![Leith.] THE TOLBOOTH WYND. 1 0
marrow alley adjoining the latter, a house bearing
the date 1688 has the two legends, ?Feir the
Lord,? and ?The feir of the Lord is the beginning
of a1 wisdome.?
This part of the town-about the foot of St.
Andrew?s Street-is said to have borne anciently
the name of St. Leonard?s. There the Street
diverges into two alleys : one narrow and gloomy,
which bears the imposing title of Parliament Court ;
and the other called Sheephead Wynd, in which
there remains a very ancient edifice, the ground
floor of which is formed of arches constructed like
those of the old house described in the Kirkgate,
and bearing the date 1579, with the initials D. W.,
M. W. Though small and greatly dilapidated, it
is ornamented with string-courses and mouldings ;
and it was not without some traces of old importance
and grandeur amid its decay and degradation,
until it was entirely altered in 1859.
This house is said to have received the local
name of the Gun Stone, from the circumstance of
a stone cannon ball of considerable size having
been fired into it during some invasion by an
English ship of war. Local tradition avers that
for many years this bullet formed an ornament on
the summit of the square projecting staircase of
the house.
Near Cable?s Wynd, which adjoins this alley, and
between it and King Street, at a spot called
Meeting-house Green, are the relics of a building
formerly used as a place of worship, and although
it does not date farther back than the Revolution
.of 1688, it is oddly enough called ?John Knox?s
Church.?
The records of South Leith parish bear that in
1692, ?? the magistrates of Edinburgh, and members
of the Presbytery there, with a confused company
of the people, entered the church by breaking open
the locks of the doors and putting on new ones,
and so caused guard the church doors with halberts,
rang the bells, and possessed Mr. Wishart of
the church, against which all irregular proceedings
public protests were taken.?
Previous to this he would seem to have officiated
in a kind of chapel-of-ease established near Cable?s
Wynd, by permission of James VII. in 1687.
Soon after the forcible induction recorded, he
came to the church with a guard of halberdiers,
accompanied by the magistrates of Leith, and took
possession of the Session House, compelling the
? prelatick Session ? to hold their meeting in the
adjacent Kantore. More unseemly matters followed,
for in December of the year 1692, when a
meeting was held in South Leith Church to hear
any objections that might be niade against the legal
induction of the Rev. Mr. Wishart, an adherent of
Mr. Kay, ?? one of the prelatick incumbents,? protested
loudly against the whole proceedings.
Upon this, ?Mr. Livingstone, a brewer at the
Craigend (or Calton), rose up, and, in presence of
the Presbytery, did most violently fall upon the
commissioner, and buffeted him and nipped his
cheeks, and had many base expressions to him.?
Others now fell on the luckless commissioner,
who was ultimately thrust into the Tolbooth of
Leith by a magistrate, for daring to do that which
the Presbytery had suggested. Mr. Kay?s session
were next driven out of the Kantore, on the door
of which another lock was placed.
It has been supposed that the ousted episcopal
incumbent formed his adherents into a small congregation,
as he remained long iu Leith, and died
at his house in the Yardheads there so lately as
November, 1719, in the seventieth year of his age.
His successor, tile Rev. Robert Forbes, was minister
of an episcopal chapel in Leith, according to an
anonymous writer, ?? very shortly after Mr: Kay?s
death, and records a baptism as having been performed
? in my room in ye Yardheads.? ?
The history of the Meeting-house near Cable?s
Wynd is rather obscure, but it seems to have been
generally used as a place of worship. The last
occasion was during a visit of John Wesley, the
great founder of Methodism. He was announced
to preach in it; but so grcat a concourse of people
assembled, that the edifice was incapable of accommodating
them, so he addressed the multitude
on the Meeting-house Green. LI house near it,
says The Srofsinan in 1879, is pointed out as ?the
Manse.?
The Tolbooth TVynd is about five hundred an&
fifty feet in length, from where the old signal-tower
stood, at the foot of the Kirkgate, to the site of a
now removed building called Old Babylon, which
stood upon the Shore.
The second old thoroughfare of Leith was undoubtedly
the picturesque Tolbooth Wynd, as the
principal approach to the harbour, after it superseded
the more ancient Burgess Close.
It was down this street that, in the age when
Leith was noted for its dark superstitions and eccentric
inhabitants, the denizens therein, regularly
on stormy nights or those preceding a storm,
heard with horror, at midnight, the thundering
noise of ?the twelve o?clock coach,? a great oatafalque-
looking vehicle, driven by a tall, gaunt figure
without a head, drawn by black horses, also headless,
and supposed to be occupied by a mysterious
female.
Near the eastern end of the wynd there stood
,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p046.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 227")
... THE TOLBOOTH WYND. 1 0
marrow alley adjoining the latter, a house bearing
the date 1688 has the two ...
Book 6 p. 227
(Score 0.38)
![Burghmuir.] ST. ROQUES CHAPEL. 47
Greenhill, whereon stood an old gable-ended and
gableted manor-house, on the site of which is now
the great square modem mansion which bears its
name. In a street here, called Greenhill Gardens,
there stands a remarkable parterre, or open burialplace,
wherein lie the remains of more than one proprietor
of the estate. A tomb bears the initials
J. L. and E. R., being those of ?John Livingstone
and Elizabeth Rig, his spouse,? who acquired
the lands of Greenhill in 1636 ; and the adjacent
thoroughbre, named Chamberlain Road, is so
called from an official of the city, named Fairholme,
who is also buried there.
A dispute-Temple and Halliday with Adam
Cairns of Greenhill -is reported before the
lords in 1706, concerning a tenement in the
Lawnmarket, which would seem to have been
?spoiled and deteriorated? in the fire of 1701.
(Fountainhall.)
In 1741 Mr. Thomas Fairholme, merchant in
Edinburgh, married Miss Warrender, daughter of
Sir George Warrender of Bruntsfield, and his death
at Greenhill is reported in the Scuts Magazine for
1771. There was a tenement called Fairholme
Land in the High Street, immediately adjoinicg
the Royal Exchange on the east, as appears from
the Scuts Magazine of 1754, probab!y erected by
Bailie Fairholme, a magistrate in the time of
Charles 11.
