It has been suggested that Royal Burgh be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since April 2011.

The Royal Burgh of Culross in Fife

A burgh ( /ˈbʌrə/) was an autonomous corporate entity in Scotland and Northern England, usually a town. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burgh status was broadly analogous to borough status, found in the rest of the United Kingdom. Following local government reorganisation in 1975 the title of "burgh" remains in use in many towns, but now has little more than ceremonial value.

History[link]

The first burgh was Berwick. By 1130, David I had established burghs at Haddington, Stirling, Dunfermline, Aberdeen, Perth and Scone, as well as Edinburgh.

Burghs had rights to representation in the Parliament of Scotland. Under the Acts of Union of 1707 many became parliamentary burghs, represented in the Parliament of Great Britain.

Under the Reform Acts of 1832, 32 years after the merger of the Parliament of Great Britain into the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the boundaries of burghs for parliamentary elections ceased to be necessarily their boundaries for other purposes.

Types[link]

There were several types of burgh, including;

• Royal burgh, founded by Royal charter.
• Burgh of regality, granted to a nobleman or "lord of regality".
• Burgh of barony, granted to a tenant-in-chief, with narrower powers.
• Parliamentary burgh or Burgh constituency, a type of parliamentary constituency.
• Police burgh, a burgh operating a "police system" of town government.

Modern history[link]

A sign in Linlithgow, Scotland

Until 1833, each burgh had a different constitution or "sett". The government of the burgh was often in the hands of a self-nominating corporation, and few local government functions were performed: these were often left to ad hoc bodies.

Two pieces of reforming legislation were enacted in 1834: The Royal Burghs (Scotland) Act (3 & 4 Will. IV c. 76) and the Burghs and Police (Scotland) Act (3 & 4 Will. IV c.46).

The Royal Burghs Act provided for the election of magistrates and councillors. Each burgh was to have a common council consisting of a provost (or lord provost), magistrates (or bailies) and councillors. Every parliamentary elector living within the "royalty" or area of the royal burgh, or within seven statute miles of its boundary, was entitled to vote in burgh elections. One third of the common council was elected each year. The councillors selected a number of their members to be bailies, who acted as a magistrates bench for the burgh, and dealt with such issues as licensing. The provost, or chief magistrate, was elected from among the council every three years.^[1] The Royal Burghs Act was also extended to the 12 parliamentary burghs which had recently been enfranchised. These were growing industrial centres, and apart from the lack of a charter, they had identical powers and privileges to the royal burghs.^[2] Royal Burghs retained the right to corporate property or "common good". This property was used for the advantage of the inhabitants of the burgh, funding such facilities as public parks, museums and civic events.

The Burghs and Police Act allowed the inhabitants of Royal Burghs, Burghs of Regality and of Barony to adopt a "police system". "Police" in this sense did not refer to law enforcement, but to various local government activities summarised in the Act as "paving, lighting, cleansing, watching, supplying with water, and improving such Burghs respectively, as may be necessary and expedient".^[3] The Act could be adopted following its approval in a poll of householders in the burgh. Burghs reformed or created under this and later legislation became known as police burghs. The governing body of a police burgh were the police commissioners. The commissioners were elected by the existing town council of the burgh, not by the electorate at large. The town council of a burgh could by a three-quarters majority become police commissioners for the burgh. In many cases this led to the existence of two parallel burgh administrations, the town council and the police commissioners, each with the same membership, but separate legal identity and powers.^[2] Further legislation in 1850 allowed "populous places" other than existing burghs to become police burghs.^[4]

In 1893, most of the anomalies in the administration of burghs were removed: police commissioners were retitled as councillors and all burghs were to consist of a single body corporate, ending the existence of parallel burghs. All burghs of barony and regality that had not adopted a police system were abolished. Councils were to be headed by a chief magistrate using the "customary title" of the burgh.^[5] In 1900, the chief magistrate of every burgh was to be known as the provost - except in burghs granted a Lord Provost.

The last major legislation to effect burghs came into effect in 1930. The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929 divided burghs into three classes:

• "Counties of cities": the four largest royal burghs, they combined the powers of a burgh and county council.
• "Large burghs": independent of the county council except in major services such as police and education.
• "Small burghs": performing minor local government functions such as street-cleaning, housing, lighting and drainage..

