Timothy Pont the noted Scottish
cartographer around 1605 described Dalry as a small village adjoining a
parish church, it would seem it was considered too small to be included in
his map of Cunninghame. Around the start of the eighteenth century the
village of Dalry had a population of about one hundred residents living in
thirty or so houses.
By 1750 Dalry had grown and there were around one hundred silk weavers
employed producing for manufacturers in Paisley and Glasgow. Later just
prior to 1800 the silk weavers had declined and cotton weaving became more
prominent in the parish, the population had then swelled to over 2,000.
Around this time a cotton mill was opened and coal mining commenced in the
area.
The New Statistical Account in 1836 saw an increase in
the population to almost 4,000. About five hundred weavers were now
working for the Paisley and Glasgow manufacturers. There were five coal
mines in operation by this time and later in 1841 the smelting ironworks
at Carsehead commenced while in July the previous year the new Glasgow to Ayr
railway line opened, this followed the route originally meant for the
Ardrossan to Glasgow shipping canal proposed by the Earl of Eglinton.
By the 1860s DaIry had a population of over 11,000.
Weaving was on the decline but more than 30 mines were now being worked in
the area. Miners’ rows were being built to accommodate the workers and
their families around the town at Barkip, Borestone, Hourat, Peesweep,
Reddance and Kersland.
Although the mining of ironstone continued at a slower
rate the blast furnaces of Dalry fell silent in 1871. In 1876 Thomas
Biggart opened his spinning Mills where mostly women were employed. For
the next twenty or so years things were fairly prosperous and it was
during this period many of the town’s civic and larger residences were
built. The population was found to have dropped to just under 8,000 during
the 1901 census.
When the mining industry collapsed its demise generated
a new industry in the form of brick works, which used the waste left by
the mining, there were four brickworks in the town; Boreston, Broadlie,
Carsehead and Kersland. Residents of the town not getting work at the
brickworks found work at Glengarnock Steelworks near Kilbirnie and at
Alfred Nobel’s dynamite factory at Ardeer. There was continued work at
Biggart’s spinning Mills but as stated mostly for women.
