St Andrews in historic gazetteers

Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887). John Bartholomew

St Andrews.-- parl. and royal burgh, watering-place, seaport, seat of a university, and par., Fife, on St Andrews Bay, 15 miles SE. of Dundee and 45 miles NE. of Edinburgh by rail - par., 11,482 ac., pop. 7835; parl. burgh, pop. 6452; royal burgh, pop. 6406; town, pop. 6458; P.O., T.O., 4 Banks, 1 newspaper. Market-day, Monday. St Andrews was founded in the time of the Culdees; was long the ecclesiastical metropolis of Scotland; was made a royal burgh about 1140; was the scene of the martyrdom of Patrick Hamilton (1527), George Wishart (1545), and others; diminished in importance after 1650, but revived about 1853; and is now a fashionable watering-place. The University of St Andrews, founded in 1411, is the oldest of the Scottish universities; includes the College of St Salvator and St Leonard, devoted to Arts and Medicine, and the College of St Mary, devoted to Divinity; and had 15 professors and 195 students in 1883-84. The Cathedral, now a ruin, was founded in 1159; the church of St Eegulus, or St Kule, is a well preserved ruin; and there are also remains of two monasteries. The ruins of the Castle (13th century) are situated on a rocky promontory overhanging the sea. The shipping trade is very small; a number of the inhabitants engage in the herring fisheries. St Andrews is one of the headquarters of golfing in Scotland. The St Andrews District of Parliamentary Burghs (St Andrews, Crail, Cupar, Anstruther Easter, Anstruther Wester, Kilrenny, and Pittenweem) returns 1 member.