Tailors & Weavers & Shoemakers - Guilds?

HighlandBaby · Post by **HighlandBaby** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 1:41 pm

Hello,
Can anyone tell me where I would find records of the Scottish Tailor's Guild? Some of my ancestors were tailors in Dysart, Fife. I know that the Tailors Hall Hotel in Edinburgh was built in 1621 for the Guild of Tailors, renovated and transformed in 1998,and is now a hotel/bar, but do not know where their records are held. National Archives of Scotland or a more modern version of the guild??

Ancestors were also weavers and a shoemaker. Does anyone know where reords of guilds for these would be kept.
Also, would there be apprenticeship records aswell for all these trades?

Thanks in advance.

S.

LesleyB · Post by **LesleyB** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 3:16 pm

Hi S
..and welcome to Talking Scot

The guild records, if they survived, may be at NAS or perhaps at Fife Archives. Have you tried a search of the NAs catalogue? Those guildry records I have seen tend to be local rather than national records.

Ancestors were also weavers and a shoemaker. Does anyone know where reords of guilds for these would be kept.
Also, would there be apprenticeship records aswell for all these trades?

Again, these are likely to be local records, so it very much depends where they were working as weavers and shoemakers e.g. if in Glasgow area, I think the likely depository would be the Mitchell Library or Glasgow City Archives.

Some family history societies have published lists of tradesmen in booklet form, including Fife FHS, and they also have info on their web site:
http://www.fifefhs.org/Records/recordsindex.htm
...no Dysart tailors there, though...

Best wishes
Lesley

HighlandBaby · Post by **HighlandBaby** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 3:44 pm

Hi Lesley and thanks for the welcome and the reply

Looks like I should look in Fife so. I did wonder if it was localised as I saw a reference to a Leith Tailors' Guild. Although with Fife so near to Edinburgh, there may have been influence there. I am wondering how formal it all was in terms of apprenticeships and control over guild membership or could you just set up anywhere you liked? I know some guilds were extremely strict.

I read that the first English guild of shoemakers who called themselves "Cordwainers" was founded at Oxford in 1131 - really early, that.

I tried a brief online search of the NAS the other day for tailors but nothing obvious resulted. I will email them with my query I think.

The interesting thing is that my tailors' name was Taylor !

I will have to ask the Kingdom of Fife what it know so!!

Will keep digging.

Thanks again.

S.

Archiver · Post by **Archiver** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 10:14 pm

It may be that they were part of an incorporated trades guild, so try searching under something like that as well. I'm not sure if the Fife records are on SCAN ( www.scan.org.uk ) but they have an online catalogue through their website ( www.fife.gov.uk/archives )

Currie · Post by **Currie** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 2:32 am

Hello S.

Anyone interested in Tailoring in that part of the world may be interested in this book: “The Life of Mansie Wauch, Tailor in Dalkeith” (1828) Available in several formats here
http://www.archive.org/details/lifeofma ... 00moirrich

I haven’t read it myself but it looks quite readable.

Reviewed here http://www.british-fiction.cf.ac.uk/rev ... 28-58.html

Mansie Wauch is a tailor, an enthusiast, and a devotee of his trade; he sees all things with the eye of a shaper of cloth: he eats, drinks, loves, and fights, with the true heart of the true tailor. That he is a tailor, is the groundwork and substratum of his character; all other parts of the man are but the facings, trimmings, and linings which make up his individuality.

Alan

HighlandBaby · Post by **HighlandBaby** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 12:42 pm

Thanks for your info Archiver and Currie, will look into those. There is a great book about an Irish tailor and his wife, who were real characters, called The Tailor and Ansty. It caused a real stir at the time and I think it was banned and/or burned, although nothing too scandalous by today's standards.