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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1965 (SND Vol. VI).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

LOCALITY, n. Sc. usages, now only hist.

1. The revenue or produce of a certain piece of land specif. appropriated to an individual as part of his income, e.g. to a parish minister as stipend, or liferented to a widow by way of jointure. Hence attrib. locality lands.Sc. c.1701 Analecta Scot. (Maidment 1837) II. 163:
The Doctors Wife had possessed a Liocalitie of the bygone Rents and before Arriestment also uplifted part of them.Sc. 1760 Caled. Mercury (16 Aug.):
As the lands are presently life-rented by the widow of the said deceased John Stenhouse, who has a total locality over them, she by a writing in process, has become bound to cede her locality to the purchaser.Sc. 1795 Stat. Acc.¹ XIV. 536:
He has presently no accommodation of moss; the moss on which he had a locality being exhausted, and no new one yet settled for him.Sc. 1838 W. Bell Dict. Law Scot. 225, 539:
Instead of her legal provisions of terce and jus relictae, the husband may become bound to infeft her in liferent in certain lands. … Lands thus set apart for the wife are called locality lands. … The liferent of lands called a locality, in which she is infeft.

2. The apportionment of liability for (an increase in) a minister's stipend among the various heritors in his parish; the sum thus apportioned. A Decree of Locality is the decision of the Court confirming this allocation. Obs. since 1936. See also Local.Ayr. 1702 Ayr Presb. Reg. MS. (12 Aug.):
He said he had a decreit of locality containing a fond for communion elements which he getts not up.Sc. 1742 Kames Remark. Decis. II. 147:
A decree of locality subjects the heritor personally to the stipend localled upon his land.Sc. 1756 Session Papers, Petition Rev. W. Thomson (14 Dec.) 2–3:
By the new Schem of Locality, there was added to his former Communion Elements £2. 10sh. 6d. as his Proportion of£20. 16sh. 4d. being the Deficiency of the Communion Elements, as modified by the old Decreet; so, that by the last Locality his Share of the Communion Elements amounted to £4. 11sh. 7d. Scots. … In the Year 1753 Mr. Thomas Gordon Minister of this Parish, brought a Process of Augmentation, Modification and Locality.Abd. 1767 Aberdeen Jnl. (21 Dec.):
The Articles of Roup will be shown by Mr James Beattie, Professor of Philosophy, and Procurator for the Localities of the said College [Marischal College, Aberdeen].Sc. 1869 A. MacDonald Settlement (1877) viii.:
He was also thoroughly up in tlhe mysteries of the Teind Court; — was at home in localities, chalders, and free and unexhausted teinds.Sc. 1896 W. K. Morton Manual 21:
Ministers have right every twenty years to apply to the Court of Teinds for an augmentation of stipend. … This application is made by a summons of Augmentation, Modification and Locality against the titular and heritors … [The minister] awaits the Locality of the stipend, that is, the ascertainment of the proportion payable by each heritor, which is carried out by the Lord Ordinary on Teinds under remit from the Court.Sc. 1930 A. A. Cormack Teinds 117:
The process of locality of teinds often proved difficult; that is, within a parish, it was difficult to distribute the amount of teind payable by each heritor.

3. A requisition, gen. of forage for military purposes, made proportionately to the valued rent on the landowners of a parish, freq. in south-west Scotland in Covenanting times. Hist.Gsw. 1715 Records Trades Ho. (Lumsden 1934) 22:
And its hereby specially provyded that my relict Jean Tran shall be free of all locality and quartering of soldiers during her widewity.Sc. 1732 P. Walker Six Saints (1901) II. 82:
Our backslidings and complying courses, particularly of paying cess and locality to dragoons and soldiers.Sc. 1816 Scott O. Mortality viii.:
Them that in this contumacious and back-sliding generation pays localities and fees, and cess and fines.