The Edinburgh Skating Club is recognized as the first organized

figure skating club A figure skating club is a local organization of figure skaters, often centered on a single ice rink. Typical club activities include arranging practice ice time, hosting test sessions and competitions, and producing an annual ice show in which clu ...

."In The Beginning...", ''Skating'' magazine, Jun 1970 While some sourcesEncyclopædia Britannica, 1911 edition
/ref> claim the club was established in 1642, most sources accept 1742 or 1744 as the date of its founding. The next-oldest skating club, in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, was not founded until 1830. The club was dissolved in 1966 after the decline in interest in combined figure-skating. The claim to the 1642 founding date appears to derive from a small book published by the club council in 1865, ''The Edinburgh Skating-Club with Diagrams of Figures and a List of the Members''. As of that writing, the club's oldest extant records were dated January 1778, and the reference to 1642 appeared only in club records from long after that period. There was an early contemporary reference to the Club in the second edition (1783) of the ''

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...

'' that supports the 1742 or 1744 founding date: :The metropolis of Scotland has produced more instances of elegant skaters than perhaps any country whatever: and the institution of a skating club about 40 years ago has contributed not a little to the improvement of this elegant amusement. From this description and others, it is apparent that the form of skating practiced by club members was indeed an early form of

figure skating Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, when contested at the 1908 Olympics in London. The Olympic disciplines are m ...

rather than

speed skating Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in travelling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long track speed skating, short track speed skating, and marathon speed skatin ...

. For admission to the club, candidates had to pass a skating test where they performed a complete circle on either foot (e.g., a

figure eight Figure 8 (figure of 8 in British English) may refer to: * 8 (number), in Arabic numerals Entertainment * ''Figure 8'' (album), a 2000 album by Elliott Smith * "Figure of Eight" (song), a 1989 song by Paul McCartney * '' Figure Eight EP'', ...

), and then jumped over first one hat, then two and three, placed over each other on the ice. The favorite meeting place of club members was

Duddingston Loch Duddingston Loch is a lake, or freshwater loch, in Edinburgh. It is one of the last two remaining natural lochs within the city, the other being Lochend Loch. It is situated to the south of Holyrood Park and lies southwest of the village of Dud ...

, near

Edinburgh, Scotland Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of ...

. The principal object of the club was the practice of a form of choreographed group skating. The club also held an annual dinner where the standard dish served was " sheeps-heads and trotters", perhaps in deference to the local

Sheep Heid Inn The Sheep Heid Inn is a public house in Duddingston, Edinburgh, Scotland. There has reputedly been an inn on this site since 1360, although the core of the current building appears to date from the 18th century with later additions and alterat ...

in Duddingston. Today the club is best known for its association with the painting

The Skating Minister ''The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch'', better known by its shorter title ''The Skating Minister'', is an oil painting attributed to Henry Raeburn in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. Because the painting was passed ...

Henry Raeburn Sir Henry Raeburn (; 4 March 1756 – 8 July 1823) was a Scottish portrait painter. He served as Portrait Painter to King George IV in Scotland. Biography Raeburn was born the son of a manufacturer in Stockbridge, on the Water of Leith: a f ...

, more formally titled ''The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch''.

References

{{Authority control Figure skating clubs Sports teams in Edinburgh Defunct sports clubs in the United Kingdom Figure skating in the United Kingdom 17th-century establishments in Scotland 1744 establishments in Scotland Defunct organisations based in Scotland Sports clubs established in the 1740s Sports clubs in Scotland