1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Inverkeithing

INVERKEITHING, a royal and police burgh of Fifeshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 1676. It is situated on an inner bay of the shore of the Firth of Forth, 31/2 m. S.E. of Dunfermline and 131/4 m. N.W. of Edinburgh by the North British railway, via the Forth Bridge. The chief industries are tanning, shipbuilding, milling, paper-making, rope-making and brick-making. With Stirling, Dunfermline, Culross and Queensferry, Inverkeithing returns one member to parliament (the Stirling district burghs). It received its charter from David I. St Peter’s, the parish church, dates from the 12th century, but having been nearly destroyed by fire was rebuilt in 1826 in the Gothic style, the ancient tower, however, being preserved. Sir Samuel Greig, the father of the Russian navy and designer of the fortifications at Cronstadt, was born at Inverkeithing in 1735. About half-way towards Dunfermline the battle of Inverkeithing or Pitreavie took place on the 20th of July 1650, when Cromwell’s forces defeated the Royalists. A mile and a half to the south lies North Queensferry (pop. 594), the first railway station on the north side of the Forth Bridge. A little to the west lies the bay of St Margaret’s Hope, which in 1903 was acquired by the government as the site for the naval base of Rosyth, so named from the neighbouring ruined castle of Rosyth, once the residence of Queen Margaret, wife of Malcolm Canmore. On the west side of the Forth Bridge, in the fairway, lies the rocky islet of Bimar with a lighthouse, and immediately to the east is the island of Inchgarvie (Gaelic, “the rough island”), which once contained a castle used as a State prison, the ruins of which were removed to make way for one of the piers of the Forth Bridge.