The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 formally abolished burghs. Section 1(5) of the Act stated: On 16 May 1975, all local government areas existing immediately before that date, that is to say, all counties, counties of cities, large burghs, small burghs and districts, shall cease to exist, and the council of every such area shall also cease to exist.^[6] The use of the title continues in informal use, however.

The common good properties and funds of the royal burghs continue to exist. They are administered by the present area councils, who must make "have regard to the interests of the inhabitants of the area to which the common good formerly related". The use of these assets are to be for the benefit of the inhabitants of the former burgh.^[7] Any person or body holding the honorary freedom of any place... formerly having the status of a city, burgh or royal burgh continued to enjoy that status after the 1975 reorganisation.^[8]

Features[link]

Provost[link]

The chief magistrate or convener of a burgh, equivalent to a mayor, was called a provost. Many different titles were in use until the Town Councils (Scotland) Act 1900 standardised the term as "provost", except in cities with a lord provost. Since 1975 local authorities have been free to choose the title of their convener and provosts are appointed to chair a number of area and community councils.

Bailies[link]

Under the provost were magistrates or baillies who both acted as councillors, and in the enforcement of laws. As well as general tasks, they often had specific tasks such as inspecting wine, or ale, or other products sold at market. The title of bailie ceased to have any statutory meaning in 1975, although modern area councils do sometimes make appointments to the office on a purely ceremonial basis. For example, Glasgow City Council grants the title in an honorary capacity to senior councillors, while Stirling Council appoints four bailies to act in lieu of the provost in specific geographical areas.^[9][10]

Burgesses[link]

The common citizen of a burgh was a burgess (pl. burgessess), a title also used in English boroughs. These were freemen, a class which did not include dependants, servants and so on, though freemen might not be wealthy.

Dean of Guild[link]

This was a title held by one of the bailies of the burgh who presided over a Dean of Guild Court which was given the specific duty of building control. The courts were abolished in 1975, with building regulation transferred to the relevant local authority.^[11] Appointments to the office of Dean of Guild are still made in some areas: for instance the Lord Dean of Guild of Glasgow is described as the "second citizen of Glasgow" after the Lord Provost although the appointment is in the hands of the Merchants House of Glasgow, and not the city council.^[9][12]

Trading privileges[link]

Early Burghs were granted the power to trade, which allowed them to control trade until the 19th century. The population of burgesses could be roughly divided between merchants and craftsmen, and the tensions between the interests of the two classes was often a feature of the cities. Craftsmen were usually organised into guilds. Merchants also had a guild, but many merchants did not belong to it, and it would be run by a small group of the most powerful merchants. The class of merchants included all traders, from stall-holders and pack-men to shop-holders and traders of considerable wealth.^{[citation needed]}

Etymology[link]

As used in this article, the Scots language word burgh is derived from the Old English Burh. In Scotland it refers to corporate entities whose legality is peculiar to Scotland. (Scottish law was protected and preserved as distinct from laws of England under the Acts of Union of 1707.) Pronunciation is the same as the English word borough, which is a near cognate of the Scots word. The identical English word Burgh (in place names such as Bamburgh, Carrawburgh and Dunstanburgh) sounds exactly like the Scots Burgh, with the emphasis on the 'r'. Another variant pronunciation, ⁱ/brʌf/, is heard in several Cumbrian place names, e.g. Burgh by Sands, Longburgh, Drumburgh.^[13]

The English language borough, like the Scots Burgh, is derived from the same Old English language word burh (whose dative singular and nominative/accusative plural form byrig sometimes underlies modern place-names, and which had dialectal variants including "burg"; it was also sometimes confused with beorh, beorg, 'mound, hill', on which see Hall 2001, 69-70). The Old English word was originally used for a fortified town or proto-castle (e.g., at Dover Castle or Burgh Castle) and was related to the verb beorgan (cf. Dutch and German bergen), meaning "to keep, save, make secure". In German Burg means castle or fortress, though so many towns grew up around castles that it almost came to mean city, and is incorporated into many placenames, such as Hamburg, Flensburg and Strasbourg.

The word has cognates, or near cognates, in other Germanic languages. For example, burg in German, and borg in both Danish and Swedish. The equivalent word is also to be found in Frisian, Dutch, Norwegian, and Icelandic. In southern England, the word took the form bury, as in Canterbury (Stewart 1967:193).

A number of other European languages have cognate words which were borrowed from the Germanic languages during the Middle Ages, including brog in Irish, bwr or bwrc, meaning "wall, rampart" in Welsh, bourg in French, borgo in Italian, and burgo in Spanish (hence the place-name Burgos).

