Gifford, a village in the N of Yester parish, Haddingtonshire, lying, 340 feet above sea-level, on the right bank of Gifford Water, 4¼ miles SSE of Haddington. Set in a wooded vale, and sheltered by well cultivated hills, it is a pretty little place, its two streets of unequal length consisting chiefly of neat two-story houses, and one of them ending in the fine long avenue that leads up to Yester House. It has a post office under Haddington, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments, an inn, two public schools, and fairs on tho last Tuesday of March, the third Tuesday of June, and the first Tuesday of October-this last having still some importance. Here, too, are Yester parish church (1708; 560 sittings) and a handsome new Free church (1880; 310 sittings). The latter occupies a prominent position on the rising-ground above the village, and. built at a cost of £1700 in the Gothic style of the 14th century, has a NE tower and spire. Gifford has claimed to be the birthplace of John Knox, the great Reformer. Beza in his Icones (1580) calls him 'Giffordiensis;' and Spottiswood states in his History (1627) that Knox 'was born at Gifford in the Lothians.' But two contemporary Catholic writers, Archibald Hamilton (1577) and James Laing (1581), assign to Haddington the honour in question; and recent investigation has proved, moreover, that no village of Gifford was in existence until the latter half of the 17th century. So that the late David Laing, who in 1846 had followed Knox's biographer, Dr Thomas M'Crie, in preferring Gifford, reversed his verdict in 1864 in favour of the Giffordgate, a suburb of Haddington (article 'Knox' by the Rev. C. G. M'Crie, in Encycl. Britanniea, 9th ed., vol. xiv., 1882). Two lesser divines at least were natives-James Craig (1682-1744) and John Witherspoon, D.D. (172294), the president of Princetown College, New Jersey. Though the village thus is hardly two centuries old, it derived its name from the Giffords, who under William the Lyon (1165-1214) added Yestred or Yester to their Lothian possessions, and after whom the parish itself is Often' though not legally, called Gifford. Their male line failed with one Sir Hugh in 1409, but his daughter wedded an ancestor of the Marquis of Tweeddale, the present superior of Gifford. Pop. (1861) 458, (1871) 455, (1881) 382.—Ord. Sur., sh. 33, l863.
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