Kay gives us a portrait of George Fairholme of
Greenhill (and of Green-know, Berwickshire), who,
with his younger brother, William of Chapel, had
long resided in Holland, where they became
wealthy bankers, and where the former cultivated
a natural taste for the fine arts, and in after life
became celebrated as a judicious collector of
pictures, and of etchings by Rembrandt, all of
which became the property of his nephew, Adam
Fairholme of Chapel, Berwickshire. He died in
his seventieth year, in 1800, and was interred in
the family burying-place at Greenhill.
In a disposition of the lands of the latter estate
by George Fairholme, in favour of Thomas Wright,
dated 16th, and recorded 18th February, 1790, in
the sheriffs? books at Edinburgh, the preservation of
the old family tomb, which forms so singular a
feature in a modern street, is thus provided for :-
? Reserving nevertheless to me the liberty and
privilege of burying the dead of my own family,
and such of my relations to whom I, during my
own lifetime, shall communicate such privilege, in
the burial-place built upon the said lands, and
?Teserving likewise access to me and my heirs to
repair the said burial-place from time to time, as we
shall think proper.?
? Greenhill became lztterly the property of the
Stuart-Forbeses of Pitsligo, baronets.
After passing the old mansion named East
Morningside House, the White House Loan joins
at right angles the ancient thoroughfare named the
Grange Loan, which led of old from the Linton
Road to St. Giles?s Grange, and latterly the Causewayside.
On the south side of it a modern villa takes its
name of St. Roque from an ancient chapel which
stood there, and the ruins of which were extant
within the memory of many of the last generation.
The chapels of St. Roque and St. John, on the
Burghmuir, were both dependencies of St. Cuthbert?s
Church. The historian of the latter absurdly
conceives it to have been named from a French
ambassador, Lecroc, who was in Scotland in 1567.
The date of its foundation is involved in obscurity;
but entries occur in the Treasurer?s Accounts for
1507, when on St. Roque?s Day (15th August) James
IV. made an offering of thirteen shillings. ? That
this refers to the chapel on the Burghmuir is
proved,? says Wilson, ? by the evidence of two
charters signed by the king at Edinburgh on the
same day.?
Arnot gives a view of the chapel from the northeast,
showing the remains of a large pointed window,
that had once been filled in with Gothic tracery;
and states that it is owing ?to the superstitious
awe of the people that one stone of this chapel has
been left upon another-a superstition which, had
it been more constant in its operations, might have
checked the tearing zeal of reformation. About
thirty years ago the proprietor of the ground
employed masons to pull down the walls of the
chape! ; the scaffolding gave way ; the tradesmen
were killed. The accident was looked upon as a
judgment against those who were demolishing thk
house of God. No entreaties nor bribes by the
proprietor could prevail upon tradesmen to accomplish
its demolition.?
It was a belief of old that St. Roque?s intercession
could protect all from pestilence, as he was
distinguished for his piety and labours during a
plague in Italy in 1348. Thus Sir David Lindesay
says of-
1?- Superstitious pilgramages
To monie divers imagis ;
Sum to Sanct Roche with diligence,
To saif them from the pestilence.?
Thus it is, in accordance with the attributes ascribed
in Church legends to St. Roque, that we find
his chapel constantly resorted to by the victims of
the plague encamped on the Burghmuir, during the
prevalence of that scourge in the sixteenth century.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p058.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 47")
... ST. ROQUES CHAPEL. 47
Greenhill, whereon stood an old gable-ended and
gableted manor-house, on the ...
Book 5 p. 47
(Score 0.38)
![Gnonpnte.] JVHN PATERSON. I1
The latter is an anagram on the name of ?John
Paterson,? while the quatrain was the production
of Dr. Pitcairn, and is referred to in the first
volume of Gilbert Stuart?s Edinburgh Magazine
andRevim for 1774, and may be rendered thus:
--?In the year when Paterson won the prize in
golfing, a game peculiar to the Scots (in which his
ancestors had nine times won the same honour), he
then raised this mansion, a victory more honourable
than all the rest.?
According to tradition, two English nobles at
Holyrood had a discussion with the royal duke
as to the native country of golf, which he was
frequently in the habit of playing on the Links of
Leith with the Duke of Lauderdale and others,
and which the two strangers insisted to be an
English game as well, No evidence of this being
forthcoming, while many Scottish Parliamentary
edicts, some as old as the days of James II., in
1457, could be quoted concerning the said game,
the Englishmen, who both vaunted their expertness,
offered to test the legitimacy of their pretensions
on the result of a match to be played by them
against His Royal Highness and any other .Scotsman
he chose to select. After careful inquiry he
chose a man named John Paterson, a poor shoemaker
in the Canongate, but the worthy descendant
of a long line of illustrious golfers, and the association
will by no means surprise, even in the present
age, those who practise the game in the true old
Scottish spirit The strangers were ignominiously
beaten, and the heir to the throne had the best of
this practical argument, while Paterson?s merits
were rewarded by the stake played for, and he
built the house now standing in the Canongate.
On its summit he placed the Paterson arms-three
pelicans vuZned; on a chief three mullets ; crest,
a dexter-hand grasping a golf club, with the wellold
and well-known tradition, Chambers says, ?it
must be admitted there is some uncertainty. The
house, the arms, and the inscriptions only indicate
that Paterson built the house after being victor at
golf, and that Pitcairn had a hand in decorating it.??
In this doubt Wilson goes further, and believes
that the Golfers? Land was Zmt, not won, by the
gambling propensities of its owner. It was acquired
by Nicol Paterson in 1609, a maltman in Leith,
and from him it passed, in 1632, to his son John
(and Agnes Lyel, his spouse), who died 23rd April,
1663, as appears by the epitaph upon his tomb in
the churchyard of Holyrood, which was extant in
Maitland?s time, and the strange epitaph on which
is given at length by Monteith. He would appear
to have been many times Bailie of the Canongate.
known mOttO-FAR AND SURE. Concerning this
Both Nicol and John, it may be inferred from the
inscriptions on the ancient edifice, were able and
successful golfers. The style of the bNilding, says
Wilson, confirms the idea that it had been rebuilt
by him ?with the spoils, as we are bound to
presume, which he won on Leith Links, from ?OUT
auld enemies of England.? The title-deeds, however,
render it probable that other stakes had been
played for with less success. In 1691 he grants
a bond over the property for A400 Scots. This is
followed by letters of caption and hornhg, and
other direful symptoms of legal assault, which
pursue the poor golfer to his grave, and remain
behind as his sole legacy to his heirs.?
