The Signet Library

Here is our new blogpost about the exhibition - wssociety-heritage.co.uk/2026/02/10/sco…

An hour away from Jen and Ben's Mixed Doubles Curling Bronze Medal match - we've a new online exhibition on the literature of Scotland's Ain Game - link in first comment

@OldEdinClub @leithlinkz Dive in here: wssociety-heritage.co.uk/2026/02/02/the…

We recently finished the research phase of our @OldEdinClub - funded project about the archives of the WS Society's school for orphans, John Watson's Institution. Research by Dr. Kit Baston and @leithlinkz Link in first reply -

For Remembrance Sunday, the WS Society War Memorial of fallen Writers to the Signet and Apprentices. There are two panels of names here: a third would be added after World War II.

"Who Do You Think You Are" Magazine new November 2025 issue's "Gem from the Archive" features the Signet Library's @OldEdinClub funded project on the records of John Watson's Institution, research undertaken by Dr. Kit Baston and @leithlinkz

The bookplate of Lady Elizabeth "Betty" Germain, former owner of the Signet Library's set of the 1719 State Tryals. (Image courtesy of @leithlinkz )

Two noble sets of the State Trials - the 1719 edition, once in the library of the remarkable Lady Elizabeth "Betty" Germain (1680-1769), and the Hargrave 1776, once in the library of Francis, 9th Earl of Moray (1737–1810).

Viewers of Michael Portillo's Railway200 programmes intrigued by the map of the Liverpool & Manchester railway might enjoy the Signet Library copy which has been digitised by our friends @natlibscotmaps . Link in first reply!

And the link. Click into the map to zoom into individual details: maps.nls.uk/counties/rec/1…

A small display for a academic society visiting the Signet Library this afternoon.

@signetlibrary I see your craftsmen and I raise your date - from the studio of DO Hill

@NeilBriogaisean We only get started with the 1850s, so Rock House has half a century's start! The best of ours is to be found in a room accessible only by ladder -

Signet Library graffiti left by craftspeople from the 1850s into the Great War period behind the cases in the Upper Hall. The names and signatures of painters, glaziers and related trades.

One of at least seven Patrick Adam paintings of the library from c.1910-1917. The only surviving colour record of Robert Rowand Anderson's Edwardian colour scheme for the interiors.

Crossing the desk today - the book that was the first effective summary of English law, Fitzherbert's 1518 Graunde Abridgement in both of Richard Tottell's gorgeous Elizabethan editions of 1565 and 1577. The 1565 has (later) annotations and inserts:

Today's bookpost: the final three volumes of Sir John Baker's magisterial Seldon Society edition of the notebooks of the great English lawyer Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), shown beside a selection of Coke's works from Signet Library collections.

The latest news of our John Watson's Institution archive project, funded by the marvellous Old Edinburgh Club Jean Guild awards. We're looking for the portrait of the father of the school, Vans Hathorn... can you help?

Alexander Mill, "Prince of Indexers", assistant librarian at the Signet Library for over sixty years (1873-1935), with his grandson c. 1930. The last here to remember David Laing, Mill's index to Scottish Court of Session Papers is still in constant use, the only one of its kind.