Registers of Liquor Licensing

The early registers of certificates issued, whether by Justices of the Peace (JPs) or by burgh magistrates, are usually brief, single-line entries with annual lists of names, addresses (or at least a place, or in a burgh a street name), and occupation (normally ‘spirit dealer’, ‘publican’ or ‘change-keeper’). These registers may include transfers of certificates between licensees, or there may be separate records of these. They may be in the form of registers of applications granted, or simply of applications, with a note of whether or not they were granted or refused. Only a small minority were refused, almost always without reason given (or at least recorded). In nineteenth-century burghs the magistrates would take reports from the police or the watchmen as to the reputations of licensees, and these reports may also survive. The early registers may be for the sale of ale or spirits or both. Those under the later Licensing Acts specify the type of licence, distinguishing for example between those for inns and hotels, for public houses and for dealers in spirits, groceries and provisions. In the case of public houses and hotels, licenses were granted to the individual, rather than the establishment.

The limitations of these records are obvious: apart from police reports, they give little indication of the contribution of these premises to social life. It is almost unknown for them to give the names of public houses. Early registers just give the name of the licensee, later ones do at least give the address even if the ‘sign’ that the hostelry is known under is not detailed. Where minute books of magistrates’ committees survive, and especially where there are actual transcripts of proceedings before licensing magistrates, however, they can give a wealth of information about changing social attitudes towards drink, temperance, conviviality and respectability.

For liquor licensing registers of a burgh the most likely place these will survive will be among burgh records, normally with the appropriate local authority archives service, or the National Records of Scotland. Registers compiled by JPs may either be with local authority archives or with the National Records of Scotland, depending on the county concerned.

Kirk session records

The kirk session was the lowest presbyterian church court in Scotland from the time of the Reformation onwards. The session in each parish was made up of the minister and the elders and was responsible for supervising morals and discipline, such as handling cases of drunkenness, sabbath-breaking and ante-nuptial fornication. The kirk session of Church of Scotland parishes was also responsible for poor relief until 1845 and along with the heritors was responsible for the parish school until 1872.

Kirk session minutes normally begin with the sederunt, often in the form ‘Sederunt: Mr Anderson, minister, Mr Paton, Mr Low, etc, elders. . .’ or ‘Presentibus Ministro, Mr Paton, Mr Low, etc, elders’. There follows summaries of each case, usually beginning something like ‘Compeared Jenny Brown who confessed herself guilty of ante-nuptial fornication . . ..’ or ‘Robert Meldrew called, compeared not . . .’ Evidence of the accused and any witnesses are summarised, and the decision of court is recorded. The most common sentences for miscreants were fines or having to stand in the place of public repentance during Sunday services. Cases often took several weeks or even months to run their course. The many cases of ante-nuptial fornication in the minutes, sometimes with much detail about which parish a child was conceived in, were necessary to establish which male would be liable for maintenance of the child, failing whom the poors’ fund would have to support the child.

Unless separate accounts survive, the minutes might also include financial details, especially amounts of money raised in church collections and bequests, and (in the case of more sophisticated parishes) income from rents from property owned by the kirk or interest from loans to merchants. The most frequently listed disbursements concern poor relief, with lists of paupers and the amount of money each received. Other disbursements may be listed, such as the costs of repairs to the church and schoolhouse, and the schoolmaster’s salary (although these were, strictly speaking, the responsibility of the Heritors) as well as payments for the annual communion service.

Kirk session minutes are a key source of information on social and church history, but can also be of use to local historians and genealogists. Searching through kirk session minutes can be time-consuming. Although the handwriting prior to 1750 can be difficult, the form and terminology of kirk session minutes is relatively straightforward and quickly grasped.

