both sides plundered Aberdeen Harbor during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the middle of the 17th Century. Royalist forces ransacked Aberdeen Harbor in 1644, and then bubonic plague wiped out a fourth of the population in 1647. In the 18th Century, modern facilities appeared in Aberdeen Harbor. In the 1770s, the city gained a Town Hall, an Infirmary, and a Lunatic Asylum. Later in the century, the important roads were completed. In the early 19th Century, Aberdeen Harbor was home to ship-building and fishing industries that stimulated the development of Victoria Dock and other port facilities. For a time, the city spent so much on infrastructure that it was bankrupt. But in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, prosperity returned. Gas street lights arrived in 1824, and a dependable water supply appeared in 1830. By 1865, Aberdeen Harbor had a new underground sewer system.



Tour Scotland video of old photographs of Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The traditional industries here were fishing, papermaking, shipbuilding, and textiles Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day.

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

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