HISTORY TALKS

In January we will be launching a new season of Thursday evening talks on history at the Signet Library. The talks are free to members and guests and places will be reserved on a first come first served basis. Please book your ticket via the links below or contact library@wssociety.co.uk if you have any questions.

Thursday 9th January, 6pm for 7pm

The Bibliotheca Polonica: Poland and the Signet Library

Speaker: Dr. Kit Baston

When refugees and exiles turned to the Signet Library to save a great European culture from destruction.

In the years after Napoleon, Polish culture found itself under threat from enemies east and west. The effort to save it began here at the Signet Library in Edinburgh when a group of exiled Polish nobles and intellectuals donated a collection of rare and important books to the Library, creating a unique oasis of Polish culture out of reach of the Prussians and the Czar. Later collections would be established in Paris and London, but the Signet Library’s Bibliotheca Polonica was the very first and marked the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship between the WS Society and the Polish nation. Dr. Kit Baston’s talk is based on her research into and survey of the collection which is now in the care of the National Library of Scotland.

Accompanied by an exhibition in the Upper West Library.

 

Thursday 16th January, 6pm for 7pm

Sugar, Slaves and High Society: the Grants of Kilgraston 1750-1860.

Speaker: Richard Blake WS

The fortunes of the Grants of Kilgraston in Perthshire were interlinked with the rise and subsequent decline of the British Empire and the Caribbean slave economy. The men and women are a wonderfully varied cast of characters who were colourful, idiosyncratic, wayward and talented. As the British Empire extended its dominion, the Grants cemented their position in high society and left their mark on history as they encountered royalty and the White Rajahs of Sarawak. Drawing from his new book, Richard Blake WS explores the links between the men and women of the Grants of Kilgraston and Sarawak in south east Asia, Nova Scotia, Jamaica and Edinburgh, illuminating a crucial period in colonial history with a wonderfully varied cast of characters from an important and influential Scottish family who left a deep mark upon their times. It is hoped to have copies of the book available for purchase on the night.

 

Thursday 30th January, 6pm for 7pm

Inducing Intimacy: Deception, Consent and the Law

Speaker: Dr. Chloe Kennedy

Based in part on research conducted at the Signet Library and based upon her new book, Dr. Chloe Kennedy considers the law's response to deceptively induced intimacy across both civil and criminal law over more than two centuries. Encompassing both criminal and civil law responses within a fresh model of socio-legal history, Dr. Kennedy takes a long-term historical view which has important implications for law's treatment of induced intimacy today.

 

APPOINTMEMT OF NEW TRUSTEES

At the EGM held on 17 December, the following new appointments were confirmed. With the Current Treasurer Jim Cormack KC WS taking over as Deputy Keeper of the Signet from 1 January, of the existing trustees Tony Jones KC WS becomes Treasurer and Jennifer Skeoch WS succeeds as Fiscal.

Two new trustees were elected:

Kim Leslie WS is the lead partner of the Complex Personal Injury team in Scotland at Irwin Mitchell. Kim specialises in abuse and criminal injury claims. As chair of  ‘Restoring the Balance of Justice’ she helped to lead a campaign involving national and international experts and campaigners to overcome barriers to justice in Scotland for people who’ve experienced stalking and harassment. Currently Executive Director of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, Secretary for the Forum of Complex Injury Solicitors, Kim was admitted as a WS in 2019 and joined the Society’s Council last year.

 

Robert MacDuff- Duncan WS specialises in property work as a partner with Kippen Campbell in Perth.  A former director of the Perthshire Solicitors Property Centre, Robert is the Conveyancing Convener of the Society of Procurators and Solicitors in the City and County of Perth.  He is currently Vice President of the Society of Procurators and Solicitors in Perth. He has served as a Director of a local charity since 2005 and is active Rotarian. Robert joined the WS Society in 2007 and was appointed to its Council last year.

YOUR SCOTTISH ARCHIVES

Your Scottish Archives is a venture aimed at opening up Scotland’s archival holdings to as many people as possible. It is a new online portal creating a Scotland-wide, cross-searchable online resource. Your Scottish Archives makes it easier for anyone interested in using archival materials to find out where they are and how to use them.

