Historical Archives
Sir Walter Scott was born on 15 August 1771 and died on 21 September 1832. Most people know him as a poet and historical novelist. Not so many people realise that he was the Sheriff of Selkirkshire...
Some old offences and their punishments
- details from A M Anderson The Criminal Law of Scotland, Bell and Bradfute, Edinburgh, 1892
Assaults on the Sovereign
By an Act of 1842 (The...
Mobbing and Rioting
The common law crime of mobbing is committed when people combine together to achieve a commonly shared purpose by violence or intimidation, and where their combined conduct causes...
George
Neilson (1858-1923), the lawyer and historian was elected as procurator fiscal of Glasgow in 1891.
Such is the importance of his writings, that a special collection of
George Neilson Papers is...
Assoilzie - To absolve, or finally find in favour of, the defender
Avizandum - To be looked into or considered. A process is said to be at Avizandum when the judge, after debate, is...
The term "advocate" has been used in Scotland for a long time, and in the reign of Alexander the Third (crowned 1294), the right of advocates to plead was secured by law. In 1424, under James the...
Chantrelle was a French born schoolteacher from Edinburgh who was tried for poisoning his wife. He was born in Nantes in France in 1834. He had an excellent education, and studied at Nantes Medical...
In July 1862, Jess McPherson was found murdered at 17 Sandyford Place in Glasgow. The murder weapon was a cleaver, and she had forty wounds on her body from the weapon. John Fleming and his father...
Historical Development of the Office of Procurator Fiscal
The origin of the office and even the derivation of the term "procurator fiscal" are rather obscure. The first document reference appears in...
Historical Background to the development of the office of Lord Advocate
The head of the system of public prosecution in Scotland is the Lord Advocate. The Lord Advocate is the Ministerial Head of the...