1815 - 1817 Scroll Book - Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee

At a General Meeting of the Guildry Incorporation of Dundee held within the Guild Hall of
Dundee upon Wednesday the eighth day of October in the year one thousand eight hundred
and seventeen at twelve o’clock noon in terms of the Act of Parliament passed in the fifty fifth
year of the Majesty’s reign entitled “An Act for improving the Harbour of Dundee in the
County of Forfar” and of an advertisement signed by Patrick Anderson late Dean of Guild,
dated the eighteenth day of September last and inserted in the Newspapers called the Dundee,
Perth and Cupar Advertiser published in Dundee on the nineteenth day of September last, and
also in terms of a requisition dated the twenty fourth day of September last signed by twenty
members agreeably to the bye laws enacted on the ninth day of October in the year One
thousand eight hundred and Sixteen. Which requisition having been submitted both to the
late Dean of Guild Anderson and the present Dean of Guild Whitson was refused to be
complied with by both of them, and thereafter it was regularly followed up and intimated and
advertised in the Dundee Perth and Cupar Advertiser of the twenty sixth September last in
terms of the said bye laws of the ninth October last by James Saunders Clerk to the Guildry
Committee.
The Dean of Guild protested against any other clause being introduced in the preamble than
that which regarded the election of Harbour Commissioners.
Present 124 members
Mr Small the Toun Clerk offered to act as the Clerk to the Meeting.
The Toun Clerks were called upon to show their authority to act as Clerks of this Meeting.
Mr James Ivory Advocate moved that as the Toun Clerks though called upon, produced no
Commission under which they are entitled to act as Clerks to the Guildry Incorporation as
they were never elected Clerks to the Incorporation itself, as they cannot have been so elected
by the Magistrates and Toun Council, or Dean of Guild all of who have denied, and are now
contending at Law that there is no such Corporation as the Guildry Incorporation at all, as
besides they avowedly act as the private assessors and advisers of the Dean of Guild with
whom the Incorporation is now engaged in a process of law; drawing out or assisting the Dean
to draw out his Protests against the Incorporation and giving advice in their individual slips
against the Incorporation proceedings, with which private assessorship and advice the
impartial duties of a Clerk are altogether incompatible; as the statute contains nothing which
in any shade takes from the Incorporation their right to elect their own Clerk, that therefore
and for all these reasons James Saunders Writer in Dundee be elected Clerk of the Meeting.
Mr Roberts seconded the motion.
The Dean of Guild called the roll and James Saunders was unanimously elected Clerk of the
Meeting; Patrick Anderson, George Thoms, David Blair, William Rodger. James Gray,
Kinnaird Brown, David Brown, David Hazel, Alexander Riddoch, George Clark, William Small
and William Barrie declined to vote; the latter stating as his reason, that he had acted at this
meeting as a Notary Public in taking a protest against certain proceedings.
The Dean of Guild stated that before the motion regarding the Clerk was put he had taken a
protest against the proceedings of the Meeting in electing a Clerk, in the hands of William
Barrie Notary Public, and he now protested against the proceedings for the reasons stated in
the following protest.
“I Patrick Whitson Dean of Guild protest against any other person than the Toun Clerks acting
as Clerks to the meeting. These Clerks have from time immemorial acted as Clerks to the Dean
of Guild and at all meetings of the Guildry, a part of their salary is paid and received for acting
as such. Besides the Dean of Guild is appointed by law to preside at the present Meeting has a
right to insist that the proceedings should be recorded by the usual Clerks who have been
from time immemorial recognised as ex officio Clerks to the Dean. I farther conceive it to be
totally incompetent for this present meeting to elect a Clerk, but if such election shall be
resorted to by the meeting. I protest that whatever may be the result I shall not by proceeding
with the statutory purpose of the meeting be held as recognising the right of the gentlemen
present to elect a Clerk to act at the present meeting. Om the contrary I reserve entire my
whole objections to such a nomination and protest that neither my privileges nor the
privileges of the Toun Council of Dundee of which I am a member shall be thereby in any
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