Before the 19th century it was common practice to record financial details in the session minutes, especially amounts of money raised in church collections and bequests. Prior to 1845, the most frequently listed disbursements concern poor relief, with lists of paupers and the amount of money each received. Support for the poor was mainly in the form of weekly or monthly cash handouts, but other types of support might be the fuel (such as coal or peat), medicine (or the costs of medical care), and the payment of school fees of pauper children. Some churches kept their financial records separately from the session minutes and if these have survived they can be a useful source for understanding poor relief in a parish. One notable survival is the minute book for Dundee General Kirk Session during the Cromwellian siege and occupation of the town where the accounts include support for the prisoners.[1] The secession churches developed the concept of a separate Board of Managers or Deacons’ Court to deal with financial and property matters and these bodies produced their own minutes as well as separate financial records for the congregation.

Kirk session minutes for some parishes survive from the late 16th century, but for most parishes continuous runs of minutes survive from the late 17th century. The session minutes for some parishes are held by the National Records of Scotland, while others are held by local authority archives under the charge and superintendence of the Keeper of the Records of Scotland. In a few cases churches may have retained the session minute books. To find out whether minutes survive for a particular parish contact either the appropriate local authority archive or the National Records of Scotland. The older minutes for several kirk sessions have been published. Those minutes which have been digitised are now gradually being made available through Virtual Volumes on the ScotlandsPeople website <https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/virtual-volumes> [accessed 26 April 2024].

Commonly Occurring Words and Terms

Ante-nuptial fornication – pre-marital sex

Compeared – Appeared before the session.

Fama – Rumour

Ministro – Minister (Latin)

Presbytery – Church court, superior to the kirk session

Presentibus – Present in court (Latin)

Sederunt – Present in court (Latin)

Synod – Church court, superior to the presbytery

References

[1] Dundee City Archives CH2/1218/16.

Heritors’ records

Heritors’ records typically include minute books, accounts and financial records, correspondence and letter books. They often include assessment rolls used for levying assessments on heritors, which may be written into the minute books or may be separate documents. Localities of stipend, which identified responsibilities for contributing to the minister’s stipend, are also found in these records and there may also be lists of parish inhabitants and lists of the poor.

Most surviving heritors records are held by the National Records of Scotland.

The overlapping responsibilities of kirk sessions, heritors and (after 1845) parochial boards can result in records of these different bodies being contained in the same volumes. Although the boundaries of civil and ecclesiastical parishes were not always identical, parochial board records sometimes include pre-1845 material, because they began life as heritors’ or kirk session records. Examples are minute books of the heritors or of a heritors’ committee on the management of the poor’s fund, poor rolls, registers of poor persons, and accounts. Anyone researching poor relief or other matters for a given parish is strongly advised to look at the catalogues to the records of all three of these bodies (kirk sessions, heritors, and parochial boards).

Electoral rolls

Electoral rolls of voters’ rolls are lists of people eligible to vote in local, parliamentary or other elections. Not everyone could vote. Only a few men were able to vote before 1832 when the electoral system was reformed. Legislative changes during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries gradually increased the number of men who could vote. Women were first allowed to vote in local elections in 1882 and by 1930 all men and women aged 21 and over could vote, lowered to 18 in 1969 and in Scotland to 16 from 2014.

Electoral rolls usually include the first name and surname of each voter and their residence. Until 1918, as the right to vote was based property owned or rented, electoral rolls also include the voter’s occupation, their qualification to vote and the address of the qualifying property. They also showed the date on which individuals reached voting age during their first year on the electoral roll and show any restrictions on voting (such as European citizens who could only vote in certain elections).

Electoral rolls are arranged by electoral area and street address, so knowledge of the address will be necessary to search for a person, possibly gained from a contemporary printed post office directory. Electoral rolls can give information about a number of electors at an address, such as relatives or lodgers, or neighbours, or changes in areas of high turnover of occupants.

Since 2003, two versions of electoral rolls have been compiled – the open and the full rolls – and voters have had the right to have their name excluded from the open register. The open register can be purchased and used for marketing purposes while the full register can only be used for electoral purposes. Individuals have also the right to request anonymous registration for personal safety and the details of young people under 16 are not published.

