DYSART, a seaport town and royal and parliamentary burgh of Scotland, in the county of Fife, nine miles northeast of Burntisland, with a station on the North British Railway. It consists mainly of three narrow streets with a square in the centre, and on the whole has rather a dull and deserted appearance. In the High Street there are a number of antique houses with inscriptions and dates; and towards the south side of the town there are remains of an ancient chapel. Besides the old parish church with its tower, there are six places of worship, an old town-house, a mechanics’ institute, and a combination poorhouse. The harbour is tolerably good, and there is a wet dock attached. The staple industry is the manufacture of linens and ticks; but flax-spinning and ship-building are also carried on, and there is a large export of coal. To the west of the town is Dysart House, the residence of the earl of Rosslyn. As a parliamentary borough Dysart is a member of the Kirkcaldy district. The population of the town in 1871 was 2476....
Dysart is mentioned as early as 874 at the time of a Danish invasion. Its name is said to be a corruption, of the Latin desertum, a desert, applied to a cave on the sea-shore which was occupied about 440 by St Serf or Sanctus Servanus, to whom at a later date the church was dedicated. From James V. the town received the rights of a royal burgh. In the 15th and 16th centuries it was the seat of a great manufacture of salt, and besides dealing in this article with Holland and other countries, it had a large general trade. For several months in 1559 it was the headquarters of the Lords of the Congregation, and in 1607 it was the scene of those remarkable meetings of the synod of Fife known in ecclesiastical history as the Three Synods of Dysart. William Murray, a native of the town, was made earl of Dysart either by Charles I. or Charles II., and his eldest daughter afterwards assumed the title of countess, and transmitted the dignity to her descendants by the earl of Lauderdale, her second husband.
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