The name 'Oban' means
'little bay', from Scots Gaelic ob or
Norse hop, meaning 'little', and the
Scots Gaelic diminutive suffix an.
According to George Mackay, author of Scottish
Place Names (2000), the name derives from the larger Gaelic name An t-Oban Latharnach, or 'little bay of
Lorn'. The town of Oban skirts a natural anchorage on the Firth of Lorne in
North Argyllshire, beneath Dunollie, a sixth-century Dalriadan stronghold and
later seat of the MacDougall clan. Despite the long human history of its
surroundings, Oban is a comparatively recent foundation. Planned town building
in Scotland can be divided into two major periods, the first from the twelfth
to the fourteenth century, the second covering the eighteenth century, and Oban
belongs firmly in the second period. The first known house on the site was
built around 1715, and by 1767 it had a post office and a customs house,
although poor roads frustrated early attempts to improve Oban as a fishing
station. The Duke of Argyll assisted the development of Oban, funding a new
school and building a mansion house near the town, but more instrumental were
the Stevenson family, who built a distillery and other significant buildings at
the very heart of Oban. By 1800 the town was a registered port and a
fast-growing urban settlement, by 1811 a burgh of barony, and after 1833, it
was a parliamentary burgh. From 586 people in 1791, the population of Oban had
grown to 1,940 in 1861.
Towns built in
eighteenth-century Scotland generally maintained the original burgh principle
of the main commercial and administrative buildings being concentrated round a
compact centre. However, where the
medieval burghs commonly had a long high street leading to an open marketplace,
the eighteenth-century foundations were more often focused on a central town
square, with secondary streets arranged in a gridiron round about this square.
Oban is a good example of the thinking behind Scottish eighteenth-century burgh
planning. The heart of the town is Argyll Square (sheet XCVIII.7.20), a stone's
throw from the harbour and ferry terminal, and upon which all the major streets
in the town converge. The gridiron pattern is not as pronounced in Oban as it
is in other Scottish towns of a similar period, but this is probably because of
the hills which rise sharply up behind the bay, limiting the space for
municipal building. Street-names also betray the period of the town's
foundation: although there is still a street named 'High Street' in Oban, it is
a less prominent thoroughfare in the burgh than George Street, probably named
after George III, who reigned during the town's most significant period of
development.
Both trade and
industry grew steadily in Oban in the first half of the nineteenth century, due
to the excellence of its harbour and also to the opening, in 1801, of the
Crinan Canal, which linked the Firth of Clyde to the Firth of Lorne, and, in
1822, of the Caledonian Canal, which ran from Oban to Inverness. According to
Wilson (1857), the principal imports into Oban were 'miscellaneous goods from
Glasgow and Liverpool', while the main exports leaving Oban were 'pig-iron,
whisky, wool, fish, kelp, and Easdale slates'. Many of these exports were not
produce or manufacture of Oban itself, but of inland areas for which Oban was
the nearest port. The main manufactures in the town were whisky, and silk and
straw hats.
Despite its natural
anchorage, Oban was not one of the more significant fishing ports in Scotland,
but it did have a small fleet, which numbered thirteen vessels at the time of
the 1845 Statistical Account. The
parish of Kilmore and Kilbride, of which Oban was the principal town, had
notable salmon and trout rivers, and the shores near Oban produced several
kinds of shellfish. A variety of seafish, most notably herring, was caught in
the waters around Oban. The Highland countryside of Oban's hinterland dictated
that it was not as productive for farming as many Lowland areas. Wilson (1857)
noted that 'supplies in the butcher, fish, and vegetable markets are neither
regular nor prime', despite the fact that Oban had a weekly produce market, and
livestock markets several times a year. Nevertheless, agricultural
improvements, including crop rotation and land drainage, were introduced to the
land around Oban in the early-nineteenth century, and the staple crops produced
were barley, oats, potatoes and turnips. The principal livestock were black
West Highland cattle and black-faced sheep, but a few Ayrshire cows and South
Down sheep were also kept in the parish. Other notable industries in the
hinterland of Oban were the iron works at Bunawe, and the slate quarries at
Easdale.
The relative
modernity of Oban meant that the town did not have a parish church - the two
Established parish churches in the area were in the older settlements of
Kilmore and Kilbride. In the 1850s, the churches in Oban comprised an
established Church of Scotland chapel of ease, a Free church, a United Presbyterian church, an Independent
chapel, and a Scottish Episcopalian chapel. In the twentieth century, with the
building of St Columba's Roman Catholic Cathedral, Oban became the centre of
the Roman Catholic diocese of Argyll and the Isles.
Schools in Oban in
the mid-nineteenth century included a Church of Scotland school, a Free Church
school, a United Presbyterian school, a ladies' school, a ladies' boarding
school and two ladies' charity schools. The town had branches of the City of
Glasgow Bank and of the National Bank, a national security savings bank and
twelve insurance agencies. Oban's other notable institutions were inns and
hotels, which included the Caledonian, the King's Arms, the Royal and the
Commercial. This number of hotels was quite numerous for a town of less than
2,000, and reflected the fact that by the mid nineteenth century Oban had
already developed a healthy tourist trade. This was probably due to much
increased passenger traffic off the west coast, which was a result of the advent
of steam passenger cruisers and the opening of the Caledonian and Crinan
Canals.
In the 1850s
and 60s Oban had still had comparatively little time to develop a strong sense
of community, and social and cultural amenities were sparse. Those that existed
included a reading room, a circulating library, a horticultural society and a
district agricultural society. Sea-bathing was a popular pastime, but at the
time of the Imperial Gazetteer of
Scotland in 1857, the beach had not been developed as a resort.
A
View of the People of Oban in 1845
'The
prevailing language is Gaelic, but English is generally understood and gaining
ground.' (from the Statistical Account)
Groome,
Francis H. (ed.), 1894-5. The Ordnance
Gazetteer of Scotland; a survey of Scottish topography, statistical,
biographical, and historical, 2nd ed., (London: William Mackenzie)
Mackay,
George, 2000. Scottish Place Names
(New Lanark: Lomond)
Smith, Robert,
2001. The Making of Scotland: a
comprehensive guide to the growth of its cities, towns and villages (Edinburgh:
Canongate)
Wilson, Rev.
John Marius (ed.), 1857. The Imperial
Gazetteer of Scotland or Dictionary of Scottish Topography (Edinburgh: A.
Fullarton & Co.)
Edina Website –
Online Statistical Accounts of Scotland - http://edina.ac.uk/statacc/