Until the eighteenth century the office of sheriff was often hereditary, but this was ended following the unsuccessful Jacobite Rising of 1745.
[2] By the nineteenth century, the office of sheriff principal was an additional title held by the lord lieutenant of the county, and the Circuit Courts (Scotland) Act 1828 (9 Geo.
[3] The Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746 also began the grouping of two or more counties under a single sheriffdom.
New boundaries defined sheriffdoms in reference to regions, districts and islands areas which were then to be created on 16 May 1975.
Elsewhere boundaries were simply redefined by reference to new local authority areas and electoral wards.