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Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1971 (SND Vol. VIII). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

SHAWL, n. Also shall-; shawld (Sh. 1897 Shetland News (11 Sept.); I.Sc. 1970). Freq. in dim. forms shawlie, shallie (Ags. 1894 J. B. Salmond My Man Sandy (1899) 64; Abd. 1923 J. R. Imray Village Roupie 24). Adj. shawlie, wearing a shawl, sc. instead of a hat, hence applied to working-class women and girls in industrial areas up to about 1925 (‡Abd., m.Sc. 1945). Also used subst., a working-class girl (wm.Sc. 1945).Gsw. 1914 F. Niven Justice of Peace ii. iii.:
“Shawlies” — as the girls who are to be seen in the neighbourhood of the Trongate of Glasgow, wearing shawls over their heads, are locally called.Edb. 1926 Broughton Mag. (Summer) 17:
The Canon Gait wi' its bourachs o' dram-houffs an' its rowth o' shawlie wives.Uls. 1929 Evening Standard (19 Feb.) 6:
The Belfast “shawlies,” as the linen factory girls are called locally.Ags. 1950 Scots Mag. (October) 45:
The usual dress of these women was a drab skirt or petticoat and a heavy black shawl worn over the head and elutched tight round the waist. Both old and young, they were all “shawlie wifies” then.wm.Sc. 1954 Robin Jenkins The Thistle and the Grail (1994) 177:
In the third round they had to face a crack Glasgow team; but, encouraged by hundreds of their followers, who had fearlessly escorted them into that enormous lair of gangsters, shawlies, and keelies, they scraped through by a single goal scored by Elrigmuir ten minutes from the end. Gsw. 1985 Anna Blair Tea at Miss Cranston's 16:
... his small contemporary on inner-city streets was toddling barefoot alongside his shawlie mother. Gsw. 1991 Anna Blair More Tea at Miss Cranston's 62:
Such ladies thought quite kindly too of those they called 'shawlies', and while they may not have wanted to be one themselves, there's no denying that they looked on these women, their babies held firm in their tartan plaids, with sentimental affection ... There were shawlie-women to be seen wherever wage pokes did not allow the buying of coats or costumes. Edb. 1992:
In Edinburgh there were shawlies (I think they were settled travellers) who lived in the tenements behind what is now the Playhouse. These were knocked down in the 1930s but it was still referred to when I was young (1960s) as 'where they shawlies used to live.'