Statistical Accounts of Scotland

Collated from the records of parish ministers, these accounts cover two specific time periods - the 1790s and 1830s – when the ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Statistical Accounts of Scotland were compiled as part of a plan to build up a contemporary picture of local and national Scottish life. Parish ministers were pinpointed as the ideal people ‘on the ground’ to gather the required information. It took almost ten years to pull all the reports together for the first survey.

The remit of the second Statistical Account was widened to include gathering information from other local officials, such as doctors and teachers, and was published over the course of nine years, totalling nine volumes. The archives can be searched, browsed, bookmarked and downloaded as PDFs on a per parish basis.

How can this collection be used in teaching, studying and research?

This collection provides access to statistics and secondary information on a wide variety of topics around life in Scotland, including wealth, class, poverty, climate, agriculture, wildlife, culture, population trends and education. As such, it is of use to teachers, students and researchers working across a varied selection of subject areas.

The site also offers further reading suggestions to enhance the study of the collections.