Lochgelly

Lochgelly

Police Burgh of Lochgelly

Motto

“By Industry We Flourish”

Lochgelly grew from a village into a thriving coal-mining town in the second half of the nineteenth century.

It became a Police Burgh in 1876.

The quartered arms show (1) three black lozenges for coal and the coal mining industry; (2) three features from the arms of the Earls of Minto, who formerly owned Lochgelly House, and whose ancestor, Sir Gilbert Elliot, first exploited the Lochgelly coalfields; these are a blue baton and golden engrailed bar on a red field (for Elliot), a silver star on blue (for Murray), and a fleur – de – lys (for Kynynmound); the wavy in the base also recalls Loch Gelly; (3) a representation of a lamp, both for a miner’s safety lamp and for the old tallow lamp of which the town as the main centre of manufacture; (4) a miner’s pick, which is another reference to coal mining, with three silver cinquefoils on a black fess for Boswell of Balmuto, a family closely connected with the district.

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