The WS Society’s archive is a crucial source of information — not just about the history of the Society, its members and its library but also of the institutions, charities, causes and events that the Society has played a part in over the centuries.

We are delighted that our own archive records, which first went online in 2020 with the Archives Hub service. Click here to access the Archives Hub.

Our archive records have been included to Your Scottish Archives and they can be searched along with hundreds of other colleague archives at: https://yourscottisharchives.com/

BOOK CLUB SIG

It was great to see so many members at the first meeting of the WS Book Group in November. Members enjoyed an interesting, inter-generational discussion on Robert Harris’ Act of Oblivion. One thing that united the group was that no one had previously read this very popular author’s work. It was agreed that the group would cover a variety of genres at future meetings, and would take it in turn to choose the next book. 

Join the next WS Society Book Club meeting on 14 January, at 5.30pm, to discuss Ian Rankin’s A Heart Full of Headstones.

Please register for the next Book Club via the Zoom link here.

If you have any questions about any of our Special Interest Groups please email Sarah Leask at sleask@wssociety.co.uk.

DIET OF ADMISSION

On the 29 November 2024, the WS Society welcomed 27 new members of different categories, along with their families and friends, at our Diet of Admission.

Keeper of the Signet, Lady Elish Angiolini LT KC presided over the ceremony and provided inspiring remarks on our members' place in history. Our new members also had the opportunity to take part in tour of the Signet Library with Principal Researcher, James Hamilton.

We would like to say a warm welcome to all our new members.

January History Talks at the Signet Library

January sees a new departure for the WS Society with the launch of a new season of Thursday evening talks on history at the Signet Library. The talks are free to members and guests and places will be reserved on a first come first served basis. Please note that the talks will take place in the Commissioners Room and that there is no step-free access.

To reserve a place at any or all of the three talks please email James Hamilton — JHamilton@wssociety.co.uk

Thursday 9th January 6pm for 7pm

The Bibliotheca Polonica: Poland and the Signet Library

Speaker: Dr Kit Baston

The Signet Library was in its infancy when a group of exiled Polish nobles in Edinburgh donated a collection of rare and important books to preserve Polish culture abroad when it was threatened by Russian Czarist dominance at home. Later collections would be established in Paris and London, but the Signet Library’s Bibliotheca Polonica was the very first and marked the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship between the WS Society, the Signet Library and the Polish nation. Dr Kit Baston’s talk is based on her research into and survey of the collection which is now in the care of the National Library of Scotland.

This talk is accompanied by an exhibition about the collection in the Upper West Library.


Thursday 16th January 6pm for 7pm

Sugar, Slaves and High Society: the Grants of Kilgraston 1750-1860.

Speaker: Richard Blake WS

Drawing from his new book, Richard Blake WS explores the links between the men and women of the Grants of Kilgraston and Sarawak in south east Asia, Nova Scotia, Jamaica and Edinburgh, illuminating a crucial period in colonial history with a wonderfully varied cast of characters from an important and influential Scottish family who left a deep mark upon their times. It is hoped to have copies of the book available for purchase on the night.



Thursday 30th January 6pm for 7pm

Inducing Intimacy: Deception, Consent and the Law

Speaker: Dr Chloe Kennedy

Based in part on research conducted at the Signet Library and based upon her new book, Dr Chloe Kennedy considers the law's response to deceptively induced intimacy across both civil and criminal law over more than two centuries. Encompassing both criminal and civil law responses within a fresh model of socio-legal history, Dr. Kennedy takes a long-term historical view which has important implications for law's treatment of induced intimacy today.

WS EGM

The Clerk of the Society has served notice of the EGM of the Society to be held by Zoom at 5 pm on 17 December 2024. As Deputy Keeper Mandy Laurie WS prepares to step down at the end of this year, the purpose of the EGM is to put in place Jim Cormack WS KC’s appointment as her successor from 1 January and the consequential trustee changes.

If you intend to attend, you will need to register using the link.