The whole tradition, however, is too serious to
be entirely overlooked, but may be taken by the
reader ?or what it seems worth.
Bailie Paterson?s successor in the old mansion
was John, second Lord Bellenden of Broughton
and Auchnoule, Heritable Vsher of the Exchequer,
who married Mary, Countess Dowager of Dalhousie,
and daughter of the Earl of Drogheda. Therein
he died in 1704, and was buried in the Abbey
Church ; and as the Union speedily followed, like
other tenements so long occupied by the old
courtiers in this quarter, the Golfers? Land became,
as we find it now, the abode of plebeians.
Immediately adjoining the Abbey Court-house
was an old, dilapidated, and gable-ended mansion
of no great height, but of considerable extent,
which was long indicated by oral tradition as the
abode of David Rizzio. It has now given place
to buildings connected with the Free Church of
Scotland. Opposite these still remain some of
the older tenements of this once patrician burgh,
distinguishable by their lofty windows filled in with
small square panes of glass ; and on the south side
of the street, at its very eastern end, a series of
pointed arches along the walls of the Sanctuary
Court-house, alone remain to indicate the venerable
Gothic porch and gate-house of the once famous,
Abbey of Holyrood, beneath which all that was
great and good, and much that was ignoble and
bad have passed and repassed in the days that are
no more.
. This edifice, of which views from the east and
west are still preserved, is supposed to have been
the work of ?the good-Abbot Ballantyne,? who
rebuilt the north side of the church in 1490, and
to whom we shall have occasion to refer elsewhere.
His own mansion, or lodging, stood here on the
north side of the street, and the remains of it,
together With the porch, were recklessly destroyed
and removed by the Hereditary Keeper of the
Palace in 1753.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p023.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Page 11")
... JVHN PATERSON. I1
The latter is an anagram on the name of ?John
Paterson,? while the quatrain was the ...
Book 3 p. 11
(Score 0.38)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
for many generations an ancient and lofty signaltower,
the summit of which was ...
Book 6 p. 228
(Score 0.37)
... character of the place inust have been
destroyed. ?? Queen Mary granted the gardens of
-the Greyfriars? ...
Book 1 p. 158
(Score 0.37)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Holyroob
chateau of Chantilly, from plans by the royal
architect, Sir William Bruce of ...
Book 3 p. 74
(Score 0.37)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Greyfriars Church.
and, forming a part of her volunteer forces, six
battalions of ...
Book 4 p. 374
(Score 0.37)
... THE CRAIG HOUSE. ? 43
at Marischal College, Mr. Burton was apprenticed
to a legal practitioner in ...
Book 5 p. 43
(Score 0.37)
... INDEX.
Nairn, S i Robert, 193
Katharine, 193
Nairn’s Close, 146, 148
Namur, Count of, 7
Napier of ...
Book 10 p. 507
(Score 0.37)
![Greyfrian Church.] THE COVENANT. 375
and Lord Scrope represented their respective
monarchs.
The number of the inhabitants having greatly
increased, and the churches of the city being insufficient
for their accommodation, the magistrates,
in 1612, says Ariiot, ordered a new one to be
built on the ground formerly belonging to the Greyfriars,
and bestowed on them by Queen Mary for
a public cemetery; but he makes no mention of
any preceding church, on which the present edifice
might have been engrafted.
The eastern entrance from the Candlemaker
Row was formed at some time subsequent to the
erection or opening of this church.
On the 28th of February 1638, the National
Covenant was first subscribed at the Greyfriars
Church, when the aggressive measures of Charles I.
roused in arms the whole of Scotland, which then,
happily for herself, was not, by the desertion of her
nobles and the abolition of her officers of state, unable
to resist lawless encroachment ; and her sons
seemed to come forth as one man in defence of
the Church, which had then no more vigorous u p
holder than the future Marquis of Montrose. ?? In
the old church of the Greyfriars,? to quote his
memoirs (London, 1858), ?? which stands upon an
eminence south of the ancient capital, and within
the wall of 1513, amid quaint and smoke-encrusted
tombs, and many headstones sunk deep in the long,
rank grass-where now the furious Covenanter,
Henderson, and Rosehaugh, ? that persecutor of
the saints of God,? as the Whigs named him, are
lying side by side in peace among the dead of ages,
the Covenant, written on a sheet of parchment one
ell square, and so named because it resembled
those which God is said to have made with the
children of Israel, was laid before the representatives
of the nation, and there it was signed by a
mighty concourse, who, with uplifted hands, with
weeping eyes, and drawn swords, animated by the
same glorious enthusiasm which fired the crusaders
at the voice of Peter the Hermit, vowed, with the
assistance of the supreme God, to dedicate life and
fortune to the cause of Scotland?s Church and the
maintenance of their solemn engagement, which
professed the reformed faith and bitterly abjured
the doctrines and dogmas of the Church of Rome
-for with such they classed the canons and the
liturgy of Laud.?
It was first subscribed by the congregation of the
Greyfriars ; but the first name really appended to it
was that of the venerable and irreproachable Earl
of Sutherland. Montrose and other peers followed
his example, and it afterwards was sent round the
churches of the city; thus it speedily became sa
xowded with names on both sides, says Maithd,
:hat not the smallest space was left for more,
It appears that when there was so little,room
;eft to sign on, the subscriptions were shortened by
inserting only the initials of the Covenanters? names,
3f which the margins and other parts were so full
that it was a difficult task to number them. By a
cursoryview Maitland estimated themat about 5,000.
By order of the General Committee every fourth
man in Scotland was numbered as a soldier.
In 1650 the church was desecrated, and all its
wood-work wasted and destroyed by the soldiers
of Cromwell. Nine years afterwards, when Monk
was in Edinburgh with his own regiment (now
the Coldstream Guards) and Colonel Morgan?s, ?
on the 19th of October, he mustered them in the
High Street, in all the bravery of their steeplecrowned
hats, falling bands, calfskin boots, with
niatchlocks and bandoleers, some time prior to his
march southward to achieve the Restoration, From
that street he marched them (doubtless by theRest
Bow) to the Greyfriars Church, where he told his
officers that he ? was resolved to make the military
power subordinate to the civil, and that since they
had protection and entertainment from the Parliament,
it was their duty to serve it and obey it
against all opposition.? The officers and soldiers
unanimously declared that they would live and die
with him.
