North Britain
[4] The Oxford English Dictionary cites the poet Richard Brathwait, the play Wit at Several Weapons, and Sir William Mure of Rowallan as early 17th-century appearances of the name for Scotland as a whole.
[8] King James VI and I, the first joint monarch of both kingdoms, used the terms "South Britain" and "North Britain" for England and Scotland respectively, most famously in his royal decree of 1606 establishing the first Union Flag,[9] where Scotland and England are not otherwise named: Whereas, some differences hath arisen between Our subjects of South and North Britaine travelling by Seas, about the bearing of their Flagges ...This usage was repeated in Charles I's Proclamation of 1634 on the use of the flag, though adding England and Scotland too for explanation: Our further will and pleasure is, that all the other Ships of Our Subjects of England or South Britain bearing flags shall from henceforth carry the Red Cross, commonly called S. George's Cross, as of old time hath been used; And also that all other ships of Our Subjects of Scotland or North Britain shall henceforth carry the White Cross commonly called S. Andrews Cross.After the Acts of Union 1707, Scotland was sometimes referred to as "North Britain" officially.
[5] In Rob Roy (1817), Sir Walter Scott refers to a Scottish person in England as a North Briton, sometimes in the mouth of an English character but also in the authorial voice.
"Why, a Scotch sort of a gentleman, as I said before," returned mine host; "they are all gentle, ye mun know, though they ha' narra shirt to back; but this is a decentish hallion—a canny North Briton as e'er cross'd Berwick Bridge — I trow he's a dealer in cattle."
The North British Locomotive Company existed from 1903 until its bankruptcy in 1962, again leaving a naming legacy in other organisations.
[16] The North British Rubber Company was founded in 1856 in Edinburgh's Fountainbridge, notable for its Wellington boots and eventually becoming Hunter Boot Ltd.[17] An example of its use in respect to northern Great Britain rather than Scotland can be found in the title of the North British Academy of Arts which existed from 1908 to 1924 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a city in northern England.
[21] Cousin Henry, one of Anthony Trollope's 1879 novels, was serialized in that year in the North British Weekly Mail.
Opposite is the statue by John Steell of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington , the victor of the Battle of Waterloo , in which the Royal North British Dragoons participated as part of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade , called the "Union Brigade".