A New Paper by Tom Edwards – Stair’s Institutions as Polemic

The WS Society is fortunate to have been able to count many scholars amongst its members over its centuries of existence. This has been true particularly for history and legal history, with the autumn greeting the latest WS contribution in the form of a paper from the University of Dundee’s Tom Edwards, a former Signet Summer Scholar, published in the Edinburgh Student Law Review from the University of Edinburgh.

Click the link to learn more. 

Edwards’ paper returns to the source of Scots Law and reconsiders the 1681 first edition of Stair’s Institutions of the Law of Scotland, reasserting the primacy and importance of its legal taxonomy to the survival and subsequent blossoming of Scots Law.

Edwards analyses the structure of Stair’s work in detail and discusses the extraordinary birth of the Institutions (which circulated in manuscript form for almost two decades prior to final printing in 1681, as the Signet Library’s Burnside, Anderson and Smyth manuscripts of Stair’s Institutions bear witness).

CHRISTMAS AT THE SIGNET LIBRARY

Wednesday 11 December 2024

6:00pm — 7:00pm

Join us to celebrate Christmas at the Signet Library with the Choir of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral (SC014741). With carols old and new from across the world, this year’s concert is a wonderful occasion to entertain family, friends and colleagues in the run up to the festivities.

Led by Master of the Music at St Mary’s Cathedral, Duncan Ferguson, the internationally acclaimed choir consists of choristers aged 9 - 13, university choral scholars and professional musicians, and is described as ‘one of Scotland’s musical jewels.’

Not to be missed, this unique event brings together two of Scotland’s oldest charitable institutions in an atmospheric chemistry of music, architecture and Christmas tradition.

This event is open to all.

Doors open at 5.30 pm for a 6.00 pm start. The event will finish by 6.40 pm.

Extend your festive evening in Colonnades which will be open throughout the afternoon and until 8 pm for drinks before or after the carol concert.

Tickets: £20.00 inclusive of VAT.

Children under 14 free of charge.

WS SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP

We have had a wonderful start to our Special Interest Groups (SIGs). This month Charity and Third Sector, Book Club and the History SIGs have had their inaugural meetings. These have all taken place via Zoom, to allow access to all.

Next week our Art SIG will meet on Tuesday 3 December with special guest, the President of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Mr Adebanji Alade. There's still time to sign up please follow the link if you wish to do so.

The next book for Book Club has been announced, Ian Rankin’s A Heart Full of Headstones. The meeting will take place on 14 January and you can sign up here.

Please continue to check Signet Post and our website for dates and Zoom links for upcoming sessions. SIG meetings are open to all members, regardless of qualification or level of knowledge.

If you have any questions regarding SIGs please email membership@wssociety.co.uk. If you have an idea or desire for a SIG, please get in touch with Sarah Leask sleask@wssociety.co.uk..

Jacobite Exhibition

Guests at the WS Society Annual Dinner were greeted this year by a small display of historic documents from the 1745 Rebellion which saw Bonnie Prince Charlie lead a Jacobite army from Scotland as far south as Derby before turning back to eventual defeat at Culloden. The WS Society’s mace, carried before the Society’s procession at ceremonial events, is itself a child of the Rebellion and was made for the occasion of the Duke of Cumberland’s victorious return to Edinburgh.

The other items were selected from a unique collection of 1745 material gathered by a contemporary minister, John Jardine of Liberton, whose son Sir Henry Jardine would be one of the most significant Writers to the Signet of the early nineteenth century. They include Jardine’s own certificate of safe passage, signed by the future Keeper of the Signet Lord Milton, an officer’s commission bearing the Chevalier’s signature, and pages from a remarkable – and at times highly personal – list of Edinburgh’s women organised by their personal refinements and their political leanings. This remarkable list has become the subject of two published academic works by Dr. Anita Gillespie.

Also on display was a handwritten, minute-by-minute account of the 1745 in Edinburgh, open to the page reporting the arrival in the city of the Chevalier’s ultimatum, borne by Writer to the Signet Andrew Alves (who was imprisoned for his pains), and a rare map of the Battle of Falkirk, which took place in such bad weather that both sides had considered themselves defeated.

