On the 3rd of July 1646 the Town Council of the Burgh of Irvine "Granted" to the seven craft guilds of the town, the Seal of Cause.  It gave the guilds the right to elect from within there craft a "wise man" to be deacon, to incorporate, to elect a boxmaster (later called the Deacon Convener), a clerk who with seven Deacons would be the Convener's Court.

With the charter came the right and privilege to manufacture and sell goods within the town boundaries.  The incorporation had the right to try all made work by journeymen from within the town and those who came to work from outside the town. No one could, without permission of the Incorporation, manufacture and sell goods in the town.

The convener's court was and is by the consent of the seven crafts, the regulating body of the Incorporation, with powers to enact rules and regulations for the members of the crafts and to set and collect fines and dues from transgressors.  Some regulations were for the better behaviour in and around the trades loft in the Parish Church, such as:-

October 11th 1726 - None of the members of this court shall come to the fore sate of the loft but shall have hats and that under the penalties of five shillings sterling, TOTIUS QUOTIUS.
Thomas Biggart, convener
John Bryson, clerk

With the rights and privileges "granted" to the seven crafts, the Smiths, the Weavers, the Tailors, Cordiners, Skinners, Wright craft and the Coopers, also came obligations to help and assist widows, bairns, waifs and strays, the auld, aged, the decrepit (the writer qualifies in at least two counts) and those craftsmen less fortunate who fell on hard times.

In 1846 an act of Parliament abolished exclusive rights and trading privileges of trade guilds and Incorporations throughout Scotland.  Those people in Irvine who as ordinary craft members or convener's court members who kept alive the sense of community, the traditions and obligations of the Incorporation must be applauded when so many trades houses in Scotland fell away and so much was lost.

The work of the trades and convener's court today is summed up in an old minute book - 

"The 16 of January 1746 the convener hath given a poor man ten shillings sterling."

Article reproduced from the Irvine Trades 350th Anniversary Booklet - Millennium Edition
Article written by Ian Wight, Ex Convener