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Messengers-at-Arms Since 1899

Rutherford and Macpherson Messenger-at-arms business cardRoderick Macpherson Messenger-at-arms

Welcome to Rutherford & Macpherson, Messengers-at-Arms

I practise as a messenger-at-arms and sheriff officer under the firm name of Rutherford & Macpherson. Officer of court is the statutory synonym for a messenger-at-arms or sheriff officer. As I also hold the office of Unicorn Pursuivant, let me invite you to the Court of the Lord Lyon website to see another picture. 

This is Lord Lyon Sir Francis J. Grant’s answer to a question of law (in 1944), explaining how the messengers-at-arms succeeded in the fifteenth century to the ancient administrative function of the sheriffs in executing letters of diligence:

it became essential that there should be ad hoc administrative Officers of the Crown under central control, namely the Messengers-at-Arms, who have been available for carrying out, in relation to all the Courts of the Crown, these administrative functions. These Officers were part of the King’s household and a certain number were always in attendance to execute the King’s commands. In Signet letters they are designed by the King as ‘Our Sheriffs in that part lawfully constituted’.

The panel (see right) directly above the gate of Falkland Palace displays the Scottish royal arms – taking much artistic license – without the unicorns as supporters, and with two angels instead. Playfully, I see these as messengers there, supporters of the sovereign.

The place of ‘central control’ of the messengers-at-arms, from that era long ago until the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987, was the Court of the Lord Lyon. The admission to office and the maintenance of the roll of messengers, happily, are still functions of that court.

If you would like more information on the history of the profession you can read here my paper, published for the Congress of the UIHJ (the worldwide International Union of Judicial Officers) at Tunis (2003). It was written at a particularly turbulent time in our history. I am glad that some of the controversies have since been settled.

My ‘residence’ as a messenger-at-arms is 102 Bath Street, Glasgow. This has been my firm’s home since 1905, thanks to Mr Rutherford’s flitting from next-door, number 112, that year. I have been an officer of court and genealogist for over thirty years and am the fourth generation in this family firm – without being any sort of relation of Mr Rutherford.

My staff of messengers-at-arms, witnesses (‘concurrents’), citation and diligence clerks, managers of accounts (of old, called ‘accountants’) is hugely experienced in dealing with all aspects of an officer of court’s business. I am not a contractor to any court user, but await the arrival of whatever instructions you, the reader, may wish to give me.