The survival of electoral rolls is patchy. Some local authority archives services will still have papers about drawing up the electoral roll for 1832 and some will hold important rolls such as those for 1918 and 1945 compiled for returning members of the armed forces. The National Library of Scotland holds copies of almost all electoral registers from 1946 to the present for the whole of Scotland.

Current and recent full electoral rolls can only be accessed for lawful electoral purposes. In order to comply with this legal restriction, access to full electoral rolls is normally restricted for at least 10 years.

Education records

Records created by schools prior to 1873 are very few, but details of their administration can often be extracted from the minute books of bodies which ran or supervised them, such as kirk sessions, presbyteries, heritors and burgh councils. Family papers may include records relating to private schooling (both at fee paying schools and by private tutor within the home).

Official records of individual state schools date from 1873, following the Education Act of 1872 which required schools to provide annual returns and other reports to the Scotch Education Department.[1] The Scotch Code which followed the Act then required schools to maintain admissions registers, lefts registers, attendance registers and school log books.[2]

Also from 1873 onwards the various local authorities which administered schools (school boards, education authorities and school management committees, county councils and counties of cities) were required to maintain minutes of their meetings and may also have retained financial or other records.

The survival of these records is patchy, as there was no legal requirement to retain them permanently. Most surviving records of state schools have been deposited in local archives services but some may still be held by individual schools. Private schools, including fee-paying schools and specialist schools for children and young people with special needs, are likely to have kept their own records.

Contributors: Alison Lindsay (National Register of Archives for Scotland 2002); Robin Urquhart (SCAN 2002); Elspeth Reid (2021)

Related Knowledge Base entries

School admission registers

School log books

School Board minutes

References

[1] Education (Scotland) Act 1872 (35 & 36 Vict. c.62) s.74

[2] Scotch Education Department, 1874. Code of regulations, with an appendix of new articles and of all articles modified, by the Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council on Education in Scotland 1874 (c.930) Articles 34-40

All
Education records

Will I be able to get hold of essays, artwork and other class work I did at school?

Almost certainly not. By and large, a school will destroy class work done by a pupil, which does not count towards examinations, within a few years of that pupil leaving school. Normally, archives in Scotland will accession head teachers’ school log books, admission registers, and occasionally a few other types of school records, but certainly not large quantities of pupils’ class work. Sometime school magazines, where they survive, will include examples of prose, poetry and artwork.

Where will I find photographs of schools and old school class photographs?

There are a few options you can try.

School Buildings and Classroom Scenes.

Most local authority archives have collections of photographs which are likely to include photographs of school buildings and may also have some classroom scenes.

Class Photographs

Each year photographs of classes and individual pupils is carried out in most primary schools and some secondary schools. Usually a local photographer is hired by the school (or by the education authority) to take the photographs. Copy prints are offered to parents of the children. Sometimes the school keeps copy prints of group photographs of classes. The negatives and the copyright, in general, are retained by the photographer. There is no general archive of school class photographs in Scotland. Therefore, apart from the occasional class photograph which finds its way to an archive or local studies library, there are four possible sources for individual and group photographs of school pupils. The first is the family of the school pupil. The second is the school itself (but there is no guarantee that the school will have kept photographs, and even if it has, these are likely to be framed prints of group photographs). The third is a former pupil association, if one exists, which may have maintained collections of photographs. The fourth is the local photographer who did the work. In the case of recent photographs, it may be possible to track down the photographer, if the school staff remember which photographer carried out the work and the photographer is still in business. For photographic work carried out beyond the living memory of staff in the school concerned, it would be time consuming to find out the name of the photographer through the school log books (if they survive, and if the head teacher has recorded the name of the photographer – most do not). Even if the name of the local photographer was found, there is little chance that the firm will still be in existence, and even less chance that an archive will have received the firm’s negatives. If these do survive, against all odds, the collection may be listed in John Wall (ed.), Directory of British Photographic Collections (1977).

