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Also known as Advocates' Library. Located in Edinburgh. Founded in 1682. Type of library: Institutional. Collection: Still in situ.
Address: Advocates Library
Parliament Square
Edinburgh
EH1 1RF
Visit library website Visit modern catalogue

Library description

The Advocates Library was offcially inaugurated by the Faculty of Advocates in 1689 as a library to support legal education for its members. It remains a private library for members of the Faculty.

The library's collections developed rapidly. Its catalogue of 1692 lists over 3,000 items with just over half being legal texts. The non-legal collection - much of it donations from members of the Faculty - included works of philosophy, heraldry, poetry, geography, and theology. The Queen Anne Act of 1709 gave the library the right to claim free copies of all books and journals published in the UK and Ireland.

The library's extensive and comprehensive collection of books and manuscripts went beyond the needs of practicing lawyers and the library. It attracted scholars, philosophers, and historians throughout the Scottish Enlightenment and into the nineteenth century. Notable users include David Hume (who served as the Keeper of the Library from 1752 to 1757), James Boswell, and Sir Walter Scott.

The Advocates Library acted as a national library for Scotland until 1925 when the National Library of Scotland was founded. The Faculty then donated its non-legal collections to the Scottish nation.

Borrower description

Borrowers were members of the Faculty of Advocates and approved external users who gained access upon request.

Holding description

The library was (and remains) a working legal library. It retains and continues to develop its legal materials for the use of practicing lawyers. It holds a world-class collection of historical legal books from the earliest days of printing as well as manuscripts. Its special collections include legal books and collections of Session Papers, the written pleadings of the Court of Session.

Sources

• Other: Minute Books of the Faculty of Advocates, vols 2-4 (Edinburgh: Stair Society, 1980-2008)
• Other: Digisted catalogues of the Advocates Library: https://www.nls.uk/collections/rare-books/collections/advocates/catalogues

Secondary sources

Berry, Sara, 'The Advocates Library, Edinburgh', 21 (3/4) Legal Information Management (2021), 160-66

Betteridge, Robert L., ‘“Some Curious Bookes for Their Library”: The Books of Robert Park, Advocate’, Journal of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, 16 (2021), 71-87

Brown, Iain Gordon, Building for Books: The Architectural Evolution of the Advocates' Library, 1689-1925 (Aberdeen, 1989)

Cadell, P. and A. Matheson (eds), For the Encouragement of Learning: Scotland's National Library 1689-1989 (Edinburgh, 1989)

Cairns, John W. and Hector L. MacQueen, Learning and the Law: A Short History of Edinburgh Law School (Edinburgh, 2013)

Finlay, John, 'Legal Education, 1650-1850', in The Edinburgh History of Education in Scotland, ed. Robert Anderson, Mark Freeman and Lindsay Paterson (Edinburgh, 2015)

Grant, Francis J. (ed.), The Faculty of Advocates in Scotland, 1532-1943 with Genealogical Notes, Scottish Record Society (Edinburgh, 1944)

Hillyard, Brian, 'The Formation of the Library, 1682-1728', in For the Encouragement of Learning: Scotland's National Library, 1689-1989, ed. Patrick Cadell and Ann Matheson (Edinburgh, 1989), 23-66

Kelly, W. A., The Library of Lord George Douglas (ca. 1667/8?-1693?): An Early Donation to the Advocates Library (Cambridge,1997)

Pittock, Murray, Enlightenment in a Smart City: Edinburgh’s Civic Development, 1660-1750 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019)

St Clair, John and Roger Craik, The Advocates' Library: 300 Years of a National Institution, 1689-1989 (Edinburgh, 1989)

Townley, Maureen, The Best and Fynest Lawers and Other Raire Bookes: A Facsimile of the Earliest List of Books in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh with an Introduction and Modern Catalogue (Edinburgh, 1990)

Wellburn, Peter, ‘The Living Library’, in For the Encouragement of Learning: Scotland’s National Library, 1689-1989, ed. Patrick Cadell and Ann Matheson (Edinburgh: HMSO, 1989),186-214