Our latest online exhibition on Capital Collections features volume one from a set of family photo albums in our collections recording the lives of the Stirling Home Drummond Moray family.
The family was founded by John Moray of Drumshergart, who received the lands of Abercairny in Perthshire on his marriage to Lady Mary, daughter of the Earl of Strathearn. John Moray’s grandfather was Andrew Moray of Drumshergart and Clydesdale.
The addition of Home Drummond to the family name came through the marriage of Miss Christian Moray to Henry Home Drummond.
Many of the photographs in this first volume are of various members of the family, and in a few, Charles Home Drummond Moray and his son Henry Home Drummond appear.
Charles and Henry Home Drummond Moray
Charles Stirling Home Drummond Moray 9th of Blair Drummond was born in Edinburgh on 17 April 1816, his father was Henry Home Drummond 7th of Blair Drummond, and his mother, was Christian Stirling Moray.
He married Anne Georgina Douglas on 11 December 1845, in Churchover, Warwickshire and together had 3 children. He died on 24 September 1891, in Blair Drummond, Perthshire, aged 75, and is buried in Blair Drummond Cemetery, Doune, Stirlingshire.
His son, Henry Home Drummond Moray was born in Edinburgh and educated at Eton College. He played in goal in the F.A. Cup final in 1875 when The Old Etonians played against The Royal Engineers. He served in the Scots Guards from 1866 to 1880, rising to rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
In 1877, he married Lady Georgina Emily Lucy Seymour (1848-1944), daughter of Francis Seymour, 5th Marquess of Hertford.
From 1878 to 1880 he was a Conservative Member of Parliament, and also Vice Convener of Perthshire. This article found in the British Newspaper Archive and from the Dundee Evening Telegraph in January 1878, confirms his candidacy and describes his family connections and status in the county.
Dundee Evening Telegraph, Monday 21 January 1878
In 1891, he dropped the name of Moray on succeeding his father in the estate of Blair Drummond.
Throughout the album as you’d expect, there are many and various individual and group photographs of the family, taken both in a studio and at different locations in the grounds of their properties. Pets are represented too and alongside the photos are a handful of drawings and cartoon illustrations. One of the most extraordinary photos in the album shows a massive bonfire that was built to celebrate Queen Victoria’s 21st year of reign with men and boys precariously perched all around it and surrounded by a crowd of people and children.
The album also contains several photos of Abercairny House in Perthshire which was owned by the Moray family. The estate, owned by the family since the 13th century, is located four miles east of Crieff. Built for William and James Moray, Abercairny House is a neo-Georgian design by the Hon. Claud Phillimore. It was built to replace the previous mansion Abercairny Abbey which was a Gothic Revival building designed by Richard Crichton between 1804-9 and 1814-17, completed by R. and R. Dickson and demolished in 1960. The stable block is a one and two storey block with a round internal courtyard and large archway on the west elevation. It was built in 1841-2 by R. and R. Dickson and reused the materials of the previous stables which had stood adjacent to the house.
The photos above and many more can be found in the pages of this family album which is available to browse on Capital Collections.
Get ready for Bookbug Says Hello! Bookbug Week takes place from 13 to 19 May and this year celebrates all the different languages spoken by families across Scotland.
Here’s our programme of Bookbug Week activities across our libraries. Contact the library for further details.
Balerno Library Wednesday 15 May, Bookbug session followed by colouring and crafts and teas and coffees
Balgreen Library Friday 17 May at 10.30am, special Bookbug session with tea and coffee
Central Children’s Library Tuesday 14 May, Bookbug session with multilingual rhymes Friday 17 May, Special Bookbug session
Colinton Library Friday 17 May, Bookbug session followed by colouring and crafts and teas and coffees
Currie Library Thursday 16 May, Bookbug session followed by colouring and crafts and teas and coffees
Drumbrae Library Monday 13 May, Bookbug Week session Wednesday 15 May, Bookbug Week session Saturday 18 May, Bookbug Week session
Fountainbridge Library Thursday 16 May, Bookbug Week session with tea and coffee Saturday 18 May, Bookbug Week session with tea and coffee
Gilmerton Library Tuesday 14 May at 2.30pm, Bookbug Week session storytelling and Bookbug craft Friday 17 May at 11am, Bookbug Week session storytelling and Bookbug craft
Granton Library Tuesday 14 May at 11am, Bookbug Week Special – many families, many languages. Wednesday 15 May at 2pm, Bookbug Week Special – many families, many languages. In these special multilingual sessions we will share songs and rhymes that our families have shared with us, including some in Polish, Chinese, Turkish and Arabic. Shakers and beaters will also hand! Free to attend, no need to book. Please arrive in good time however, as numbers may be capped if too busy.
