GILLIE (from the Gael. gille, Irish gille or giolla, a servant or boy), an attendant on a Gaelic chieftain; in this sense its use, save historically, is rare. The name is now applied in the Highlands of Scotland to the man-servant who attends a sportsman in shooting or fishing. A gillie-wetfoot, a term now obsolete (a translation of gillie-casfliuch, from the Gaelic cas, foot, and fliuch, wet), was the gillie whose duty it was to carry his master over streams. It became a term of contempt among the Lowlanders for the “tail” (as his attendants were called) of a Highland chief.
GILLIES, JOHN (1747-1836), Scottish historian and classical scholar, was born at Brechin, in Forfarshire, on the 18th of January 1747. He was educated at Glasgow University, where, at the age of twenty, he acted for a short time as substitute for the professor of Greek. In 1784 he completed his History of Ancient Greece, its Colonies and Conquests (published 1786). This work, valuable at a time when the study of Greek history was in its infancy, and translated into French and German, was written from a strong Whig bias, and is now entirely superseded (see [Greece:] Ancient History, “Authorities”). On the death of William Robertson (1721-1793), Gillies was appointed historiographer-royal for Scotland. In his old age he retired to Clapham, where he died on the 15th of February 1836.
Of his other works, none of which are much read, the principal are: View of the Reign of Frederic II. of Prussia, with a Parallel between that Prince and Philip II. of Macedon (1789), rather a panegyric than a critical history; translations of Aristotle’s Rhetoric (1823) and Ethics and Politics (1786-1797); of the Orations of Lysias and Isocrates (1778); and History of the World from Alexander to Augustus (1807), which, although deficient in style, was commended for its learning and research.
GILLINGHAM, a market town in the northern parliamentary division of Dorsetshire, England, 105 m. W.S.W. from London by the London & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 3380. The church of St Mary the Virgin has a Decorated chancel. There is a large agricultural trade, and manufactures of bricks and tiles, cord, sacking and silk, brewing and bacon-curing are carried on. The rich undulating district in which Gillingham is situated was a forest preserved by King John and his successors, and the site of their lodge is traceable near the town.
GILLINGHAM, a municipal borough of Kent, England, in the parliamentary borough of Chatham and the mid-division of the county, on the Medway immediately east of Chatham, on the South-Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1891) 27,809; (1901) 42,530. Its population is largely industrial, employed in the Chatham dockyards, and in cement and brick works in the neighbourhood. The church of St Mary Magdalene ranges in date from Early English to Perpendicular, retaining also traces of Norman work and some early brasses. A great battle between Edmund Ironside and Canute, c. 1016, is placed here; and there was formerly a palace of the archbishops of Canterbury. Gillingham was incorporated in 1903, and is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. The borough includes the populous districts of Brompton and New Brompton. Area, 4355 acres.