Place:Motherwell, Lanarkshire, Scotland

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Motherwell is a large town and former burgh in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, south east of Glasgow. The name "Moderwelt" appears on a map of Lanarkshire made by Timothy Pont some time between 1583 and 1611 and printed in the Netherlands in around 1652, although the settlement was probably little more than a hamlet at that time. The town was a burgh from 1865 until it merged with the burgh of Wishaw in 1920.

Motherwell was noted as the steel production capital of Scotland, nicknamed Steelopolis, home of David Colville & Sons during the 19th and 20th centuries, with its skyline later dominated by the water tower and three cooling towers of their Ravenscraig steelworks which closed in 1992. The Ravenscraig plant had one of the longest continuous casting, hot rolling, steel production facilities in the world before it was decommissioned. The closure of Ravenscraig signalled the end of large scale steel making in Scotland, although the town's Dalzell steel plate works continues to be operated by Tata Steel Europe.

In the past decade, Motherwell has to an extent recovered from the high unemployment and economic decline brought about by this collapse of heavy industry. A number of call centres and business parks such as Strathclyde Business Park have since set up in the region. Large employers include William Grant & Sons whisky distillers and the Heavy equipment manufacturer Terex.

Motherwell is the headquarters for both North Lanarkshire Council, which is one of Scotland's most populous local authority areas, and of Strathclyde Police "N" division. These organisations cover an overall population of 327,000 people (59,000 in Motherwell and Wishaw) throughout the of North Lanarkshire.

Motherwell has been a Fairtrade Town since January 2007.

Description of Motherwell 1877

Scottish Places provides an historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885. This edition is copyrighted by The Editors of the Gazetteer for Scotland, 2002-2011.

Research Tips

Motherwell was a town in the parish of Dalziel. Search there for births, marriages and deaths.

Sources for Old Parish Registers Records, Vital Records and Censuses

• FamilySearch (Indexes only)
• Scotland's People This is a pay website providing vital statistics and census data for all of Scotland with original images. There is a description at Scotland under Genealogical Resources.

Further Sources of Reference

Please note and respect the copyright warnings on these websites.

• GENUKI article on Motherwell
• GENUKI article on Dalziel Parish
• Scottish Places article on Motherwell--more information may be found by following the tabs on the right. The parish maps in this series are very useful.
• The maps website of the National Library of Scotland allows comparisons of modern-day and old maps of the same place. From the home page click on "Find by place" and then follow the instructions on the next page. Once you are viewing the place you want, use the slider <----> at the top of the map to compare the layout of roads and the place names of smaller areas, perhaps even farms, with the landscape today. The website takes some getting used to.
• The Statistical Accounts for Scotland In the 1790s and again in the 1830s, the ministers of the all the parishes of the Church of Scotland were asked to provide a description of their parish to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The original account request included 160 questions to be answered. These accounts are available in print in 20 volumes and are also online where it is freely available to browse. The browsing portal is below the viewing area of most computer screens. Scroll down to "For non-subscribers" and click on "Browse scanned pages". This brings you to another page on which one can enter the name of the parish in which you are interested.