| AdminHistory | Dean of Guild courts have their origin in Scotland's medieval royal burghs. The monopoly of foreign trade and the right to buy and sell goods wholesale was reserved to merchants who organised themselves into merchant guilds to safeguard their privileges. An elected Dean of Guild sat at the head of this exclusive group of the wealthiest of the citizens of the burgh. The Dean also assumed the status of a magistrate with a legal jurisdiction over cases arising from trade. However, the lasting role of Dean of Guild courts in discharging supervisory powers over buildings only developed from the seventeenth century. By the nineteenth century many of the Dean of Guild courts had dwindled in influence and the powers given to Police Commissioners encroached on their traditional areas of jurisdiction. There was a proliferation of authorities responsible for buildings and planning matters until the situation was rationalised under the 1892 Burgh Police (Scotland) Act. This specified the duties and procedure to be followed by all Dean of Guild Courts. There was no compulsion to have a building control authority until 1903. The Dean of Guild courts were abolished by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 on 16 May 1975 and their functions are now discharged by the building control department of district councils. Any proposal to erect, alter or demolish a building within the burgh of St Andrews required the sanction of the Court. The only building work outwith its jurisdiction was that undertaken by the Crown, railway companies and Scottish Health board. Consent for building work was sought by a petition, (an application from 1964) accompanied by drawings detailing the nature of the proposal. The drawings were inspected to ensure that they met the regulations on stability, access to light, ventilation and sanitary arrangements of the new building. Petitions could be opposed and objections were sought. Source: Ian Gray, A Guide to Dean of Guild Court Records, (Glasgow, 1994). |