Dundee

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Dundee is Scotland's fourth-largest city in the United Kingdom.

Variants

  • Dundee (/dʌnˈdiː/)
  • Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Dè [ˈt̪uːn tʲeː])

Location

It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea. Under the name of Dundee City, it forms one of the 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland.

Origin of name

The name "Dundee" is made up of two parts: the common Celtic place-name element dun, meaning fort; and a second part that may derive from a Celtic element, cognate with the Gaelic dè, meaning 'fire'.[1]

Jat clans

History

Historically part of Angus, the city developed into a burgh in the late 12th century and established itself as an important east coast trading port.[2] Rapid expansion was brought on by the Industrial Revolution, particularly in the 19th century when Dundee was the centre of the global jute industry.[3] This, along with its other major industries gave Dundee its epithet as the city of "jute, jam and journalism".

Today, Dundee is promoted as "One City, Many Discoveries" in honour of Dundee's history of scientific activities and of the RRS Discovery, Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic exploration vessel, which was built in Dundee and is now berthed at Discovery Point. Biomedical and technological industries have arrived since the 1980s, and the city now accounts for 10% of the United Kingdom's digital-entertainment industry. Dundee has two universities — the University of Dundee and the Abertay University. In 2014 Dundee was recognised by the United Nations as the UK's first UNESCO City of Design for its diverse contributions to fields including medical research, comics and video games.[4][5]


While earlier evidence for human occupation is abundant,[6] Dundee's success and growth as a seaport town arguably came as a result of William the Lion's charter, granting Dundee to his younger brother, David (later Earl of Huntingdon) in the late 12th century.[7] The situation of the town and its promotion by Earl David as a trading centre led to a period of prosperity and growth.[8] The earldom was passed down to David's descendants, amongst whom was John Balliol. The town became a Royal Burgh on John's coronation as king in 1292.[9] The town and its castle were occupied by English forces for several years during the First War of Independence and recaptured by Robert the Bruce in early 1312.[10] The original Burghal charters were lost during the occupation and subsequently renewed by Bruce in 1327.[11]

The burgh suffered considerably during the conflict known as the Rough Wooing of 1543 to 1550, and was occupied by the English forces of Andrew Dudley from 1547. In 1548, unable to defend the town against an advancing Scottish force, Dudley ordered that the town be burnt to the ground.[12] In 1645, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Dundee was again besieged, this time by the Royalist Marquess of Montrose.[13] The town was finally destroyed by Parliamentarian forces led by George Monck in 1651.[14] The town played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Jacobite cause when John Graham of Claverhouse, 1st Viscount Dundee raised the Stuart standard on the Dundee Law in 1689.[15] The town was held by the Jacobites in the 1715–16 rising, and on 6 January 1716 the Jacobite claimant to the throne, James VIII and III (the Old Pretender), made a public entry into the town. Many in Scotland, including many in Dundee, regarded him as the rightful king.[16]

Geography

Dundee sits on the north bank of the Firth of Tay on the eastern, North Sea Coast of Scotland. The city lies 36.1 miles (58 km) NNE of Edinburgh[64] and 360.6 miles (580 km) NNW of London. The town is bisected by a line of hills stretching from Balgay Hill (elevation of 143 m) in the west end of the city, through the Dundee Law (174 m) which occupies the centre of the built up area, to Gallow Hill (83 m), between Baxter Park and the Eastern Cemetery. North of this ridge lies a valley through which cuts the Dighty Water burn, the elevation falling to around 45 m. North of the Dighty valley lie the Sidlaw Hills, the most prominent hill being Craigowl Hill (455 m).[65]

The western and eastern boundaries of the city are marked by two burns that are tributaries of the River Tay. On the western-most boundary of the city, the Lochee burn meets the Fowlis burn, forming the Invergowrie burn, which meets the Tay at Invergowrie basin. The Dighty Water enters Dundee from the village of Strathmartine and marks the boundaries of a number of northern districts of the city, joining the Tay between Barnhill and Monifieth. The Scouring burn in the west end of the city and Dens Burn in the east, both of which played important roles in the industrial development of the city, have now been culverted over.

References

  1. ↑ Watson 1926, p. 220; Dundee is also recorded as Dun-Tay, e.g. Pont c1583-96
  2. ↑ "Dundee's Maritime History".
  3. ↑ "Dundee: Jute and Empire".
  4. ↑ "Dundee awarded UK's first Unesco City of Design status". BBC News.
  5. ↑ "Dundee wins City of Design status from UNESCO". thecourier.co.uk.
  6. ↑ Mathewson, Allan (1879), "Notes on stone cists and an ancient kitchen midden near Dundee" (PDF), Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 13: 303–315, archived from the original (PDF) on 27 March 2009, retrieved 22 April 2011
  7. ↑ Barrow, G.W.S. (2003), "The Beginnings of Military Feudalism", in Barrow, G.W.S., The Kingdom of the Scots (2 ed.), Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 266
  8. ↑ Barrow 1990, pp. 20–21; Turnock 1982, p. 23; Mackie 1836, pp. 23–24
  9. ↑ Barrow, G.W.S. (1990), "Earl David's Burgh", in Kay, W., The Dundee Book, Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, p.24
  10. ↑ arrow 1965, p. 272; p. 374
  11. ↑ Mackie, C. (1836), Historical description of the town of Dundee, Glasgow: Joseph Swan, pp. 30–32; pp. 207–208
  12. ↑ McKean, Charles (2009), "What Kind of a Renaissance Town was Dundee?", in McKean, Charles; Harris, Bob; Whatley, Christopher A., Dundee: Renaissance to Enlightenment, Dundee: Dundee University Press, pp. 9–10;,
  13. ↑ Lythe 1958, pp. 27–28; Reid 1990, pp. 97–99; Cowan 1995, pp. 195–198; Cullen, Whatley & Young 2009, pp. 61–63
  14. ↑ Mackie 1836, pp. 32–38; Lythe 1958, pp. 28–30; Cullen, Whatley & Young 2009, pp. 63–64
  15. ↑ Lenman 1980, p. 30; Patrick 2009, pp. 85–88
  16. ↑ J. Baynes, The Jacobite Rising of 1715 (1970), p.166
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