FALKIRK, a municipal and parliamentary burgh and market-town of Scotland, in the county of Stirling, 25 J miles W. by N. from Edinburgh by rail, is situated on a declivity which overlooks the expanse of fertile country called the Carse of Falkirk. The town consists of one wide street, with a number of narrow streets and lanes branching off∙from or running parallel to it. The houses are generally lofty and well built. The parish church, erected in 1811, has a fine steeple 130 feet high. There are also places of worship for the Free Church, United Presbyterians, Independents, and Roman Catholics. Continuous lines of houses connect Falkirk with the villages of Grahamston and Bainsford, and extend thence to Carron, which lies about two miles N. of the town, and is celebrated for its iron-works. Though Falkirk is not itself a manufacturing town, yet in the neighbourhood there are extensive works of various kinds. In addition to the Carron iron-works there is the Falkirk foundry at Bainsford, and several large collieries, distilleries, flour-mills, &c. The three trysts or cattle fairs held at Falkirk annually, on the 2d Tuesday and Wednesday of August, the 2d Monday and Tuesday of September, and the 2d Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of October, are the largest in Scotland,—the last being the largest of the three. Population of parliamentary burgh in 1871, 9547; of burgh and suburbs, 11,312....
Falkirk is a town of considerable antiquity, and appears to have been a place of some note in the early part of the 11th century. Its original name was Eglishbreckk, which signifies the “speckled church,” in allusion, it is supposed, to the colour of the stones, and translated by Buchanan varium sacellum. In the valley between Falkirk and the Carron a battle was fought on the 22d July 1298, between the Scotch under Wallace and the English under Edward I., in which the former were defeated, and two of their chieftains, Sir John Graham and Sir John Stewart, slain. Their graves are still pointed out in the churchyard: that of Graham has a monument with an inscription which has been several times renewed. On a moor a little to the S.W. of the town a battle was fought on 17th January 1746, between the royal forces and those of the Pretender, in which the rebels were victorious. On this occasion fell Sir Robert Monro of Foulis, and his brother Dr Monro, whose monument is to be seen in the churchyard. In the vicinity traces of the Roman wall are still visible. Falkirk was made a burgh of barony in 1600, and in 1646 a burgh of regality. In 1715, by the forfeiture of the earl of Linlithgow, its superiority was vested in the crown, but it did not become a municipal burgh till the passing of the Reform Act of 1832, when it also obtained the privilege, in conjunction with Airdrie, Lanark, Hamilton, and Linlithgow, of returning a member to parliament.
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