United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions

This Order was promoted by the Trades House of Glasgow, a corporate body originating in 1605 by Letter of Guildry, and ratified and confirmed subsequently by Acts of Parliament. Two of the fourteen trade guilds which constituted the House, the Incorporation of Tailors and the Incorporation of Maltmen, were opposing the Order, and the money required for the promotion had been subscribed by the twelve other incorporations.

The four senior incorporations—the hammermen, the tailors, the cordiners, and the maltmen—had each six representatives in the House, the weavers had four, the bakers, skinners, wrights, coopers, fleshers, masons, gardeners, and barbers three each, and the dyers two. The Order proposed, while leaving the representation of the four senior as at present, to make the representation of each of the ten junior incorporations four, thereby increasing the total number of representatives from 54 to 64. The House was possessed of large funds which it had to administer, and the income from which it used in giving pensions, bursaries, subscriptions, and donations. Its deacon convener was ex officio a member of Glasgow Town Council and a director of many benevolent institutions. The House also had the right to nominate representatives to sit on the boards of direction of various public bodies, such as the Clyde Navigation Trust, &c.

The opposition was based on the grounds that the constitution of such an ancient institution as the Trades House of Glasgow should not be altered save for some very clearly established and practical reason; that there was no substantive cause even put forward for the change proposed, which again was going to base the constitution of the House on no logical principle; that the present representation could be defended as a recognition of the greater efforts of the senior incorporations in early days; that the change would give—and that might be exercised to the detriment of the senior incorporations—additional power to the junior incorporations in dealing with pensions.

The Commissioners found the preamble proved.