In the year 1679 the Greyfriars Church and its
burying-ground witnessed a pitiful sight, when that
city of the dead was crowded, almost to excess, by
those unhappy Covenanters whom the prisons could
not contain, after the rising at Bothwell had been
quenched in blood. These unhappy people had
been collected, principally in the vicinity of Bathgate,
by the cavalry, then employed in ? dragooning,?
or riding down the country, and after being
driven like herds of cattle, to the number of 1,200,
tied two and two, to the capital, they were penned
up in the Greyfriars Churchyard, among the graves
and gloomy old tombs of all kinds, and there they
were watched and guarded day and night, openly in
sight of the citizens.
Since Heselrig destroyed the Scottish prisoners
after Dunbar (for which he was arraigned by the
House of Commons) no such piteous sight had
been witnessed on British ground. They were of
both sexes and of all ages, and there they lay five
long months, 1,200 souls, exposed to the suq by
day and the dew by night-the rain, the wind, and
the storm-with no other roof than the changing
sky, and no other bed than the rank grass that
grew in its hideous luxuriance from the graves beneath
them. All were brutally treatedby their](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p195.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 375")
... Church.] THE COVENANT. 375
and Lord Scrope represented their respective
monarchs.
The number of the ...
Book 4 p. 375
(Score 0.37)
![Moming+3c] THE ROYAL EDINBURGH ASYLUM. 39
sions and villas seem to crowd and jostle each other,
till it has become an integral part of Edinburgh;
but the adjacent hamlet of Tipperlinn, the abode
chiefly of weavers, and once also a summer resort,
has all disappeared, and nothing of it now remains
but an old draw-well The origin of its name is
evidently Celtic.
Falcon Hall, eastward of the old village, is an
elegant modem villa, erected early in the present
century byawealthy Indian civilian, named Falconer;
but, save old Morningside House, or Lodge, before
that time no other niansion of importance stood
here.
In the latter-which stands a little way back kom
the road on the west side-there died, in the year
1758, William Lockhart, Esq., of Carstairs, who
had been thrown from his cliaise at the Burghmuir-
head, and was so severely injured that he expired
two days after. Here also resided, and died
in 1810, William Coulter, a wealthy hosier, who was
then in office as Lord Provost of the city, which
gave him a magnificent civic and military funeral,
which was long remembered for its grandeur and
solemnity.
On this occasion long streamers of crape floated
from Nelson?s monument ; the bells were tolled.
Mr. Claud Thompson acted as chief mourner-in
lieu of the Provost?s only son, Lieutenant Coulter,
then serving with the army in Portugal-and the city
arms were borne by a man seven feet high before
the coffin, whereon lay a sword, robe, and chain
of office.
Three volleys were fired over it by the Edinburgh
Volunteers, of which he was colonel. A portrait
of him in uniform appears in one of Kay?s
sketches.
In 1807 Dr. Andrew Duncan (already noticed
in the account of Adam Square) proposed the
erection of a lunatic asylum, the want of which
had long been felt in the city. Subscriptions came
in slowly, but at last sufficient was collected, a
royal charter was obtained, and on the 8th of June,
1809, the foundation stone of the now famous and
philanthropic edifice at Morningside was laid by
the Lord Provost Coulter, within an enclosure, four
acres in extent, south of old Morningside House
Towards the erection a sum of LI,IOO came from
Scotsmen in Madras.
The object of this institution is to afford every
possible advantage in the treatment of insanity.
The unfortunate patients may be put under the
care of any medical practitioner in Edinburgh
(says the Scots Magmine for that year) whom the
relations may choose to employ, while the poor
will be attended gratis by physicians and surgeons
appointed by the managers. In every respect,
it is one of the most efficient institutions of the
kind in Scotland, It is called the Royal Edinburgh
Asylum, and has as its patron the reigning
sovereign, a governor, four deputies, a board of
managers, and another of medical men.
The original building was afterwards more than
doubled in extent by the addition of another, the
main entrance to which is from the old road that
led to Tipperlinn. This is called the west department,
where the average number of inmates is
above 500. It is filled with patients of the humbler
order, whose friends or parishes pay for them 6 1 5
per annum.
The east department, which was built in 1809, is
for patients who pay not less than A56 per annum
as an ordinary charge, though separate sitting-rooms
entail an additional expense. On the other hand,
when patients are in straitened circumstances a
yearly deduction of ten, or even twenty pounds, is
made from the ordinary rate.
In the former is kept the museum of plaster
casts from the heads of patients, a collection continually
being added to ; and no one, even without
a knowledge of phrenology, can behold these lifeless
images without feeling that the originals had
been afflicted by disease of the mind, for even the
cold, white, motionless plaster appears expressive
of ghastly insanity.
In the west department the patients who are
capable of doing so ply their trades as tailors,
shoemakers, and so forth; and one of the most
interesting features of the institution is the
printing-office, whence, to quote Chambers?sJournal,
?is issued the Morningside Mirror, a monthly
sheet, whose literary contents are supplied wholly
by the inmates, and contain playful hits and puns
which would not disgrace the habitual writers of
facetious articles.??
From the list of occupations that appear in the
annual report, it would seem that nearly every
useful trade and industry. is followed within the
walls, and that the Morningside Asylum supplies
most of its own wants, being a little world complete
in itself.
Occupation and amusement here take the place
of irksome bondage, with results that have been
very beneficial, and among the most extraordinary
of these are the weekly balls, in which the patients
figure in reels and in country dances, and sing
songs.
At the foot of Morningside the Powburn takes the
singular name of the Jordan as it flows through a
farm named Egypt, and other Scriptural names
abound close by, such as Hebron Bank, Canaan](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p050.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 39")
... THE ROYAL EDINBURGH ASYLUM. 39
sions and villas seem to crowd and jostle each other,
till it has ...
Book 5 p. 39
(Score 0.37)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [George Smn
could be done.? On leaving the church, the
protestors proceeded to ...
Book 3 p. 146
(Score 0.37)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
style, with many ornate gables, dormer windows,
%ut was a second time ...
Book 2 p. 282
(Score 0.37)
![High Street.] THE BRITISH LINEN COMPANY. 279
resided here was John, fourth Marquis, who was
Secretary of State for Scotland from 1742 till 1745,
when he resigned the office, on which the Government
at once availed themselves of the opportunity
for leaving it vacant, as it has remained ever since.
