| Description | CA/1: Minutes, 1398 - present
CA/2: Burgh Registers of Sasines and Deeds, 1484 - 1931
CA/3: Town Charters, c.1179 - present
CA/4: Chartularies and Registers of Feus, 1618 - 1959
CA/5: Court and Legal Records,
CA/6: Financial Records,
CA/7: Guildry Records,
CA/8: Letter Books and Town's Correspondence, 1552 - 1854
CA/9: Police Commissioners, 1795 - 1884
CA/10: Plans, Charts, and Maps, c. 1795 - present
CA/11: Private Legislation and Litigation, 1718 - 1939
CA/12: Proclamations, Advertisements, and Notices, 1592 - 1937
CA/13/NStT: Papers of the New Street Trustees and Town's Trustees
CA/14: Aberdeen Harbour, 1682 - 1959
CA/15: Town's Trustees, 1817 - 1825
CA/16: Mortification Funds Records
CA/17: Commutation Road Assessment Books
CA/18: Rentals
CA/19: Electoral Registers and Poll Books
CA/20: Registers of Feu Duties
CA/21: Aberdeen Burgh & Corporation: Register of Leases
CA/22: Tack Books of Mills & Customs
CA/23: Draft Deeds
CA/24: Abstract of Dispositions granted by the Town's Trustees
CA/25: Aberdeen City Education Records
CA/26: Aberdeen City Children's/Social Work Department Records
CA/27: Aberdeen City Tramways/Transport Records
CA/29: Aberdeen City Burgh Surveyor's/City Engineer's Department Records
CA/30: Aberdeen City Town Planning Department Records
CA/32: Aberdeen City Public Health Records
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| Administrative History | This collection represents the records generated by the local authorities of the Burgh and City of Aberdeen in carrying out government .
Aberdeen, in the parish and sheriffdom of Aberdeen, was created a royal burgh by David I (1124 - 1153), when it had markets for wool, hides, meal and dried salted fish. Its trading privileges were renewed and extended frequently by later monarchs. By the later middle ages, it was second only to Edinburgh in Scotland as a trading centre. Merchant burgesses, made wealthy by trade with Europe, ruled the town in the early 17th century, and by the 1680s it had a population of between 10,000 and 12,000: it increased by a third again in the next century.
Aberdeen was created a Police Burgh under the terms of the General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Act, 1862 (25 & 26 Vict., c.101) and obtained its own general police act, the Aberdeen Police and Waterworks Act (25 & 26 Vict. ch. ciii), in the same year. Burgh administration was carried out by police commissioners, who were responsible for the cleansing, lighting, policing, and public health of the burghs. Aberdeen merged its Police Commissioners with the Town Council under the Aberdeen Municipality Extension Act 1871 (34 & 35 Vict., ch. cxli) and, from then on, policing issues were dealt with by the town's Police Department.
Under the Aberdeen Corporation Act 1891 (54 & 55 Vict., ch. cxxiv) Aberdeen absorbed the existing police burghs of Old Aberdeen and Woodside, in the parish of Old Machar, Aberdeenshire, and acquired the district of Torry, in the parish of Nigg, Kincardineshire. Thereafter Aberdeen’s expansion, which had been chiefly to the north, shifted westwards.
Under the terms of the Town Councils (Scotland) Act, 1900 (63 & 64 Vict c.49) Aberdeen Town Council was established and the burgh became a county of a city, with responsibility for all local government functions within its bounds. In 1971 the city's population had reached 182,071. The Corporation of the City of Aberdeen, as the new authority was styled, was abolished in 1975 under the terms of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1973 (c.65). Its powers were assumed by Grampian Regional Council and Aberdeen District Council. These in turn were replaced in 1996, under the terms of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1994 (c.39), by Aberdeen City Council, a unitary authority. |