How can I find out which schools operated in a particular place at a particular time?

For the period prior to 1873, the most comprehensive list of schools in Scotland is contained in the questionnaires returned by schoolteachers in each parish and burgh of Scotland to the Parliamentary Education Select Committee of 1838. These form part of official parliamentary papers, series of which are held by the National Library of Scotland, the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, and some university libraries.

For the period after 1873, there are several options. Postal Directories for each county and town have, in many cases, an appendix with a list of educational establishments. In the case of cities, such as Glasgow and Edinburgh, these are subdivided by district. Many directories are available at <https://digital.nls.uk/directories/> [accessed 26 April 2024]. Francis H. Groome’s Ordnance Gazetteer for Scotland (various editions) mentions how many schools were in each place (in most cases) but does not name the schools.

If the education authority (e.g. school board, county council, etc) published a diary or annual handbook, these might be held by the local authority archive service or local studies library for the area concerned, and these usually list the schools and other educational establishments in the area. The local archives or library may have other resources or might have compiled lists of schools to help with these kinds of enquiries.

If the minutes of the school board for the area concerned survive for the period beginning 1873, it is worth looking at the minutes, as these usually contain information about the various schools in the parish run by the various churches, charitable organizations and so on, usually because the school board would, be discussing which ones to take over themselves.

Where will I find records relating to a pupil who attended a private school after 1872?

The records of most private schools are held by schools themselves, but the surviving historical records of some have been deposited in the National Records of Scotland. Others, held privately, have been surveyed by the Business Archives Council (Scotland) and the National Register of Archives for Scotland.

You should

check the Discovery website <https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/> [accessed 26 April 2024] using the name of the school. This will tell you whether the records of the school are held by an archives service (such as the National Records of Scotland) or have been surveyed by the National Register of Archives for Scotland;
check if the records have been surveyed by the Business Archives Council (Scotland);
if the school itself still exists, check with the School Secretary or Head Teacher.

Where will I find records relating to a pupil who attended a public school after 1872?

From 1873 onwards schools in Scotland fell into two categories: public schools (publicly run schools funded partly by local taxation), and private schools (funded by fee-paying pupils or by charitable or religious bodies). if you know the name of the school the pupil attended then you should

Look at the online catalogues of the local authority archives service which covers the location of the school. (See YSA contacts)
If you cannot find a reference for the school in these online catalogues, contact the relevant local authority archives service
If the school still exists, check with the School Secretary or the Head Teacher

If you do not know the name of the school go to the FAQ How can I find out which schools operated in a particular place at a particular time?

If the pupil went to a private school (i.e. a school funded by fee-paying pupils or by a charitable or religious body) and you know the name of the school go the FAQ Where will I find records relating to a pupil who attended a private school after 1872?

For more information about the content of school records see the Knowledge Base entries on School Admission Registers and School Logbooks.

Where will I find records relating to a pupil who attended school prior to 1873?

If you know which part of Scotland someone came from, but not the name of the school(s) the pupil attended go to the FAQ How can I find out which schools operated in a particular place at a particular time?

Records created by schools themselves for this period are very rare, but some pupil records exist in the form of subscription lists (those pupils for whom school fees were paid in any given term or year). The records of most private schools are held by schools themselves, but the surviving historical records of some have been deposited in the National Records of Scotland. Others, held privately, have been surveyed by the Business Archives Council (Scotland) and the National Register of Archives for Scotland.

You should :

Look at the online catalogues of the local authority archives service which covers the location of the school or contact relevant the archives service. (See YSA contacts);
Check the Discovery website <https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ > [accessed 26 April 2024] using the name of the school. This will tell you whether the records of the school are held by an archives service or have been surveyed by the National Register of Archives for Scotland;
Check if the records have been surveyed by the Business Archives Council (Scotland);
If the school itself still exists, check with the School Secretary or Head Teacher.

Where can I find information about Scottish schools in parliamentary papers?