He died in 1762, and soon after the carriageentrance
and the fine old terraced garden of the
house, which lay on the slope westward, were
removed to make way for the Episcopal church in
the Cowgate-doomed in turn to be forsaken by
its founders, and even by their successors.
From the Tmeeddale family the mansion passed
into the hands of the British Linen Company, and
became their banking house, until they deserted it
for Moray House in the Canongate, from which they
ultiniatelymigrated to a statelier edifice inSt. Andrew
Square. This company was originally incorpo-
Tated by a charter under the Privy Seal granted by
George 11. on the 6th of July, 1746, at a time
when the mind of the Scottish people was still
agitated by the events of the preceding year and
the result of the battle of Culloden; and it was
deemed an object of the first importance to tranquillise
the country and call forth its resources, so
that the attention of the nation should be directed
to the advantages of trade and manufacture. With
this view the Government, as well as many gentlemen
of rank and fortune, exerted themselves to
promote the linen manufacture, which had been
lately introduced, deeming that it would in time
become the staple manufacture of Scotland, and
provide ample employment for her people, while
.extensive markets for the produce of their labour
would be found alike at home and in the colonies,
then chiefly supplied by the linens of Germany.
By the Dukes of Queensberry and Argyle, who
became the first governors of the British Linen
Company, representations to this effect were made
to Government, and by the Earls of Glencairn, Eglinton,
Galloway, Panmure, and many other peers,
together with the Lord Justice Clerk Fletcher of
Saltoun, afterwards Lord Milton, who was the first
deputy governor, and whose mother, when an exile
in Holland during the troubles, had secretly obtained
a knowledge of the art of weaving and of
dressidg the fine linen known as ? Holland,? and
introduced its manufacture at the village of Saltoun;
by the Lord Justice Clerk Alva ; Provost George
Drummond ; John Coutts, founder of the famous
banking houses of Forbes and Co., and Coutts
and Co. in the Strand; by Henry Home, Lord
Kames ; and many othqs, all of whom urged the
establishment of the company, under royal sanction,
and offered to become subscribers to the undertaking.
A charter was obtained in accordance with their
views and wishes, establishing the British Linen
Company as a corporation, and bestowing upon
it ample privileges, not only to manufacture and
deal in linen fabrics, but also to do all that
might conduce to the promotion thereof; and
authority was given to raise a capital of ~roo,ooo,
to be enlarged by future warrants under the
sign manual of his Majesty, his heirs and successors,
to such sums as the affairs of the company
might .require. After this the company engaged to
a considerable extent in the importation of flax and
the manufacture of yarns and linens, having warehouses
both in Edinburgh and London, and in its
affairs none took a more active part than Lord
Milton, who was an enthusiast in all that related to
the improvement of trade, agriculture, and learning,
in his native country; but it soon became apparent
that the company ? would be of more utility, and
better promote the objects of their institution, by
enlarging the issue of their notes to traders, than
being traders and manufacturers themselves.?
By degrees, therefore, the company withdrew
from all manufacturing operations and speculations,
and finally closed them in 1763, from which year
to the present time their business has been confined
to the discount of bills, advances on accounts,
and other b.ank transactions, in support of Scottish
trade generally, at home and abroad. ?By the
extension of their branch agencies to a great number
of towns,? to quote their own historical report, ? and
the employment in discounts and cash advaqces of
their own funds, as well as of that portion of the
formerly scanty and inactive money capital of Scotland
which has been lodged with the company, they
have been the means of contributing very materially
to the encouragement of useful industry throughout
Scotland, and to her rapid progress in agricultural
and mechanical improvements, and in commercial
intercourse with foreign countries. As regards the
particular object of the institution of the companythe
encouragement of the linen manufa.cture-considerably
more than half of the flax and hemp
imported into the United Kingdom, is now (in
1878) brought to the Scottish ports.?
Now the bank has nearly eighty branch or subbranch
offices over all Scotland alone. The company?s
original capital of AIOO,OOO has been
gradually increased under three additional charters,
granted at different times, under the Great Seal
By Queen Victoria, their fourth charter, dated 19th
March, 1849, ratifies and confirms all, their privileges
and rights, and power was given to augment
their capital to any sum not exceeding A r,5oo,ooo
in all, for banking purposes. The amount of new](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p099.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 279")
... Street.] THE BRITISH LINEN COMPANY. 279
resided here was John, fourth Marquis, who was
Secretary of State ...
Book 2 p. 279
(Score 0.37)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Canongate
attendants to say such prayers by her bedside as ? the seventeenth century, ...
Book 3 p. 6
(Score 0.37)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Ravelston.
shady with wood, strikes from the Murrayfield Road
northward past the ...
Book 5 p. 106
(Score 0.37)
![North Bridge.] THE PLAYHOUSE GHOST. 347
youthful frolic ; and it was a rich treat to hear him
tell of a Highland solicitor?s apprentice, who, on
hearing some one express a hope there would be
no blows, exclaimed, ? Plows, by Got ! ? and fell
on. At a distance of thirty years, on an opportunity
occurring of speaking a good word in favour
of an application of this person for a situation in the
Exchequer, Scott felt bound to use his influence,
from a friendly feeling about the Rayhouse Row.?
In 1797 there appeared in the Edinburgh
Theatre Henry Erskine Johnston, known in his
time as ? The Scottish Roscius,? from the circumstance
of his having been born in the High Street,
where his father was a barber ; the latter happened
to be shaving Henry Erskine, when intelligence
was brought that his wife had just presented him
with a son, whom he named from the learned
barrister then under his hands. Old Johnston
afterwards kept an oyster tavern in Shakespeare
Square, where he died in 1826.
Quitting a writer?s oflice in which he was a clerk,
his son came forth as an actor, his favourite parts
being those of Hamlet and Norval, and he was
nightly the attraction of Scottish playgoers, whom
he was wont to astonish by playing the Danish
Prince and Harlequin alternately. A young lady
who saw him acting in a piece called The Storming
of Srhgafatam fell deeply in love with him,
? and after a short, albeit impassioned courtship,
she became Mrs. Johnston, although at that period
only about fifteen.? From Edinburgh he went to
Dublin and elsewhere. We shall have to recur to
him as manager of the rival theatre in the city.
