LEITH or PORT OF LEITH, incorporated with Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1920, had a population of 80,488 in 1911. It is situ ated on the south shore of the Firth of Forth. It has stations on the L.N.E. and L.M.S. and a branch line (L.N.E.) to Portobello.
The town is a thriving centre of trade and commerce, and the second port of Scotland. St. Mary's in Kirkgate, the parish church of South Leith, was founded in 1483 and restored in 1852. Here David Lindsay (1531-1613), its minister, James VI.'s chaplain and afterwards bishop of Ross, preached before the king the thanksgiving sermon on the Gowrie conspiracy (1600). John Logan, the hymn-writer and reputed author of "The Ode to the Cuckoo," was minister for thirteen years; and in its grave yard lies the Rev. John Home, author of Douglas, a native of Leith. Trinity House (1817), which contains some interesting portraits, was founded in 1555 as a home for old and disabled sailors, but on the decline of its revenues it became the licensing authority for pilots. There is a fine academy and technical school. The east and west piers are favourite promenades, and the water way between them is the entrance to the harbour.
The oldest industry is shipbuilding, which dates from 1313. Here in 1511 James IV. built the "St. Michael." Other impor tant industries are engineering, sugar-refining, meat-preserving, flour-milling, sailcloth-making, soap-boiling, rope, sail, soap and paint making, tanning, chemical manure-making, wood-sawing, brewing, distilling and fish-curing. The chief imports are grain, timber and sugar, and the chief exports coal, iron and cotton goods. Leith is the headquarters of the whisky business in Great Britain, and stores also large quantities of wine from Spain, Portugal and France. There are excellent docks, with a total acreage of 106, 8 dry docks and capacious warehouses. A new
dock is planned to extend northwards into the Forth. Apart from coasting trade there are constant sailings to the leading European ports, the United States, Canada, Japan, etc. Leith Fort, built in North Leith in 1779 for the defence of the harbour, is now the headquarters of the Royal Artillery in Scotland. Leith is the head of a fishery district. The town sends one member to parliament.
Leith figures as Inverleith in the foundation charter of Holy rood abbey (1128). In 1329 Robert I. granted the harbour to the magistrates of Edinburgh, who did not always use their power wisely. They forbade, for example, the building of streets wide enough to admit a cart, a regulation that accounted for the number of narrow wynds and alleys in the town. Had the overlords been more considerate incorporation with Edinburgh would not have been so bitterly resisted. Several of the quaint bits of ancient Leith yet remain. During the centuries of strife between Scotland and England its situation exposed the port to attack both by sea and land. At least twice (in 1313 and 1410) its shipping was burned by the English, who also sacked the town in 1544—when the 1st earl of Hertford destroyed the first wooden pier—and 1547. After the death of James V., Leith became the stronghold of the Roman Catholic and French party from 1548 to 156o, Mary of Guise, queen regent, not deeming herself secure in Edin burgh. In 1549 the town was walled and fortified by Montalem bert, sieur d'Esse, the commander of the French troops, and endured an ineffectual siege in 156o by the Scots and their English allies. A house in Coalhill is thought to be the "handsome and spacious edifice" erected for her privy council by Mary of Guise.