These papers, the surviving archive of the Edinburgh Society of Musicians, run from the foundation of the Society in 1887 - though it includes a small amount of earlier material - to 1982, and in addition to providing a very full account of the Society's own history, it contains much concerning the history of music-making in Edinburgh in the 20th Century. Included in the collection are the papers of the Edinburgh Harmonists' Society which could trace its descent from the Edinburgh Musical Society founded in 1728 (MSS.21643-21664), of the short-lived Edinburgh Singverein, and the Society of Musical Amateurs (MS.21665), and of the St George Quartet Club (MSS.21666-21668). All these groups seem to have merged eventually with the Edinburgh Society of Musicians.