Prior to that his story was a painful one. His
young wife became, as an actress, the rage in
London, and, unhappily for him, yielded to the
temptations thrown in her way-she shone for a
few short years in the theatrical atmosphere of the
English metropolis, and then sank into insignificance,
while poor Johnston became a houseless
and heart-broken wanderer.
The old Theatre Royal had an unpleasant
tenant in the shape of a ghost, which made its appearance,
or rather made itself heard first during
the management of Mr. Jackson. His family
occupied a small house over the box-office and
immediately adjoining the theatre, and it was
alleged that long after the latter had closed and
the last candle been snuffed out, strange noises
pervaded the entire building, as if the mimic
scenes of the plays were being acted over again by
phantoms none could see. As the story spread
and grew, it caused some consternation. What
the real cause of this was has never been explained,
but it occurred for nights at a time.
Between 1794 and 1809 the old theatre was in
B very struggling condition. The debts that encumbered
it prevented the management from
bringing to it really good actors, and the want of
these prevented the debts from being paid OK
For the sum of ;EB,ozo Mr. Jackson, the old
manager, became the ostensible purchaser of the
house in 1800, and for several years after that date
it was conducted by Mr. Rock, who, though an
able and excellent actor, could never succeed in
making it an attractive or paying concern, ?? One
of the few points of his reign worthy of notice was
the appearance here of the Yourg Ros&s, a boy
who, for a brief space, passed as a great actor.
The Edinburgh public viewed with intense interest
this lad playing young Norval on the stage, and the
venerable author of the play blubbering in the
boxes, and declaring that until now his conception
of the character had never been realised.?
Many old favourites came in succession, whose
names are forgotten now. Among these was Mrs.
Charters, a sustainer, with success, of old lady
parts. Her husband, who died in 1798, had been
a comic actor on the same boards, in conjunction
with Mr. Henderson, in 1784. He had by nature
an enormous nose, and was deemed the perfection
of a Bardolph, in which character Kay depicts him,
with a three-cocked hat and knee breeches; and
Henderson, as FalstaK, in long slop-trousers, and
armed with a claymore! Mrs. Charters died in
1807, and her obituary is thus recorded in the
Edinburgh papers of the day :-
?Died here on Monday last, with the wellmerited
reputation of an honest and inoffensive
woman, Mrs. Charters, who has been in this
theatre for more than thirty years. She succeeded
the much-admired Mrs. Webb, and for many years
after that actress left the city was an excellent
substitute in Lady Dacre, Juliet?s Nurse, Deborah
Woodcock, Dorcas, Mrs. Bunale, &c., &c.?
In her own line she was worthily succeeded by
Mrs. Nicol, who retired from the Theatre Royal in
1834, after a brilliant career of twenty-seven years,
and died in 1835. In her old lady parts she was .
ably succeeded by her daughter, Miss Nicol, whose
name is still remembered with honour and regard
by all the old playgoers of Edinburgh.
Another Edinburgh favourite for upwards of
thirty years was Mr. Woods, the leading actor,
whom the public strenuously opposed every attempt
on the part of the management to change.
He retired from the boards in April, 1802, intending
to open an elocution class in the city, but died
in the December of that year. For his benefit in
I 784, he appeared as ?(Young Riot ? in a local](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p167.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 347")
... Bridge.] THE PLAYHOUSE GHOST. 347
youthful frolic ; and it was a rich treat to hear him
tell of a Highland ...
Book 2 p. 347
(Score 0.37)
![Cowgate.] THE BIRTHPLACE OF SCOTT. 255
inaugural thesis containing an outline of his celebrated
discovery of fixed air, or carbonic gas, which
with his discovery of latent heat laid the foundation
of modem pneumatic chemistry, and has opened
to the investigation of the philosopher a fourth
kingdom of nature, viz., the gaseous kingdom.
Other brilliant achievements in science followed
fast before and after Dr. Black?s appointment to a
chair in Glasgow in 1756. Ten years after he
became Professor of Chemistry in Edinburgh, and
was so fm twenty-nine years. .He died in 1799,
while sitting at table, with his usual fare, a few
prunes, some bread, and a little milk diluted with
water. Having the cup in his hand, and feeling the
approach of death, he set it carefully down on his
knees, which were joined together, and kept it
steadily in his hand, in the manner of a person
perfectly at ease, and in this attitude, without
spilling a drop, and without a writhe on his countenance,
Joseph Black, styled by Lavoisier ?the
illustrious Nestor of the chemical revolution,? expired
placidly, as if an experiment had been wanted
to show his friends the ease with which he could
die.
In another house at the wynd head, but exactly
opposite, Sir Walter Scott was born on the 15th
of August, 1771. It belonged to his father Walter
Scott, W.S., and was pulled down to make room for
the northern front of the New College. According
to the simple fashion of the Scottish gentry of that
day, on another floor of the same building-the first
flat-dwelt Mr. Keith, W.S., father of the late Sir
Alexander Keith, of Ravelston, Bart. ; and there,
too, did the late Lord Keith reside in his student
days.
Scott?s father, deeming his house in the College
Wynd unfavourable to the health of his familyfor
therein died several brothers and sisters of Sir
Walter, born before him-removed to an airier
mansion, No. 25, George Square ; but the old wynd
he never forgot. ?( In the course of a walk through
this part of the town in 1825,? says genial Robert
Chambers, ?Sir Walter did me the honour to
point out the site of the house in which he had
been born. On his mentioning that his father had
got a good price for his share of it, I took .the
liberty of jocularly expressing my belief that more
money might have been made of it, and the public
certainly much more gratified, if it had remained to
be shown as the birthplace of the man who had
written so many popular books. ?Ay, ay,? said
Sir Walter, that is very well ; but I am afraid I
should have required to be dead first, and that
would not have been so comfortable, you know.??
The house of Mr. Scott, W.S., on the flat of the
old tenement, was approached by a turnpike stair,
within a little court off the wynd head ; in another
corner of it resided Mr. Alexander Mumy, the
future solicitor-general, who afterwards sat on the
Bench as Lord Henderland, and died in 1795.
It was up this narrow way, on Sunday the
15th of August, 177j-when Scott was exactly a
baby of two years old-that Boswell and Principal
Robertson conducted Dr, Johnson to show him
the College.
