Salt Pans

Prestonpans first association with salt panning began when it was originally the small fishing hamlet of Aldhamer. The monks from the Abbey of Newbattle had arrived in the area in 1198, to pan salt, after being granted lands at Preston by De Quincy of Winton and Tranent.

Prior to the thirteenth century, salt pans were usually located on the carse lands at the Upper Tidal limit of the Firth o' Forth, timber and peat being readily available. Within a century however, a locational change occured, when the pans were instigated on the Lower Forth.

Coal was instrumental in this change, for it was a plentiful commodity in Prestonpans, outcrops being both coastal and inland. Indeed, the first mention of coal in Scotland, occurs in charters from the crown, granting the Monks of Newbattle rights to dig coals at Prestonpans, in 1209.

The reasons for the movement of a salt industry to Prestonpans were clear. The area was chosen due to its close proximity to the sea, and for its abundance of fueling materials. One of the coal seams was in fact known as "Salters Coal". The outcrop reappears at Newbattle in the Mary Burn.

The long association with the monks and Prestonpans was now to begin. Due to their intensive salt panning activities, coastal outcrops of coal, soon became exhausted. Coal was then supplied from the outcrops at Newbattle, using a road, later to be called, "Salters Way". The early workings of the monks can still be traced in the banks of the river Esk, where the method used to recover or win the coal was of the very simplest description -

A hole was driven into the banks where black traces were observable and then the coal hewn out with chisel, hammer, spade, and drill.

With the departure of the monks, we see little decline in the Salt Industry, infact, it flourished. The market for salt was becoming large' and insatiable. The minimum annual salt requirements for Scotland, in the year 1755, were 8,473 tons. Over and above this, salt was becoming one of Scotlands fastest growing exports.

An indication of this economic importance, was the prevalence of salt duties and government monopolies, which lasted from the time of the earliest records, until 1825, when salt duty was abolished.

The Salt Worker in Serfdom

This period of expansion in the coal and salt industry was generally at the expense of the labour force. The concentration of ownership now lay in the hands of a few influential families, which gave them extensive political power. They demonstrated this authority by securing exemption from export restrictions, and through an Act of Parliament in 1606, they obtained legal sanctions for a labour system in the coal mines and salt pans which amounted to little more than serfdom -

On entering a coal mine or salt works, the worker was bound to labour there for the rest of his life. This ceremony was simple and direct, for example

In Prestonpans in 1748, a man and wife were given a pair of shoes valued at five shillings and booked in the ' Oncost" book. If the lands or works were rented or sold the bonded worker passed with it to the purchaser as part of his property. If a son or daughter once went to work there they were "thirled" for life. If a workman ran away or gave his services to another master, he was deemed, by an ingenious twist of the law, a thief, and punished for having stolen himself.

The Dundas Act of 1799 which stated -

"Although many colliers and salters continue in a state of bondage, they shall be free on the passing of this act"
was needed before this practice was ended.

Salt Smuggling

The only workers who profited at the expense of the salt industry were smugglers. Their activity became more prevalent due to the high salt duty. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries salt was stored in "girnels" (large cellars with strong barred doors), and every time they were opened the customs men were waiting to collect the duty due on all the salt taken out. One man who beat the excise officials was Sandy Hewit of Cockenzie, whose deeds are vividly recorded in McNeill's book "Prestonpans and the vicinity".

Salt Wives

The women were also actively involved in the salt industry. Their plight was often far worse than that of the men. On them, fell the task of conveying salt to the markets in Edinburgh. Elizabeth Wast, on her way to Communion in Prestonpans, in the year 1697 writes -

"The way was pleasant to me, though otherwise unpleasant, when l met the poor women with their burdens of coal and salt on their backs, coming to the markets at Edinburgh"

The salt wives of Prestonpans, were considered second innotoriety only to the fish wives of

Newhaven and Fisherrow. John Kay, the Edinburgh artist in 1799, tells of a well known character called Margaret Suttie, a Hawker of salt who was a native of Fisherrow. One can only imagine that her dress and manner would be similar to that of the salt wives of Prestonpans. He says of her -

"On leaving home in the morning, her route was directed by the Salt pans of Joppa, or Pinkie, where she purchased a supply sufficient for the day. The price of salt at the pans was then thirteen pence half penny a peck - about seven pounds weight - which she retailed at six pence a caup - wooden measure one-fourth of a peck.

"Wha l buy my lucky forpit o'sa-at - Na, na, deil ane yet" was Maggy's usual cry, sometimes varied into a species of rhyme, as she proceeded along the streets. By "lucky" - she meant good measure, and when questioned as to her reason for repeating the words

"Na, na, deil ane yet" - her reply was that she always experienced maist luck on days she used them':

Salt Industry in decline

Maggy died in 1818, and within a few years her occupation also began to disappear. The boom of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was over and the Scottish Salt industry was now rapidly moving into decline. With the repeal of salt duties in 1825, and the end to the foreign salt trade in the nineteenth century, after the opening of salt mines in England and several in Northern Europe, one finds a major decrease in the amount of salt produced at the Scottish pans. Moreover the population no longer had to rely on salted provisions to outlive the winter. Demand for Scotch salt gave way to that of the fine dry English variety and the Scottish salt makers did not seem able to meet this change of taste. By the mid-nineteenth century, the Scottish salt market was flooded by the cheaper "English salt", a process speeded up by rapidly improving communications, through the development of wagonways and then railways.

Prestonpans (1900 - 1975)

Deserted salt works now formed a rueful feature along the sea front. The remaining Firth o' Forth salt makers tried to compete, by importing quantities of rock salt from Cheshire and Ireland. This meant that salt could be drawn from each boiling as compared to the three boilings required previously before being drawn.

For all their activity and improved industrial developments, by 1900 Prestonpans had only one surviving salt works with two working pans.

In 1959, the remaining pan ceased productions, because nobody could be found to repair it. Just prior to this, the company source of rock-salt from Cheshire ceased; as this raw material found a ready outlet as a winter road dressing. The last consignment of rock-salt"came from Germany, via Aberdeen, at a cost of £5 per ton. The salt works continued to survive as an outlet for coarse English salt, bagged on the premises.

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Cover - Preface - Contents- Glossary - Acknowledgements - Photographs & Illustrations