ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This volume is one result of several years’ collaboration, and it is a pleasure to acknowledge those who have been involved in the steps towards its completion. The Aberdeen Burgh Records Project, housed in the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies (RIISS) at the University of Aberdeen, began as a collaborative partnership in 2012 between the University and the Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Archives.

In 2013 Edda Frankot became formally involved in the first pilot project as researcher, and she subsequently served as a researcher in a related project led by Adam Wyner in 2014. Edda was named as Research Fellow and Project Manager in the Leverhulme Trust research project grant Law in the Aberdeen Council Registers 1398–1511: Concepts, Practices, Geographies (LACR), which was led by Jackson Armstrong as Principal Investigator from 2016 to 2019. The LACR project team included co-investigators Andrew Mackillop, Andrew Simpson and Adam Wyner, project partner Phil Astley and the researchers Anna Havinga, Claire Hawes, William Hepburn and Wim Peters, with all of whom it has been a great privilege to work. The LACR project also benefited from the experience and guidance of its advisory board members Steve Boardman, Elizabeth Ewan and Christine Reinle.

There are a number of people whose involvement and support along the way has been especially important, including those already named, but among those who particularly stand out are Kelly Anderson, Graeme Benvie, Liz Bowie, Jon Cameron, Lisa Chilton, Judith Cripps, Barney Crockett, Chris Croly, Neil Curtis, Lisa Collinson, Charlotte Farmer, Martin Hall, Brian Henderson, Carol Ince, Katy Kavanagh, Richard Lynch, Aly Macdonald, Andrew Macgregor, Lynsey Macready, Karim Mahmoud, Mike McConnell, June Middleton, Jo Milne, John Morrison, Fiona Musk, Rachel Paterson-Davies, Barry Robertson, Ian Robotham, Margaret Ross, Wendy Rudland, Julie Smart, Radostin Stoyanov, Paula Sweeney, Adelyn Wilson and Ruaraidh Wishart.

Many of the participants in a series of symposia hosted in Aberdeen by the LACR project in 2017 and 2018 are now among the contributors to this book. The input and discussion of all those who were involved was crucial in shaping the development of the present collection, and in particular we wish to appreciate the input of Claire Hawes, Christian Liddy, Andrew Mackillop and Adam Wyner in those sessions. In addition, some of what now appears in the introduction to this volume had the benefit of feedback from audiences at the European Association of Urban History conference in Rome in 2018 (in a panel which also involved Griet Vermeesch and Ans Vervaeke), at the Scottish Records Association conference in 2017 organised by Amy Blakeway and at the RIISS twentieth anniversary conference in Aberdeen in 2019.

We would like to thank the editorial and production team at Routledge, Laura Pilsworth, Lydia de Cruz, Morwenna Scott, Izzy Voice, Emily Irvine, the series editor Natasha Hodgson and all those involved in the production of this book. We are also very grateful to the readers who offered valuable comment on our original publication proposal, and to those who generously offered prompt and constructive critique of the draft submissions to this volume by way of anonymous peer review coordinated by us as the volume editors.

Jackson and Edda would also like to thank each other for an intellectually stimulating and rewarding collaboration throughout all the stages through which this volume has grown. Jackson in particular would like to thank Edda for the enormous patience she showed to her co-editor, especially in the latter stages of this project. Without Edda’s diligence, legendary attention to detail and organisation, this volume would have taken a considerably longer time to bring to press. Finally, we would both like to thank our families (and in particular our partners Vicky and Barry) for their support throughout this project, and especially during the challenging circumstances of the 2020 pandemic.