With the upcoming boundary adjustments it has been a subject of interest to some people how long their District has been in existence etc.

Accordingly a brief potted history has been complied which may be of interest.

In the beginning there was no Edinburgh….up until 1910 all groups were registered under Midlothian but in the early part of that year a separate council for the city was set up and from then on all groups were given an Edinburgh title.

By 1914 there were districts for Leith and East Edinburgh (from the Leith Walk area out to Portobello) and the balance of the County of Edinburgh and Leith was noted in the directory of the time as ‘City of Edinburgh District ‘ with some 43 troops!.

During the First World War the City of Edinburgh District was divided into three parts but not formal districts, northern, western and southern and in the directory for 1922 there is the addition of central  and the clear establishment of four districts to add to the continuing Leith and East Edinburgh ones.

In 1931 there was a need to increase the number of Districts as in 1930 the Districts had the following numbers of groups

Western           35                    Eastern            17                    Southern         32   Leith         15

Central            28                    Northern          20                    A total of 147 groups

 

In 1931 the directory shows the new districts and the group totals were as follows:-

 

Waverley         20                    Holyrood         27                    Morningside    13

Newington       20                    Inverleith         14                    Craiglockhart  13

Gorgie             10                    Haymarket      14                    Portobello        12      Leith      15                             

 

In 1936 Liberton was created from the southern part of Newington and the new area of Craigmillar and Niddrie which made the total of 11 districts.

Later that year a twelfth was added as a district of Rutland was established, based on the HQ of the time in Rutland Square, which supported the city wide groups such as the groups for young people confined to home ( the Post Scouts) , the Prison group and the Deep Sea Scouts. Rutland ran as a district until the 1950s

After the war, in 1946, the southern boundary of Waverley, which had been the Royal Mile was brought down to the railway line through Princes St Gardens and their north boundary moved to the Water of Leith from Great King St. This enlarged Waverley and allowed for an increase in size of Inverleith to accommodate the new groups in Pilton and environs.

Portobello took over the Niddrie and Craigmillar groups in the mid 1950s as Liberton had to include the new groups in the Inch and other southern housing developments.

In the west Haymarket expanded as the city grew to the west and Inverleith also had new groups in Clermiston but there were some groups such as those in Blackhall, Cramond and Corstorphine which had been established prior to the creation of the district structure in 1931 which remained in Midlothian. So we had groups from Midlothian County closer to the city centre than Edinburgh groups.

However all was altered in 1967 after the Advance Party Report which made recommendations about restructuring the organisation !!

Haymarket and Inverleith took in groups from the Calders and Leith Valley District of Midlothian, Holyrood and Newington merged to form Salisbury and some groups were moved from Liberton into Salisbury. An Inverleith group moved into Leith District and Craiglockhart Gorgie and Morningside remained relatively unaffected.

In 1986 Craiglockhart and Gorgie merged to form Merchiston and a boundary review in 1993 led to the creation of Blackford as an amalgamation of Salisbury and Liberton and the amalgamation of Waverley and Leith under the title of Leith.

In 1995 those groups in Midlothian and West Lothian who were geographically in City of Edinburgh Council came together to form Pentlands and Almond Valley.

In 2007 the district of Pentlands and Almond valley decided that there was sense in their northern groups linking into Inverleith and the southern groups linking with Merchiston and they changed their name to Pentland.

In 2012 there are to be further changes…………