Dean of Guild Courts
Dean of guild courts were first established as a way to resolve disputes between members of merchant guilds, originally only in Scottish medieval royal burghs. They gradually became the bodies responsible for building control (later called building standards) within all burghs, until abolished in 1975.
In 1469 the dean of guild was given statutory recognition as one of the ordinary royal burgh magistrates.[1] The development of dean of guild courts was individual to each burgh. In general, the dean of guild held a court to hear pleas between merchants including trade, commerce, the regulation of weights and measures and property boundaries. It also had the function of enforcing the mercantile privileges of the burgh.
The Edinburgh Dean of Guild Court also heard offences against “nychtburheid” which was essentially disputes among neighbours. From 1593 other dean of guild courts started to include this jurisdiction.[2] In time, this came to be interpreted in terms of physical encroachment by one neighbour upon another – perhaps by building an extension which intruded into a neighbour’s property or by allowing the collapse of a ruinous wall into a neighbour’s yard or by blocking up the entry to a neighbour’s close with a midden.[3]
In the 17th century the practice arose of pre-empting such disputes by requiring anyone who wished to erect a building or carry out major alterations to it to secure the permission of the dean of guild court before doing so. By the mid-17th century, the Edinburgh Dean of Guild Court began to insist the submission of a plan for approval before building.
The ordinary civil jurisdiction of guild courts died out by the end of the 18th century, and the trading privileges of the burgesses had long been in decline when they were finally abolished in 1846. The right to hear offences against neighbourliness continued, however, and evolved into building control powers.[4] The area of their jurisdiction might be limited – for example, the Dundee Dean of Guild Court only covered the ancient royalty boundary.
Until the 19th century only royal burghs with existing dean of guild courts developed these building control powers. In the 19th century individual burghs started to obtain local acts of parliament for police powers and from 1833 burghs could choose adopt the general police acts which included provisions for the burgh commissioners to ensure that ruinous buildings were demolished and that buildings being repaired were fenced off.[5] From 1862 magistrates of towns which adopted the General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Act 1862 were given the same powers as dean of guild courts.[6] The adoption of police powers including dean of guild court powers was an individual decision for each burgh and some chose to obtain local acts of parliament in preference to adopting the general acts. However, from 1892 all town councils were permitted to set up dean of guild courts[7]. In 1947 burghs were required to set up a dean of guild court if they did not already have one.[8]
The Building (Scotland) Act 1959 was the first comprehensive legislation to deal with building control and under this the dean of guild courts became building authorities.[9] The name dean of guild court remained in use until the functions of building authorities were transferred to district councils and island councils under the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1973 when the term building control was adopted.[10]
Surviving records, including building warrant plans and petitions are usually found in local authority archives services. National Records of Scotland holds a few minute books of the dean of guild courts of the burghs of Banff (B9), Dunfermline (B20), Inverkeithing (B34), Linlithgow (B48) and Peebles (B58).
Compiler: Elspeth Reid (2021)
Related Knowledge Base entries
Bibliography
Close, Rob, ‘Planning and Building Records’ Scottish Local History, 39 (1997) pp. 16-20
Gray, Iain, ‘Dean of Guild Court Records: a unique resource for Scottish Urban History’ Scottish Archives, 5 (1999) pp. 41-48
Gray, Iain, A Guide to Dean of Guild Records (Scottish Survey of Architectural Practices, 1994) [note that the locations listed in this Guide are out of date but it contains a useful history]
Irons, James Campbell, Manual of the Law and Practice of the Dean of Guild Court (Green, 1895)
Jackson, Andrew M., Glasgow Dean of Guild Court: A History (Glasgow, 1983)
McKechnie, John, ‘Buildings and Dean of Guild’ in Source book and history of administrative law in Scotland ed. by M.R. McLarty (Hodge, 1956) pp. 95-104
Smith, Annette M., The Guildry of Dundee (Abertay Historical Society, 2005)
Warden, A. J., Burgh Laws of Dundee (Longmans, Green & Co, 1872)
References
[1] Officers of burghs, 1469. The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707, [RPS] ed. by K.M. Brown and others (University of St Andrews, 2007-2021), 1468/19 <http://www.rps.ac.uk/trans/1469/19> [accessed 16 December 2018].
[2] Andrew M. Jackson Glasgow Dean of Guild Court: A History (Glasgow,1983) p.12.
[3] Act anent the reparation of ruinous houses within burghs, 1644. RPS 1644/6/265 <http://www.rps.ac.uk/trans/1644/6/265> [accessed 16 December 2018].
[4] Iain Gray A Guide to Dean of Guild Court Records (Scottish Survey of Architectural Practices, 1994), pp.3-4
[5] Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. IV c.46).
[6]General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Act 1862 (25 & 26 Vict. c.101) s.408.
[7] Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1892 (55 & 56 Vict. c.55) s.201-209.
[8] Local Government (Scotland) Act 1947 (10 & 11 Geo. VI c.43) s.321-331.
[9] Building (Scotland) Act 1959 (c.24) s.1(2).
[10] Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 (c.65) s.227.