Unto the Right Honourable, the Lords of Council and Session, the petition of John Wilson and Gilbert Blair, barbers in the Canongate / [John Wilson].

  • John Wilson
Date:
1742]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Unto the Right Honourable, the Lords of Council and Session, the petition of John Wilson and Gilbert Blair, barbers in the Canongate / [John Wilson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [ a ]. would be admitted a Member of this Incorporation, not even as a Barber, without being skilled in Anatomy and other Parts of Surgery, and undergoing a Trial in thefe Particulars. In Progrels of Time, as Luxury encreafed, the Surgeons be¬ came fine Gentlemen • and by Degrees diftinguifhed themfelves from that feryile Part of their Bufinels, Shaving and Tolling; fo that the Magiftrafes of the good Town, and other Inhabitants thereof, being thus brought under great Difficulties how to get * their Beards trinfd, an A£t of the Town-council of Edin¬ burgh was pail, of Date the 26th of July 1682, whereby it was recommended to the Incorporation of Surgeons, to take feme effectual Courfe that the City might be formfeed with a competent and fuitable Number of Perfons skilled in cutting Hair and taking off Beards; declaring, that the Perfons fo to be furnife’d, JJoould be holden as depending upon the faid In¬ corporation of Surgeons, liable to the Laws and Alls of their Calling. This laft mentioned Ad, is the Footing upon which the Barbers of Edinburgh now Hand; they are not Members of the original Incorporations of Surgeons and Barbers, they neither ele&, nor can be elected Deacons of faid Incorporation, but are form'd into a Sort of Society dependent upon the original Incorporation, from them they receive their Admiffions to feave and poll. The Barbers, as now diftinguife’d by that Name, imagining themfelves entitled to all the Privileges of the original Incor¬ poration, and to be jock-fellow like with the Surgeons, did, fome Years ago, bring a Procefs of Declarator before your Lordfliips, in order to afcertain their being equally entitled, with the Surgeons, to the above-mentioned original Seal of Caufe 1505, and bail! Privileges confequential thereof ; as alio, for Relief from fundry Grievances and Oppreffions which the Incorporation of Surgeons did daily impofe upon them, nd which Procefs was terminated by your Lordfhips Decreet; Find¬ ing, in Subftance, That the Barbers, by their Admiffion, were no
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