Parliamentary papers are a good source of information about schools and education in Scotland. They include evidence presented to parliamentary commissions and statistical returns by the head teachers of schools. For example, schoolteachers’ returns to the 1838 Education Select Committee’s questionnaire gives information about all the schools in each parish in Scotland at that time. There is a very good guide to the contents of 19th century parliamentary papers in J. A. Haythornthwaite, N. C. Wilson and V. A. Batho, Scotland in the Nineteenth Century: an analytical bibliography of material relating to Scotland in Parliamentary Papers, 1800-1900 (Scolar Press, 1993).

Parliamentary papers are held by large reference libraries (such as the National Library of Scotland, the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, Edinburgh City Libraries, and some university libraries). Parliamentary Papers are also available online through ProQuest which is a subscription service used by university libraries and some large reference libraries. For other options go to <https://archives.parliament.uk/online-resources/parliamentary-papers/ > [accessed 26 April 2024].

Where can I obtain confirmation of University examination results?

Information about university graduations and internal exams are held by individual universities.

Where can I obtain information about the examination results of another person (e.g. an ancestor, or the subject of a biography)?

Records of examination results are subject to the Data Protection Act 2018. Information about the Higher Leaving exam in Scotland between 1908 and 1948 are held by the National Records of Scotland under the reference ED36 and ED40. They survive in the form of bound volumes of returns by each school listing the names of the candidates, subjects, grades and marks. The volumes are arranged alphabetically by the parish or burgh in which each school was found. There is a closure period of 100 years.

Where can I obtain confirmation of my own school examination results?

There are different places to check depending on when you sat your exams.

1948-present

If you require confirmation of any formal examinations, such as O Grades, Standard Grades, National 4, National 5, Highers, Certificates of Sixth Year Studies or Advanced Highers, you should apply to the Scottish Qualifications Authority. <https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/70972.html> [accessed 26 April 2024].

1908-48

If you sat the Higher Leaving exam in Scotland between 1908 and 1948, the records are held by the National Records of Scotland under the reference ED36 and ED40. They survive in the form of bound volumes of returns by each school listing the names of the candidates, subjects, grades and marks. The volumes are arranged alphabetically by the parish or burgh in which each school was found. The records are subject to the Data Protection Act 2018, so you should make your enquiry by letter or by e-mail. <https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/> [accessed 26 April 2024].

Death records – Undertakers & masons

The records of firms of undertakers and monumental masons in Scotland have not survived in any great quantity. The whereabouts of the records of the famous Glasgow firm of Mossman & Co (apart from a job book of William Mossman’s for 1835-9 in Glasgow City Archives) remains a mystery. Wylie & Lochhead Ltd, Glasgow’s leading firm of undertakers between the 1830s and the Second World War, are held partly in private hands, partly by Glasgow City Archives and partly (among the records of the House of Fraser) by Glasgow University Archive Services.

For research into the burial of an individual, the records of undertakers and monumental masons cannot be recommended as a likely source of information.

For those researching the history of the firms themselves, the best source for known records which are held privately and not in an archives service is the National Register of Archives Scotland.

Information about the location of records held by archives services and community archives in Scotland may be found on Your Scottish Archives; or on Discovery (please note that Discovery includes records from all parts of the UK)

Death records – Cemeteries

Since the mid-19th century, the upkeep of almost all burial grounds in Scotland has become the responsibility of local authorities: initially parochial boards and burghs, then parish councils and burghs, then burghs and district councils (of county councils), then post-1975 district councils, and now (since 1996) unitary local authorities. Many private burial grounds, previously run by commercial companies or religious bodies, were taken over and new cemeteries built between the 1890s and 1960s. Crematoria have also been constructed since the 1890s, some run by local authorities and some privately run. In some cases the records of the management of a private burial ground taken over by a local authority were transferred, but for others little was saved. From 1855 burial registers should have been maintained by the burial authority.[1] From 2016 there have been legal requirements to maintain electronic burial and cremation registers and for the local authority to maintain a register of private burials.[2]

Burial registers and related records are most often held by the relevant department of the local authority, who continue to require them for operational purposes. However, in some cases the records (or microfilm copies of the records) may be held by the local studies library or archives service of the local authority.