The most obviously derivative words are burgher in English, Bürger in German or burger in Dutch (literally citizen, with connotations of middle-class in English and other Germanic languages). Also related are the words bourgeois and belfry (both from the French), and burglar. More distantly, it is related to words meaning hill or mountain in a number of languages (cf. the second element of iceberg). [1] [2]

Linguistics[link]

Burgh is commonly used as a suffix in place names, in Scotland, England and other countries to which people of these nations emigrated:

• Aldeburgh
• Bamburgh
• Edinburgh
• Fraserburgh
• Helensburgh
• Jedburgh
• Leverburgh
• Maryburgh
• Musselburgh
• Newburgh
• Osnaburgh
• Roxburgh
• Williamsburgh (Scotland and the United States)
• Kingsburgh (Scotland and South Africa)
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
• Plattsburgh, New York, United States
• Edinburgh, Indiana, United States
• Edithburgh South Australia

And as a placename on its own, in the West Germanic countries:

• Burgh, Renfrewshire, Scotland
• Burgh (Netherlands) - a town in the Netherlands in the municipality of Schouwen-Duiveland.
• Burgh, Suffolk, England
• Burgh by Sands, Cumbria, England (pronounced Bruff by Sands)
• Burgh Castle, Norfolk, England
• Burgh le Marsh, Lincolnshire, England
• Burgh on Bain, Lincolnshire, England
• Burgh Island, Devon, England
• Burgh next Aylsham, Norfolk, England
• Burgh St Margaret, Norfolk, England
• Burgh St Peter, Suffolk, England

See also[link]

• List of burghs in Scotland
• List of UK place names with royal patronage
• Royal burgh
• Five Burghs
• Borough

References[link]

• Hall, Alaric, 'Old MacDonald had a Fyrm, eo, eo, y: Two Marginal Developments of < eo > in Old and Middle English', Quaestio: Selected Proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, 2 (2001), 60-90.
• Stewart, George R. (1967) Names on the Land. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Chris de Burgh
Background information
Birth name	Christopher John Davison
Born	(1948-10-15) 15 October 1948 (age 63) Venado Tuerto, Santa Fe Province, Argentina
Origin	County Wexford, Ireland
Genres	Rock
Occupations	Musician, singer-songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano
Years active	1974–present
Labels	A&M Records, Ferryman Productions, Edel Records
Website	cdeb.com

Chris de Burgh (born Christopher John Davison, 15 October 1948) is an Argentinian born British-Irish singer-songwriter. He is most famous for his 1986 love song "The Lady in Red", which reached number-one in Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

Early life[link]

De Burgh was born in Venado Tuerto, Argentina, to Colonel Charles Davison, a British diplomat, and Maeve Emily de Burgh, an Irish secretary.^[1] His father had substantial farming interests, and he spent much of his early years in Malta, Nigeria and Zaire, as he, his mother and brother accompanied Colonel Davison on his diplomatic and engineering work.

The Davisons finally settled in Bargy Castle, County Wexford, a twelfth-century castle in Ireland bought by his maternal grandfather, General Sir Eric de Burgh, a former Chief of the General Staff in India and from a distinguished Hiberno-Norman family. The castle was converted into a hotel where Chris gained much early experience performing to the guests and he later assumed de Burgh as his stage name.^[1]

After attending Marlborough College in Wiltshire, England, de Burgh went on to graduate from Trinity College, Dublin with a Master of Arts degree in French, English and History.

Musical career[link]

Chris de Burgh signed his first contract with A&M Records in 1974, and supported Supertramp on their Crime of the Century tour, building himself a small fan base. His début album, Far Beyond These Castle Walls, was a folk-tinged stab at fantasy in the tradition of the Moody Blues that failed to chart upon its release in February 1975. Five months later, he released a single called "Turning Round" from the album, released outside the UK and Ireland as "Flying". It failed to make an impression in the UK, but it stayed on top of the Brazilian charts for 17 weeks. This became a familiar pattern for the singer/songwriter, as every one of his '70s albums failed to chart in the UK or US while they racked up big sales in European and South American countries. In 1981, he had his first UK chart entry with Best Moves, a collection culled from his early albums. It set the stage for 1982's Rupert Hine produced The Getaway, which reached number 30 in the UK charts and number 43 in the US, thanks to the eerie single "Don't Pay the Ferryman". Chris de Burgh's follow-up album, Man on the Line, also performed well, charting at 69 in the US and 11 in the UK.

