Stewarty
A stewartry was an area of crown property administered by an appointed or hereditary steward, rather than a sheriff. Examples are Strathearn and Menteith (after annexation by the crown in the reign of James I), Orkney and Shetland and Kirkcudbright.
The Stewartry court had a very wide jurisdiction, and sheriff courts had no jurisdiction within them. Stewartries were abolished by the Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746 which took effect from 25 March 1748, and their criminal jurisdictions transferred to appropriate sheriffdoms.[1] In the case of Kirkcudbright, these were the sheriffdoms of Kirkcudbright and Dumfries (the latter had jurisdiction over the eastern district of Kirkcudbrightshire). Long after it was classed as a county and operated a sheriff court, the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright continued to be referred to as ‘the Stewartry’, and indeed the area is still called that by locals today.
Editor: Elspeth Reid (2021)
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References
[1] Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746 (20 Geo. II c.43).