Within the narrow compass of this ancient wynd
-so memorable as the birthplace of Scott-were
representatives of nearly every order of Scottish
society, sufficient for a whole series of his Waverley
novels, No wonder is it then, beyond the experience
of ?? Auld Reekie,? that we should find one
of Kay?s quaintest characters, ? Daft Bailie DuK?
a widow?s idiot boy, long regarded as the indispensable
appendage of an Edinburgh funeral,
dwelling in a little den at the foot of the alley,
where he died in I 7 88.
Most picturesque were the venerable ?edifices
that stood between the foot of the College and the
Horse Wynds, though between them 4 St. Peter?$
Close, which, in its latter days, led only to a byre,
and a low, dark, filthy, and homble place, ? full of
holes and water.?
On the east side of St. Peter?s Pend was a very
ancient house, the abode of noble proprietors in
early times, but which had been remodelled and
enlarged in the days of James VI. Three large
and beautiful dormer windows rose above its roof,
the centre one surmounted by an escallop shell,
while a smaller tier of windows peeped out above
them from the ?sclaited roof,? and the lintel of
its projecting turnpike stair, bore all that remained
of its proprietors, these initials, v. P. and A. V.
On the other side of the Pend, and immediately
abutting on the Horse Wynd, was that singularly
picturesque timber-fronted stone tenement, of which
drawings and a description are given in the ?? Edinburgh
Papers,? on the ancient architecture of the city
published in 1859, and referred to as ?another of
the pristine mansions of the Cowgate-the houses
where William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas may
have paid visits, and probably sent forth mailed
warriors to Flodden. . . . . Here, besides the
ground accommodation and gallery floor, with an
outside stair, there is a contracted second flosr,
having also a gallery in front with a range of small
windows. On the gallery floor at the head of the
outside stair, is a finely-moulded door, at the base
of an inner winding or turnpike stair leading up
to the second floor. Such is the style or door to
be seen in all these early woden houses-a style](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p075.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 255")
... THE BIRTHPLACE OF SCOTT. 255
inaugural thesis containing an outline of his celebrated
discovery of ...
Book 4 p. 255
(Score 0.37)
... Street. NIDDRY?S WYND. 245
to protect the powdered head of loftily-dressed
hair, when walking or driving, ...
Book 2 p. 245
(Score 0.37)
... SCOTSMAN.
plain, old-fashioned, yet gentlemanly bearing, his
quiet gait, and shrewd features, when the ...
Book 2 p. 283
(Score 0.37)
![North Bridge.] THE OLD THEATRE ROYAL. 343
able performer in fashionable comedy, and had
been long a favourite at the Canongate Theatre.
Bland was also well connected ; he had been a
Templar, an ofiicer in the army at Fontenoy, and
in the repulse of the British cavalry by the Highlanders
on Cliftonmoor in 1745. For twenty-three
years he continued to be a prime favourite on
these old boards ; he was the uncle of Mrs. Jordan ;
and Edmund Glover, so long a favourite also in
Edinburgh and Glasgow, was nearly related to him.
In 1774 Foote came from Dublin to perform here
again. ?We hear,? says Ruddiman?s Magazine,
?that he is to perform seven nights, for which he
is to receive A250. The Nabob, Th Bankmyt,
The Maidof Bath, and Pie9 in Pattms, all of which
have been written by our modern Aristophanes, are
the four pieces that will be exhibited.?
In these new hands the theatre became prosperous,
and the grim little enclosure named Shakespeare
Square-sprang up near it; but the west side
was simply the rough rubble wall of the bridge,
terminating in later years, till 1!60, by a kind of
kiosk named ?The Box,? in which papers and
periodicals weie sold. It was simply a place of
lodging-houses, a humble inn or two, like the Red
Lion tavern and oyster shop,
At intervals between 1773 and 1815 Mr. Moss
was a prime favourite at the Royal. One of his
cherished characters was Lovegold in The Miser;
but that in which he never failed to ?bring down
the house ? was Caleb, in He wouZd 6e a Soldier,
especially when in the military costume of the
early part of George 111,?s reign, he sang his song,
? I?m the Dandy 0.?
Donaldson, I in his Recollections,? speaks of
acting for ihe, benefit of poor Moss in 1851, at
Stirling, when he-who had delighted the audience
of the then capital in the Mmchant of Venice-was
an aged cripple, penniless and poor. ?? MOSS,? he
adds, ?? caught the inspiration from the renowned
Macklin, whose yew, by Pope?s acknowledgment,
was unrivalled, even in the days of David Gamck,
and he bequeathed to his protdgge? Moss that conception
which descended to the most original and
extraordinary Shylock of any period-Edmund
Kean.?
? During the management of West Digges most
of the then London stars, save Gamck, appeared in
the old Royal. Among them were Mr. Bellamy,
Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Barfy, Mr. and Mrs. Yates, and,
occasionally, Foote.
Of Mrs. Yates Kaygives an etching in the character
of the Duchess of Braganza, a play by an
obscure author named Henry Crisp. The period
to which his print refers was 1785, when-though
she was well advanced in years, having been borm
in 1729 (in London, but of Scottish parents)-
she was paid at the rate of a hundred guineas per
night by Mr. Jackson. From Mr. Digges she
and her husband received seven hundred guineas
at the end of one season. ?The gentlemen of
the bar and some even of the bench had been
zealous patrons of the drama since the Canongate
days, even to the taking a personal concern
in its affairs. They continued to do this for
many years after this time. Dining being then
an act performed at four o?clock, the aristocracy
were free to give their attendance at half-past six,
and did so in great numbers whenever there wasany
tolerable attraction. So fashionable, indeed,
had the theatre become, that a man of birth and
fashion named Mr. Nicholson Stewart came forward
one night, in the character of Richard III.,
to raise funds for the building of a bridge over the
Carron, at a ford where many lives had been lost.
On this occasion the admission to all parts of the
house was five shillings, and it was crowded by
what the journals of the day tell us was a poZite
audience. The gentleman?s action was allowed to
be just, but his voice too weak.??
