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Selkirkshire or the County of Selkirk is a historic county and registration county of Scotland. It borders Peeblesshire to the west, Midlothian to the north, Roxburghshire to the east, and Dumfriesshire to the south. It derives its name from its county town, the royal burgh of Selkirk. The county was historically also known as Ettrick Forest.
Unlike many historic counties, Selkirkshire does not have its own lieutenancy area, but forms part of the Roxburgh, Ettrick and Lauderdale lieutenancy area.
In the Middle Ages the area that would become Selkirkshire formed part of the province of Tweeddale. The origins of the shire are obscure, but sometime around the twelfth century the area of Tweeddale was divided into two : Peeblesshire to the north and Selkirkshire or Ettrick Forest to the south. The first recorded sheriff of Selkirkshire was Andrew de Synton, who was appointed by William the Lion (d. 1214).Encyclopædia Britannica 1911 edition, article on Selkirkshire. Synton in the parish of Ashkirk, just east of the village centre, was an enclave of Selkirkshire surrounded by Roxburghshire.Ordnance Survey One-inch to the mile maps of Scotland, 1st Edition, Jedburgh, pul. 1864
Later, the Earl of Pembroke assumed the hereditary sheriffdom. Under and after King Robert the Bruce, the Earls of Douglas, and later Earls of Angus administered the county. In 1501 John Murray (d. 1510), laird of Falahill, was made sheriff of Selkirkshire and on 30 Nov. 1509 he obtained a grant of the hereditary sheriffdom of Selkirkshire.Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 39, by Thomas Finlayson Henderson His descendant Sir James Murray was deprived of office in 1681 for being remiss in punishing , but at the Glorious Revolution was raised to the session bench as Lord Philiphaugh and reinstated as sheriff. His son John Murray (died 1753) was the hereditary Sheriff of Selkirk from 1708 to 1734, when he was returned unopposed as MP for Selkirkshire, having resigned his hereditary sheriffdom to one of his sons.Web site of History of Parliament Online http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/constituencies/selkirkshire retrieved Feb 2016 When in 1747 the heritable jurisdictions were abolished, Murray of Philiphaugh received £4,000 in compensation. The Sheriff-Deputes, previously appointed by the hereditary sheriffs, were now appointed by the crown and acted in place of the hereditary sheriffs Peebles and Selkirk. Cambridge County Geographies. By George Pringle, Cambridge, 1914. p. 119 One such sheriff of Selkirkshire was Sir Walter Scott who was appointed Sheriff-Depute in 1799, an office he held until his death in 1832.See http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/biography/chronology.html retrieved Feb 2016
Selkirkshire County Council was created in 1890 under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889, which established elected county councils across Scotland. The 1889 Act also instigated a review of boundaries, particularly where straddled county boundaries. The boundary review for Selkirkshire concluded in 1891 and made a number of mostly minor changes. The most significant change was that the burgh of Galashiels was brought entirely within Selkirkshire, where it had previously been partly in Roxburghshire. Selkirkshire County Council met at the County Buildings on Ettrick Terrace in Selkirk, which had been built in 1870 as a sheriff court and meeting place for the Commissioners of Supply, the main administrative body for the county prior to the creation of the county council. The council's staff were based at the Bank of Scotland Buildings in the Market Place in Selkirk.
The county council was abolished in 1975 under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, which reorganised local government in Scotland into upper-tier regions and lower-tier districts. Selkirkshire became part of the Scottish Borders region and part of the Ettrick and Lauderdale district.
At the time of the local government reorganisation in 1975, the posts of lord-lieutenant of Selkirkshire and lord-lieutenant of Roxburghshire were both held by John Scott, 9th Duke of Buccleuch. The new district of Ettrick and Lauderdale and the neighbouring district of Roxburgh became nominally separate lieutenancy areas, although the Duke of Buccleuch was appointed to both positions, effectively continuing the pre-1975 arrangement. When local government was reorganised again in 1996, the two lieutenancies were formally united into a single lieutenancy area called Roxburgh, Ettrick and Lauderdale.
Folk ballads written of the county commemorate the Battle of Philiphaugh in 1645, the 'Dowie Dens' at Yarrow and Tibbie Shiels at St Mary's Loch.
Population of the county by Civil Parish, according to the latest census (2011):Census of Scotland 2011, Table KS101SC – Usually Resident Population, publ. by National Records of Scotland. Web site http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/ retrieved Feb 2016. See "Standard Outputs", Table KS101SC, Area type: Civil Parish 1930Acreage from Gazetteer of Scotland, publ, by W & AK Johnston, Edinburgh, 1937. Figures for each parish, which are presented alphabetically with other places
| Ashkirk | 13,159 | 246 |
| Caddonfoot | 19,252 | 912 |
| Ettrick | 42,456 | 83 |
| Galashiels | 6,487 | 10,081 |
| Kirkhope | 22,734 | 263 |
| Selkirk | 17,854 | 6,401 |
| Yarrow | 48,851 | 281 |
| COUNTY | 170,793 | 18,267 |
The population of the towns in the county (in 2011):Census of Scotland 2011, Table KS101SC – Usually Resident Population, publ. by National Records of Scotland. Web site http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/ retrieved Oct 2016. See "Standard Outputs", Table KS101SC, Area type: Settlement
Historical population of the county as returned by the census was as follows: Selkirkshire: Census Tables (Vision of Britain)
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