The town is under the control of a provost, bailies and council, and, along with Hawick and Selkirk, forms the Hawick (or Border) group of parliamentary burghs.
On the title-page of The Triumphs of Petrarke, Fowler styles himself "P. of Hawick," which has been held to mean that he was parson of Hawick, but this is doubtful.
Hosiery manufactures, a characteristic Border industry, with its chief seat at Hawick, employed 11,957 hands in 1901.
Hawick is a substantial and flourishing town, the prosperity of which dates from the beginning of the 19th century, its enterprise having won for it the designation of "The Glasgow of the Borders."
The Baron's Tower, founded in 1155 by the Lovels, lords of Branxholm and Hawick, and afterwards the residence of the Douglases of Drumlanrig, is said to have been the only building that was not burned down during the raid of Thomas Radcliffe, 3rd earl of Sussex, in April 1570.