PETERHEAD, a burgh and seaport of Aberdeenshire, the most easterly town in Scotland. Pop. It is situ ated about 33 m. by road E.N.E. of Aberdeen and 441 m. by rail, on the L.N.E.R. The town is built of locally quarried red granite. A statue to Field Marshal Keith (born at Inverugie Castle, 2 m. N.W. in 1696), was presented to the burgh in 1868 by William I. of Prussia, afterwards German emperor. Peter head formerly had an extensive foreign trade, and seal and whale fisheries, now practically extinct. It is, however, an important station of the herring fisheries and head of a fishery district, with a large herring fleet and a busy local trade. The north and south harbours lie between the town and Keith Inch—a suburb—and the isthmus dividing them is pierced by a canal. In the north harbour are two graving docks (21 acres). In addition to granite quarrying and polishing, the leading industries are ship-building and fish-curing. A mile south is the convict prison for Scotland.
A large harbour, for which the breakwater extends from Boddam point north across the bay, was built by convict labour.
The town and lands belonged of old to the Abbey of Deer, built in the 13th century by William Comyn, earl of Buchan; but when the abbey was erected into a temporal lordship in the family of Keith the superiority of the town passed to the earl marischal, with whom it continued till the forfeiture of the earldom in 1716. The town and lands were purchased in 1720 by a fishing company in England and, on their failure, by the Merchant Maidens' Hospital of Edinburgh for £3,000, who are still the overlords. Peterhead, made a burgh of barony in 1593 by George Keith, fifth earl marischal, was the scene of the landing of the Pretender on Christmas Day 1715.