Examples of Session Papers:

Digitized Session Papers from Signet Library Collections

Not strictly a Session Paper! But bound by its collector, advocate John Hope, into a volume of Session Papers: the indictment of William (Deacon) Brodie, 1788, complete with annotations made in court during the trial.

What follows are digitized examples from the Signet Library Session Papers. These are best viewed in full screen mode in a desktop environment.

The indictment of deacon brodie 1788

Strictly speaking the first of our examples is not a Session Paper at all. Indictments were documents produced by and for the main Scottish criminal court, the Court of Justiciary. But collectors of Session Papers would often include a wide range of document types within single bound volumes - in Signet Library collections, these include handwritten pieces about cases, letters, newspapers, printed pieces of legislation and, as here, criminal indictments.

The startling case of Deacon Brodie forms the background of an important Signet Library manuscript, the 1788 Diary of George Sandy, and you can read much more about it here: George Sandy’s Cases. In short: William Brodie was a successful Edinburgh businessman and politician of the period of the high Scottish Enlightenment who for reasons lost to history was living a double life as a housebreaker. When his gang was finally apprehended early in 1788, he fled abroad but was arrested in the Netherlands and returned to Scotland for trial. Multiple legends have arisen around Brodie - he is said to have invented the gallows on which he was hanged: alternatively, he is alleged to have bested the hangman altogether by some ruse and was later revived and spirited away.

the legal end of slavery in scotland: knight v wedderburn, 1775-1778

In the case of Joseph Knight against John Wedderburn, Knight, an enslaved man transported into Scotland by John Wedderburn where he lived under compulsion as Wedderburn’s servant, married a local woman but was refused permission by Wedderburn to live with her as man and wife. Knight fled Wedderburn, but was captured. He appealed to the court in Perth for his freedom on grounds that may have been inspired by Somersett’s case of 1772. His case went to the Court of Session where after years of argument and counter-argument he won his case and thereby also won the automatic freedom from slavery of any human whose feet found their way onto Scottish soil.

The Signet Library is privileged to hold a set of the court papers for this case that were owned and annotated by a judge who sat on the case, Lord Kennet. Robert Bruce, Lord Kennet, had been on the bench for a decade by the time of Knight against Wedderburn, and in 1783 he would go on to be a founder member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

The papers here include his own annotated thoughts and reflections on the case, which gives this set of papers the status of being something of a rare survival: few judges collected Session Papers, even from their own cases, let alone preserving them along with evidence of the thought processes that they had brought to bear on proceedings.

These papers were donated by the family of Dr. David Murray, whose Session Papers are further discussed here: The Signet Library Session Papers.

SP:M6.47: Information for John Wedderburn against Joseph Knight July 4 1775

SP:M6.47: Note of Authorities quoted on the part of Joseph Knight February 20 1776

SP:M6.47: [Joseph Knight] Cause Authorities supporting the argument for the defencer February 20 1776

SP:M6.47: Additional Information for Joseph Knight against John Wedderburn April 20 1776

SP:M6.47: Additional Information for John Wedderburn against Joseph Knight February 6 1777