About the Society · Our History
Two Hundred & Seventy Years in the Service of Glasgow
The World of the Burgesses
For centuries, the right to trade or practise a craft within Glasgow belonged to the city's Burgesses and Guild Brethren — its freemen, enrolled in the Burgess Rolls kept from 1573. A merchant entered through the Merchants House; a craftsman through one of the Fourteen Incorporated Crafts, each granted legal recognition by Charter or Seal of Cause between 1516 — the Skinners & Glovers first among them — and 1605.
In 1605 the Letter of Guildry constituted the Trades House of Glasgow, the elective body that drew the Fourteen Crafts together under the Deacon Convener of the Trades. Its home since 1794 has been the Trades Hall on Glassford Street, designed by Robert Adam — the oldest building in Glasgow still serving its original purpose.
The Fourteen Incorporated Crafts of Glasgow are the Hammermen, Tailors, Cordiners, Maltmen, Weavers, Bakers, Skinners & Glovers, Wrights, Coopers, Fleshers, Masons, Gardeners, Barbers, and Bonnetmakers & Dyers. All fourteen flourish to this day as charitable bodies, and it is through membership of a Craft that Burgess-ship of Glasgow is still obtained.
The Founding of 1756
On 16th November 1756, a number of Glasgow Burgesses instituted the Grand Antiquity Society. Their purposes were threefold: to unite the old Burgess families of the city; to preserve the continuity of Burgess-ship among them from generation to generation; and to afford relief to one another and to their widows.
James Burns was elected the first Preses — the old Scots word for the one who presides — beginning a roll of office-bearers that has continued without interruption to the present day.
From the first, the Society set its qualification a generation deeper than any of the city's other Burgess bodies: membership belonged to those whose fathers and grandfathers had been Burgesses before them — the families in whom the city's story ran longest.
Chronology
From Seal of Cause to Royal Patron
The first Seal of Cause. Archbishop James Beaton grants the Skinners & Glovers their charter — the first of the Fourteen Incorporated Crafts of Glasgow.
The Burgess Rolls begin. The names of Glasgow's Burgesses and Guild Brethren are enrolled from this date — the records in which many of our members' ancestors appear.
The Letter of Guildry. The Trades House of Glasgow and the Merchants House are constituted, settling the government of the city's guildry.
The Society is instituted on 16th November. James Burns takes the chair as first Preses.
The Trades Hall opens on Glassford Street, to Robert Adam's design — still the gathering place of Glasgow's ancient trades.
The exclusive privileges of the Guilds are abolished. Fearing the Incorporations — its chief source of members — might fade, the Society registers as a Friendly Society. In Glasgow, uniquely, all fourteen Crafts survive and flourish as charitable bodies.
The Royal Charter. The Friendly Society arrangement is set aside and the Society is incorporated by Royal Charter, under which it continues today.
HRH The Princess Royal joins as Royal Patron and honorary member on 4th September, following King Edward VIII, King George VI, The Queen Mother, Princess Margaret and the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent.
A living tradition. Around 400 members, charitable funds of some half a million pounds, an annual lecture, the Sir Robert Smith Award — and the same three purposes set down in 1756.
The Longest Threads in Glasgow
What distinguishes the Society among Glasgow's historic clubs and societies is not wealth or premises but continuity. Its rolls record families whose Burgess-ship has passed unbroken through seventeen generations; its Diplomas are given at christenings and twenty-first birthdays as they were two centuries ago; and grandparents still enrol their grandchildren, as their own grandparents enrolled them.
The Society's membership records from 1756, together with the Burgess Rolls of Glasgow from 1573 held in the Trades House Digital Library, make the Society a remarkable resource for Glasgow family history — and many a genealogical search has ended with a new member at the Society's table.