In 1781 the theatre passed into the hands of
Mr. John Jackson, author of a rather dull (c History
of the Scottish Stage, with a Narrative of Recent
Theatrical Transactions.? It was published at
Edinburgh in 1793. Like his predecessors in the
management he was a man of good education, and
well connected, and had chosen the stage as the
profession he loved best. In the second year of
his rule Siddons appeared in the full power of her
talent and beauty as Portia, at Drury Lane ; and
Jackson, anxious to secure her for Edinburgh,
hastened to London, and succeeded in inducing
her to make an engagement, then somewhat of an
undertaking when the mode of travel in those days
is considered; and on the zznd of May, 1784, she
made her appearance at the Theatre Royal, when,
as the Edinburgh Week0 Magazine records, ((the
manager took the precaution, after the first night,
to have ar. officer?s guard of soldiers at the principal
door. But several scuffles having ensued, through
the eagerness of the people to get places, and the
soldiers having been rash enough to use their
bayonets, it was thought advisable to withdraw the
guard on the third night, lest any accident had
happened from the pressure of the crowd, who
began to assemble round the doors at eleven in the
forenoon.?
Her part was Belvidera, Jaffier being performed
?Sketch of the Theatre Rod,? 1859.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p163.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 343")
... Bridge.] THE OLD THEATRE ROYAL. 343
able performer in fashionable comedy, and had
been long a favourite at ...
Book 2 p. 343
(Score 0.37)
... OLD APU?D NEW EDINBURGH. [Corstorphine.
meaning, no doubt, the panelled box-beds so
common of old in ...
Book 5 p. 114
(Score 0.37)
![THE SCHOOL OF ARE. 379 South Bridge.]
called Adam Square. In those days the ground
in front of these was an open space, measuring
about 250 feet one way by zoo the other, nearly
to Robertson?s Close in the Cowgate, which was
concealed by double rows of trees.
In one of these houses there resided for many
years, and died on the 28th July, 1828, Dr. Andrew
Duncan, First Physician to His Majesty for Scotland;
and an eminent citizen in his day, so much
so that his funeral was a public one. ?The custom
of visiting Arthur?s Seat early on the morning
of the 1st of May is, or rather was, observed with
great enthusiasm by the inhabitants of Edinburgh,?
says the editor of ? Kay?s Portraits.? ? Dr.
younger son of Hope of Rankeillour, in Fife. Of
Stewart and Lindsay, the former was the son of
Charles Stewart of Ballechin, and the latter a
younger son of Lindsay of Wormiston. Among the
leading drapers : In the firm of Lindsay and Douglas,
the former was a younger son of Lindsay of Eaglescairnie,
and the latter of Douglas of Garvaldfoot.
Of Dundas, Inglis, and Callender, the first was a son
of Dundas of Fingarth, in Stirlingshire, the family
from which the Earl of Zetland and Baron Amesbury
are descended ; the second was a younger
son of Sir John Inglis of Cramond, and succeeded
to that baronetage, which, it may be remarked,
took its rise in an Edinburgh merchant of the
seventeenth century. Another eminent clothdealiog
firm, Hamilton and Dalrymple, comprehended
John Dalrymple, a younger brother of the wellknown
Lord Hailes and a grandson of the first
Lord Stair. He was at one time Master of the
Merchant Company. In a fourth firm, Stewart,
Wallace, and Stoddart, the leading partner was a
.son of Stewart of Dunearn.?
The Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce and
Manufactures is an offshoot of the old Merchant
Company in 1786, and consists of a chairman and
deputy,with about thirty directors and other officers,
and has led the van in patronising and promoting
liberal measures in trade and commerce generally.
The schools of the Edinburgh Merchant Company
are among the most prominent institutions
of the city at this day.
More than twenty years behre the erection of the
South Bridge, the celebrated Mr. Robert Adam, of
Maryburgh in Fifeshire, from whose designs many of
the principal edifices in Edinburgh were formed, and
who was appointed architect to the king in 1762,
built, on that piece of ground whereon the south-west
end of the Bridge Street abutted, two very large
and handsome houses, each with large bow-windows,
which, being well recessed back, and having the
College buildinas on the south, formed what was
at an expense within {is reach; and the idea was
the more favourably entertained because such a
scheme was already in full operation at Anderson?s
Institution in Glasgow, and the foundation of the
Edinburgh School of Art in the winter of 1821
was the immediate result.
With Mr. Horner many gentlemen well-known
in the city cordially co-operated ; among these were
Sir David Brewster, Principal of the University,
Dr. Brunton, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Murray, Professor
Pillans, Mr. Playfair, architect, Mr. Robert
Bryson, and Mr. James Mylne, brassfounder.
To enable young tradesmen to become acquainted
with the principles or chemistry and
Duncan was one of the most regular in his devotion
to the Queen of May during the long period of
fifty years, and to the very last he performed his
wonted pilgrimage with all the spirit, if not the
agility, of his younger years On the 1st of May,
1826, two years before his death, although aged
eighty-two, he paid his annual visit, and on the
summit of the hill read a few lines of an address to
Alexander Duke of Gordon, the oldest peer then
alive.? The Doctor was the originator of the Caledonian
Horticultural Society, and the first projector
of a lunatic asylum in Edinburgh
Latterly the houses of Adam were occupied by
the Edinburgh Young Men?s Christian Association,
and the Watt Institution and School of Arts,
which was founded by Mr. Leonard Horner,
F.R.S., a native, and for many years a citizen, of
Edinburgh, the son of Mr. John .Horner, of Messrs.
Inglis and Horner, merchants, at the Cross. The
latter years of his useful life were spent in London,
where he died in 1864, but he always visited Edinburgh
from time to time, and evinced the deepest
interest in its welfare. In 1843 he published the
memoirs and correspondence of his younger brother,
the gifted Francis Horner (the friend of Lansdowne,
Jeffrey, and Brougham), who died at Pisa,
yet won a cenotaph in Westminster Abbey.
To an accidental conversation in 1821, in the
shop of Mr. Bryson, a watchmaker, the origin of
the school has been traced. Mr. Horner asked
whether the young men brought to Mr. Bryson?s
trade received any mathematical education, and
the latter replied that, ?it was seldom, if ever,
the case, and that daily experience showed the
want of this instruction; but that the expense
and usual hours of teaching mathematical classes
put it out of the power of working tradesmen to
obtain such education.? The suggestion then
occurred to Mr. Horner to devise a plan by which
such branches of science as would benefit the
mechanic might be taught at convenient hours and
. .](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p199.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 379")
... SCHOOL OF ARE. 379 South Bridge.]
called Adam Square. In those days the ground
in front of these was an open ...
Book 2 p. 379
(Score 0.37)
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