Andrew was, for many years, associated in my mind with the wonderful Scots word “kenspeckle.”  The Concise Scots Dictionary definition is given as “easily recognisable, familiar.”  The Scotsman used the word in an article about Andrew in the late 80s.  It seemed to me so entirely appropriate that it stuck.  He was a kenspeckle figure around the Signet Library, and the Society’s affairs for 58 years, particularly during his 20-year period as Clerk.  But as many have said since we heard the news of his death, and as is highlighted in his obituary published in The Times on 2 October, he was a familiar figure across a huge range of aspects of the civic life of Edinburgh, and Scotland more widely.[1]

We always say that one of the defining features of a WS is an involvement in, and the giving of service to, organisations outside one’s own legal practice, and few can have had as many such involvements as Andrew.  The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, the New Town Conservation Committee, Edinburgh World Heritage, Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre, Edinburgh Festival Council, the Dunedin Consort, the Scottish Arts Council, Old Saint Paul’s Church, and finally the WS Society.

Andrew was a fourth generation WS.  For a time, after his studies at Cambridge, it looked as though he would make his life away from Edinburgh and his family firm Bell & Scott, Bruce & Kerr WS, but he was pulled back from London, and after his apprenticeship at Davidson & Syme he did indeed become a partner in that family firm in 1969.  It was there that I first met him, when I became a newly qualified assistant solicitor with the firm.  Our first encounter was when, in my first week, I had to go and get something signed in a hurry.  But he asked me to sit down, and then asked me “Caroline, what is the purpose of the Search?”  I was only thinking about the need to complete the transaction, but he made sure I was doing things correctly, and then told me that he had never had a conveyancing document “bounced” by the Registers. I understood the message – take time to get things right. A word that Andrew used himself, particularly in relation to the Society, was “surefooted.” The Society should not adopt passing fads, but should always wait, and be surefooted in its actions.

Of all his many interests, I think it fair to say that it was buildings that were his greatest passion, and his association with the Signet Library gave him a particular pleasure.  He genuinely cared about and loved historic buildings and their details – to the extent that he spent 40 years creating the most amazing doll’s house, based on the building at 36 St Andrew Square.  He once broke off a conversation with me in George Street to say, “look at that splendid cornicing.”  And even after a lifetime of knowing and inhabiting the Signet Library, he could stand and genuinely admire details and features, as if for the first time.  He could recite the names of the poets, orators, historians and philosophers that populate the Thomas Stothard cupola painting in the Upper Library without taking a breath.

My predecessor as Deputy Keeper, John Elliot recalls that “Andrew embodied the traditions and spirit of the Society: professional, committed, proud of its traditions but not slave to them. He relished the care of the building and its artefacts, seeing in them the symbols of the Society’s history and its place in Scotland’s society and legal establishment.” 

John’s immediate predecessor, Tom Drysdale remembers Andrew’s key role in the setting up of the Edinburgh Solicitors’ Property Centre in 1971.  This was done on the joint initiative of the WS Society and the SSC Society. Andrew was one of the four directors appointed by the WS Society and in 1976 he became the company’s chairman. During 1981 and 1982 Andrew and Tom worked very closely in leading the planning and launch of the Weekly List.  This was an innovation at the time, providing basic information on all properties for sale by member solicitor firms in Edinburgh and the surrounding area. Tom says “It would be fair to say that the concept of the List was very much developed on Andrew’s initiative. Its beginnings were modest – as far as I remember it started with a weekly print run of about 3000 but in a few years’ time this had increased to about 30,000. It consolidated the profession’s position as the dominant force in the residential property market in Edinburgh and Andrew deserved much of the credit for its success.”

Inevitably, my remarks in articles of this sort are heavy on personal memories, and I hope I will be forgiven for that. On seeing the kenspeckle Andrew at a Society event, I was always thrilled.  He was never without a twinkle.  He told an excellent story, and he always dashed off leaving you wanting more. The exact opposite of a bore. And he understood so well the pressures and difficulties of steering an organisation like the Society and preserving a building like the Signet Library that he was unfailingly generous in his support for the “new guard”. It is fair to say that the depth of my own relationship with the Society, and the great pleasure that has brought me, is entirely down to Andrew.  When I moved from Bell & Scott, into commercial property work, he called me one afternoon and asked me to represent the Society at a St Giles service.  “If you say yes to this, that’s you off the hook, I won’t ask you again.”  But I am glad to say he didn’t keep that promise.  He asked me to join Council, the Library Committee and then to be a member of the committee that selected our then catering partners. I became an office bearer of the Society, and ultimately Deputy Keeper.  I record huge personal thanks to Andrew for that gift, and thanks on behalf of the Society for his care and attention over so many years.

Caroline Docherty OBE WS
Deputy Keeper of the Signet 2008 - 2018

[1] www.thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/article/andrew-kerr-cbxr59ht7