ANNUAL DINNER 2024

A rousing send-off for the Deputy Keeper

An emotional evening on 10 November when retiring Deputy Keeper of the Signet, Mandy Laurie WS, received a rousing send off from over 200 guests at her last Annual Dinner in office. A sea of pink roses and foliage greeted guests entering an Upper Library bathed in pink light. Even the Garnkirk Florence Vase had dressed for the occasion in a fetching pyramid of dried flowers.

“ “All that is good about Scotland’s legal community”.  ”

To match the grandeur of the surroundings, guest speaker Lord Jonathan Sumption KC held the intense attention of the audience to make the case for lawyers to have broad minds rooted in broad education. Studying history and literature, he argued, multiplies and enriches experience and improves the quality of advice and judgement in lawyers and judges. It was truly an awe-inspiring speech: eloquent, elegant, analytical, and, above all, profound. You could have heard a pin drop.

““Stunning”.”
““Mind-blowingly beautiful”.”

NEW DEPUTY KEEPER OF THE SIGNET

The WS Society has announced that Mandy Laurie WS (Burness Paull) is standing down as Deputy Keeper of the Signet at the end of this year, and current Treasurer Jim Cormack KC WS (Pinsent Masons) will succeed her in office from 1 January 2025.

A reshuffle of appointments sees current trustees Tony Jones KC TD WS (Brodies) and Jennifer Skeoch WS (Burness Paull) nominated as Treasurer and Fiscal respectively, and personal injury specialist Kim Leslie WS (Irwin Mitchell) and urban and rural property specialist Robert Macduff-Duncan WS (Kippen Campbell) nominated as trustees.

Commenting on her decision to stand down, Mandy Laurie said:

I am in my 14th year as a trustee, having been Fiscal from 2011 and Deputy Keeper from 2019. Now feels the right time to pass on the mantle. It has been a terrific experience and hugely satisfying to have seen the Society through the Covid pandemic and presided when the historic step was taken to become a charity in 2021. Our appointments committee were unanimous in recommending to the Keeper of the Signet, Lady Elish Angiolini LT KC, that Jim Cormack succeed me as Deputy Keeper.

Jim Cormack said:

​I will be honoured to receive my commission as Deputy Keeper from Lady Angiolini, Keeper of the Signet. I will be building on the work of my predecessors in office to continue the renaissance of the Society and the Signet Library. Mandy Laurie has been an inspiration as Deputy Keeper, always injecting a lightness of touch, humour, and congeniality into the affairs of the Society. That the Society achieved charitable status during her tenure speaks volumes for Mandy’s qualities as a bold yet collegiate leader.

NOVEMBER DIET OF ADMISSION

We are looking forward to our November Diet of Admission where we will welcome 20 new members of different categories, and their families and friends.

Lady Eilish will preside over the ceremony and provide inspiring remarks on our member’s place is history. This is a wonderful opportunity to meet Lady Eilish and new members of the Society. We welcome all members who wish to attend.  

The Diet of Admission will take place on Friday 29 November at the Signet Library. The evening starts at 5.30 pm with the swearing in ceremony followed by a drinks reception.

We are still welcoming new applications for the Diet and if you know anyone who would be interested in becoming a member, please contact our membership team at membership@wssociety.co.uk with any enquires. 

SIGNET LIBRARY’S 2024 ONLINE EXHIBITION

Unveiling the Signet Library's 2024 Online Exhibition:

"The Signet Library's Long Eighteenth Century 1722 - 1837" tells the story of that Golden Age, during which the WS Society’s began to build its legal library burgeoned into the creation of one of the aesthetic and intellectual wonders of the late Scottish Enlightenment.

The Exhibition features our new transcription of the Charles Cockburn Letters 1714-1715, written by a new Deputy Keeper to the Signet to the Keeper in the shadow of the advancing 1715 Jacobite Rebellion and the digitization of a very early pamphlet published by the advocate John Cuninghame in 1705 illustrating legal education in Scotland in the years immediately before the foundation of the first Scottish university chairs in law.

Please direct any exhibition enquiries to James Hamilton.

Please also take some time to explore our Heritage Portal but note that owing to the DDOS attack on the internet archive certain of our digitised manuscripts and texts are temporarily offline.