Chris de Burgh had an across-the-board success with the ballad "The Lady in Red" in late 1986; the single became a number one hit in the UK (number three in America) and its accompanying album, Into the Light, reached number two in the UK. (number 25 in the U.S.). That Christmas season, a re-release of de Burgh's 1976 Christmas song "A Spaceman Came Travelling" became a Top 40 hit in the UK. Flying Colours, his follow-up to Into the Light, entered the British charts at number one upon its 1988 release, yet it failed to make the American charts. De Burgh never hit the US charts again and his commercial fortunes began to slide slightly in Britain in the early 1990s, yet he retained a following around the world. This is mainly due to inactivity of his previous recording label A&M Records UK division in U.S.^[2]

In 2007, a concert in Tehran was planned for mid-2008, together with local band Arian, which would have made Chris de Burgh the first western pop singer to perform in Iran since the 1979 revolution. However the concert never went ahead because he had not been given permission by the Iranian authorities to perform in the country.^[3]

Band line-up[link]

• 1977–1978 – Jeff Philips, Glenn Morrow, Ken Allardyce, Colin Vallance (joined in 1978)
• 1979–1982 – Tim Wynveen, Jeff Philips, Glenn Morrow, Al Marnie, Ian Kojima
• 1983–1994 – Danny McBride (not to be confused with Daniel "Dirty Dan" Hatton McBride), Jeff Philips, Glenn Morrow, Al Marnie, Ian Kojima
• 1997–2001 ("Love Songs" and "Quiet Revolution" Tour) – Neil Taylor, Peter Oxendale, Tony Kiley, Dave Levy, Al Vosper
• 2002–2004 ("Timing Is Everything" Tour) – Gary Sanctuary, Tim Cansfield, Dave Levy, Tony Kiley, Al Vosper
• 2006–present ("The Storyman" Tour) – Ebbe Ravn, Al Vosper, Dave Levy, Tony Kiley, Nigel Hopkins

Personal life[link]

Chris de Burgh has been married to his wife Diane since 1977 and lives in Enniskerry, County Wicklow in Ireland.^[1] They have two sons, Hubie and Michael, and a daughter, Rosanna, who won the Miss World competition in 2003 for Ireland.^[1] He is a distant relative of the 13th-century English nobleman Hubert de Burgh, who features prominently in William Shakespeare's play The Life and Death of King John.^[4] He is an avid Liverpool F.C. supporter as is Rosanna, and they often attend matches at Anfield.

In 1994, he was found to have had an affair with his children's 19-year-old Irish nanny, Maresa Morgan, who was assisting the family while de Burgh's wife Diane was recuperating in the hospital from a broken neck during a horse-riding accident. His daughter Rosanna, a model, indicated during an interview with The Irish Independent that she held little sympathy for Morgan, regarding the latter's portrayal of herself as a victim as "pathetic" and hoped "she pays for her mistake". She forgave her father for his affair.^[5]

De Burgh has pursued and won 16 defamation actions.^[6] The Irish Independent said he has always been a bit prickly about criticism. Peter Crawley, a theatre reviewer at The Irish Times, found this out the hard way when he wrote a less than sympathetic review of de Burgh's show in Dublin's Gaiety Theatre in September 2009. Crawley noted: "He departs the stage for 'Lady in Red', invading boxes and draping himself over audience members ... Certain toes will never uncurl after this experience, but it is almost admirable how unaltered de Burgh has remained by the flow of time." In a lengthy, much-publicised reply to the critic, de Burgh made his feelings known, particularly in the postscript:-

"We were wondering by way of explanation and, as you seem to portray yourself as a bitter and unfulfilled man, were you much teased by your school chums in the schoolyard and called 'Creepy Crawley'?" De Burgh wrote.^[7]

Discography[link]

Albums and compilations[link]

Chris de Burgh was signed to A&M Records for many years (1974–2004), but he now has his own label, Ferryman Productions. His recent albums are released by German label, Edel Records.

Filmography[link]

• How to Cheat in the Leaving Certificate (Petrol Pumper)

References[link]

External links[link]

• CdeB.com, official Web site
• CdeB.net, official record store and merchandise site
• Chrisdeburgh.net, Multi-Language Chris de Burgh Website
• Audio interview at BBC Wiltshire
• Chris de Burgh on Facebook
• Interview with Akira The Don