Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (also known as the Scottish SPCA and SSPCA) is a charity to promote animal welfare in Scotland.

History and operations

It was founded in Edinburgh in 1839 and one of its first aims was to improve the welfare of cart-horses. Over the next century and a half, the charity grew and merged with other local SPCAs, such as the Dundee SPCA, Glasgow and West of Scotland SPCA and Aberdeen SPCA.

The Scottish SPCA opened its first centre in Mansfield, Balerno, in 1930. It acted as a Rest Farm for Horses which provided many working horses and ponies a period of rest before being returned to work. It now has 12 animal rescue centres which treat over 12,000 animals a year, with its headquarters and animal helpline based in Dunfermline, Fife.

As an animal welfare charity, the society receives no government or lottery funding and rely on public donations to continue their vital work rescuing and rehoming Scotland's abandoned, neglected and defenceless animals.

Scottish

Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:

See also

Scottish people

The Scottish people (Scots: Scots Fowk, Scottish Gaelic: Albannaich), or Scots, are a nation and socially defined ethnic group resident in Scotland. Historically, they emerged from an amalgamation of two groups—the Picts and Gaels—who founded the Kingdom of Scotland (or Alba) in the 9th century, and thought to have been ethnolinguistically Celts. Later, the neighbouring Cumbrian Britons, who also spoke a Celtic language, as well as Germanic-speaking Anglo-Saxons and Norse, were incorporated into the Scottish nation.

In modern use, "Scottish people" or "Scots" is used to refer to anyone whose linguistic, cultural, family ancestral or genetic origins are from within Scotland. The Latin word Scotti originally referred to the Gaels but came to describe all inhabitants of Scotland. Though sometimes considered archaic or pejorative, the term Scotch has also been used for the Scottish people, though this usage is current primarily outside Scotland.

There are people of Scottish descent in many countries other than Scotland. Emigration, influenced by factors such as the Highland and Lowland Clearances, Scottish participation in the British Empire, and latterly industrial decline and unemployment, resulted in Scottish people being found throughout the world. Large populations of Scottish people settled the new-world lands of North and South America, Australia and New Zealand. There is a Scottish presence at a particularly high level in Canada, which has the highest level per-capita of Scots descendants in the world and second largest population of descended Scots ancestry after the United States. They took with them their Scottish languages and culture.

Scottish language

Scottish language may refer to:

See also