The Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee

Emma is a member of the Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee, an institution that was set up hundreds of years ago. Laws required the trades to care for their community’s poor and sick and laid down standards to control the price of the goods and the quality of workmanship.

Immensely powerful in its day, the institution is almost unheard of now as not many people work as Bonnetmakers, Hammermen or Weavers any more.

Emma is a Cordiner, originally shoemakers, who grew to encompass anyone who worked with leather, like bookbinders.

To join, you used to have to present two handmade shoes to the body for evaluation.