Minutes of the craft
The earliest manuscript volume possessed by the Hammermen is one containing the Kirkmaster’s Accounts covering the years 1494 to 1585. It is the oldest such record of any incorporated trade in Scotland as far as the Craft is aware and is of the primary importance in the study of pre-Reformation Edinburgh.
Over a number of years, the minute books of the Craft have been transcribed from the hand written minute books into electronic form, but are still in the dialect of the day. The origional minute books are held by the City Archivist and can be viewed with the approval of the Craft.
Scholars may apply to the Craft for access to the digital
transcripts of the minute books via the Boxmaster. The Contact / About Us
page provides details of the email addresses. The first series of links below
provide six page samples of the minute book transcriptions. In the
second set of links, encrypted and protected PDFs of the complete
archive are available. Also, for approved users,
who have provided appropriate assurances on the use of the data and
have acknowledged ownership of the documents by the craft, passwords
can be given to Microsoft Word versions of single documents in the archive.
Copyright of the digital records is held by the Incorporation of Hammermen of Edinburgh and
written permission is required before these documents can be distributed or used in any publication.
Our Archive
Early minutes of the trade
Sample documents
Encrypted documents
Encrypted Archive 1494 to 1585 (Word format) (PDF format)
Encrypted Archive 1583 to 1628 (Word format) (PDF format)
Encrypted Archive 1628 to 1644 (Word format) (PDF format)
Encrypted Archive to 1701 (Word format) (PDF format)
Encrypted Archive to 1732 part 1 (Word format) (PDF format)
Encrypted Archive to 1732 part 2 (Word format) (PDF format)
Return to topDownloads and other files
The history of the Incorporation of Hammermen is difficult to determine accurately. The Incorporation appears
to have been regularly meeting on or before 1477, the year in which one of its freemen masters, John Dalrymple,
endowed its altar of St. Eloi in St. Giles’ Church, placing it on the north side of the north-west pillar of
the Crossing. As far as we can now tell, the Hammermen did not receive a seal of cause until 2nd May
1483 (Beltane) but meantime we know the name of one of its Deacons, Robert Galbraith, deacon of Hammermen,
is mentioned in a writ dated 14th February 1480/1. He was probably elected at Beltane 1480,
exactly three years before the earliest known seal of cause.
More information is available here.
At the present day the Incorporation of Hammermen is one of the largest and most thriving and active incorporations in Edinburgh. It awards an annual prize for engineering and is also active in the support of the young and in other charitable works. Text from the Incorporated Trades website (June 2015).
Early records
The earliest manuscript volume possessed by the Hammermen is a book containing the Kirkmaster’s Accounts
covering the years 1494 to 1585. It is the oldest volume of any incorporated trade in Scotland,
as far as the Convenery of Trades is aware. It is of the first importance for the study of pre-Reformation Edinburgh.
Skills
The Incorporation embraced all those who worked on metal with a hammer. They included blacksmiths, farriers, saddlers, lorimers, armourers, cutlers, sword-slippers, girdle-makers, locksmiths, tinsmiths, whiteiron-men, brass-founders, coppersmiths and pewterers. Altogether there were about 20 different disciplines. Later, clock and watchmakers were added to the Incorporation. The goldsmiths and silversmiths were originally members until about 1490-92, when they formed their own separate incorporation.
Our base in Edinburgh
Until 1858 the Hammermen owned the Magdalen Chapel in the Cowgate, which was also their Convening Hall. By their agreement, the Convenery of Trades also met in the Magdalen Chapel from 1596 until 1858 (pictured here). The sumptuously restored Deacon’s Chair (1708), which is still in the Magdalen Chapel to this day, bears witness to the Incorporation’s importance and standing in the burgh in the early 18th century.
Our place
The order of precedence among the incorporations is determined not by their relative antiquity but by the Act of Sett of the Burgh of Edinburgh, which was agreed by King James VI in a decreet arbitral in 1583. Part of the reason for this is that by that time several of the trades, most of which were a century or more old, no longer possessed their original seals of cause and did not know the year in which they had been founded.
The Trades of Edinburgh website gives more information on the precedence here.
About Us
The Deacon, the Boxmaster (treasurer and secretary), the Deacon's Committee and the members of the Craft together make up the Hammermen of Edinburgh. Members are drawn from all sections of Edinburgh's cosmopolitan society. We all have the good of the city and it's citizens at our hearts.
Deacon David
He leads..
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Boxmaster Carol
She counts......
Deacon's Committee
They decide......
The Craft
We meet........