<http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk> Launch of the Valuation Rolls for 1920 - 28 October 2013 Scottish Valuation Rolls for 1920 We're delighted to announce that the Property Valuation Rolls (VRs) for 1920 have just been added to the ScotlandsPeople website. The new records, comprising 2,607,329 indexed names and 76,721 digital images (taken from 169 volumes), cover every kind of property that was assessed in 1920 as having a rateable value, and provide a fascinating snapshot of Scottish society in the wake of the First World War. What do the 1920 Valuation Rolls contain? The Rolls include the names of owners, tenants and occupiers of each property - and in many cases occupations are also listed. The named person in the VR is usually the head of the household. As the Rolls include all types of property, from castles and mansions to crofts and tenements, in turn the records also include people from across the whole social spectrum. The Rolls also reveal some very interesting features of social history in Scotland during the post-WW1 era, two of which we've highlighted below. If you have any questions about Valuation Rolls, visit the dedicated FAQs page that we've created to help explain what the VRs are all about. http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/Content/FAQs/index.aspx?2139 What can I find out from the 1920 Valuation Rolls? You can learn who was living at a specific address, and whether they rented or owned the property. You can also see the rent that was paid for the house or flat, as well as the yearly rateable value of the property. As the 1920 VRs appear almost a decade after the 1911 Census, family history researchers will be able to fill in gaps that were left following the publication of the 1911 Census back in 2011. The Rolls are fully searchable by name and/or address. The first council houses in Scotland – Logie Estate in Dundee One of the major social history changes recorded in the 1920 VRs was the building of the first council houses in Scotland. Designed by James Thompson, the Logie Estate in Dundee was completed in 1920 and was the first housing estate in Europe to have a 'district heating' system. In the two examples (included below) for the Logie Estate, we can see the names of the very first named tenants (and their occupations - an interesting mix of jobs) who lived in council houses in Scotland. In the 'proprietor' column, 'Dundee Town Council' is named as the property owner. As Logie Estate was the first modern public housing, this entry in the Valuation Roll is historic in itself. This terrific photograph (taken in 1920) shows the new style of 'two-up, two-down' design for the houses - a massive contrast to the usual tenement buildings which can be seen in the background. N.B. when viewing these large images on the website, just click on an image to enlarge it further. http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/images/logienewsl.jpg http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/images/birchwoodl.jpg http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/images/elml.jpg The break-up and selling of landed estates Another interesting aspect of Scottish social history featured in the Valuation Rolls is the breaking-up and selling of land following the end of WW1. Indeed, it was claimed that between 1918 and 1921 no less than one fifth of all Scottish land, amounting to 4 million acres, had changed hands. The 1920 Rolls provide clear evidence of the huge transformation that affected Scottish landowners, as well as those in other parts of Britain, in the aftermath of the First World War. <trimmed from this point on> All the Best, The ScotlandsPeople Team. www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com