For access, the first point of contact should be the local studies library or local authority archive service since these will doubtless have answered many identical or similar enquiries. Under the 2016 Act there is a right of access to the information in burial registers but the local authority is entitled to charge for this access.[3] Note that those records which contain information about living individuals (such as lair registers) may be subject to data protection closure periods. An alternative, whether or not the records of the burial ground survive, may be to look for published monumental inscriptions from the burial ground.

References

[1] Burial Grounds (Scotland) Act 1855 (18 & 19 Vict. c.68) s.31.

[2] Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016 (asp. 20) s10, s.23, s.102.

[3] Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016 (asp. 20) s.10(3).

Death Records – Mortcloths

A mortcloth (from the Latin word mors, mortis, meaning ‘death’) was a form of pall, that is, a large cloth (usually black) thrown over a coffin or corpse at a funeral. Mortcloths were kept by kirk sessions (church courts in each parish). Some were more elaborate than others, and a wealthier parish might have more than one (including a small one for corpses of children). They were hired, usually by the family or next of kin of the deceased, to cover the coffin (if a coffin could be afforded), or the corpse itself (if a coffin could not be afforded).

As the kirk session was responsible for poor relief until 1845, it might allow use of a mortcloth without charge, if the deceased or his family were paupers. For example, an act of the kirk session of Penicuik records that a velvet mortcloth was purchased in 1670 for £192 and 19 shillings Scots, and that those who contributed to the cost were allowed use of it for free.[1] Otherwise, it was hired out for 2 shillings and 6 pence Scots for burials in the parish, and 40 shillings Scots for burials outwith the parish.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, some people formed or joined friendly societies, paying subscriptions which paid for future funeral expenses. For example, the rules of the Haddington Mortcloth Society, 1833, survive in the National Records of Scotland.[2]

References to payments for mortcloths (along with payments for coffins or digging the grave of named persons) may appear in kirk session minutes and accounts, heritors’ minutes or accounts, or old parish registers. By recording a payment for a mortcloth, these may provide the approximate date of death of the corpse. These can be a substitute when burial records are missing or were not kept but reading through minute books and accounts of kirk sessions and heritors can require a lot of research time, often with little reward.

References

[1] National Records of Scotland, GD18/3980.

[2] NRS GD302/142.

Death Records – Monumental Inscriptions

Monumental inscriptions – the inscriptions on gravestones and monuments found in burial grounds – contain information about families and individuals which often supplement or pre-date written registers of burials and deaths. They can be particularly useful in listing names of individuals where burial registers do not survive and where the individuals do not appear in baptism or marriage registers because they did not belong to the Church of Scotland. Many Scottish burial grounds have been surveyed and indexed by local history, family history and antiquarian societies, and the results published. Local archives services and libraries can usually provide access to local published monumental inscriptions. It is worth noting that not all families could afford a monument and there are many burials which took place in unmarked common ground in cemeteries and burial grounds. The Scottish Association of Family History Societies maintains a guide to burial grounds with details of what has been published. <https://www.safhs.org.uk/burialgrounds.php> [accessed 26 April 2024]

Death records – Hospital death registers

Many admission and discharge registers kept by hospitals include information about patients who died in hospital. In some cases, a separate register of deaths may be kept. For a few Scottish hospitals these registers go back to the second half of the 18th century. The form and information content of registers vary between hospitals.

There is a centralised hospitals database which is no longer being updated but which will give some indication of where records may be found <https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords/search.asp > [accessed 26 April 2024]

The Wellcome Collection has digitised registers of deaths from some hospitals. <https://wellcomecollection.org/collections> [accessed 26 April 2024]