Kirkliston Library Friday 17 May, Bookbug session with story “All Are Welcome” and trying a Gaelic hello song!
Moredun Library Tuesday 14 May, special Bookbug session Wednesday 15 May, special Bookbug session Thursday 16 May, special Bookbug session
Morningside Library Tuesday 14 May at 10.30am, special Bookbug session Thursday 16 May at 10.30am, special Bookbug session Come and say hello in your language. Browse our dual language picture books. Book on your place via Eventbrite.
Newington Library Thursday 16 May at 10.30am, special German Bookbug session
Oxgangs Library Tuesday 14 May at 10.30am, Bookbug Week session Thursday 16 May at 2pm, Bookbug Week session Saturday 18 May at 10.30am, Bookbug Week session
Piershill Library Wednesday 15 May at 2pm, special Bookbug session with some songs and rhymes in languages other that English. Mural of “Hello” in other languages.
Portobello Library Wednesday 15 May at 10.30am, Bookbug Week session Wednesday 15 May at 2pm, outdoor Bookbug session in Rosefield Park Saturday 18 May at 11am, Bookbug Week session
Ratho Library Thursday 16 May at 11.15am, special Bookbug session with some songs and rhymes in different languages. Families share some of their favourite songs and rhymes, followed by a craft activity.
Sighthill Library Monday 13 May at 3.30pm, special Bookbug session Friday 17 May at 10.45am, special Bookbug session Sessions with some songs and rhymes in different languages. Families sharing any favourite songs and rhymes they have e.g. in different languages and learning them together, followed by a craft activity.
South Queensferry Library Tuesday 14 May, Bookbug Week session Thursday 16 May, Bookbug Week session with story “All Are Welcome” and trying a Gaelic hello song!
Stockbridge Library Monday 13 May, special Bookbug session Saturday 18 May, special Bookbug session
Wester Hailes Library Tuesday 14 May at 5.30pm, Bookbug’s Bedtime Stories – come in your PJs for some special Bookbug bedtime stories and songs! Tuesday 14 May, Bookbug’s Big Sleepover – your teddy is invited to join Bookbug for a big sleepover in the Library. Wednesday 15 May at 11am, Bookbug Week session Thursday 16 May at 2pm, Bookbug Week session
Edinburgh Shoreline is a community centred initiative celebrating the city’s coastline, and around the rest of the Forth. They are rediscovering its fascinating and often unknown history and the rich plant and animal life that survives against the odds in unexpected places, and inspiring people to explore their coast and take responsibility for its future health.
Edinburgh Shoreline Wildline Meadow at Silverknowes, 2021 Copyright: Fred Phillips for Edinburgh Shoreline
The Edinburgh Shoreline project started in 2015 when a couple of friends cycled Edinburgh’s 27km of coast and were shocked by the extent of coastal inaccessibility and loss of its coastal biodiversity, in spite of its internationally important designations. Their desire to change this has now morphed into a major Firth of Forth seagrass and oyster restoration project.
You can read all about Edinburgh’s shoreline heritage and the project to date on Our Town Stories!
Edinburgh 900 is a celebration of the nine centuries of history and traditions in Scotland’s capital city since the royal burgh was founded by King David I around 1124. Working with partners and community groups across the city, City of Edinburgh Council are curating a rich programme of events, talks, tours and tales which will run from Summer 2024. There is funding available for local community groups and organisations to help them get involved in this memorable and fitting celebration.
You can apply for up to £5,000 worth of funding, or simply register events to be included in the programme without applying for funding.
There is also a separate civic fund as part of the programme.
Edinburgh residents won’t need telling that the Beltane Fire Festival takes place tomorrow, on the eve of 1st May.
But maybe you’re less familiar with its history? Beltane is ancient Celtic fire festival and there are traces of former Beltane sites across Scotland, including one of the best known, Arthur’s Seat.
Traditionally, Beltane celebrates the entry of summer and encourages the renewal of food supply. For the growth of vegetation, moisture is just as important as sunshine, so alongside fire, water also has its place in the Beltane ritual. To the Druids, dew was the most sacred of all water, and the dew of Beltane morning was the most special. It could assure health and happiness and even beauty, for the coming year. You may still find people washing their face in the morning dew on the slopes of Arthur’s Seat on 1st May…
Article on Beltane, presscutting from The Scotsman, 19 February 2004
The modern fire festival staged on Calton Hill was first created in 1988 and is now a ticketed event attracting thousands of people to come together and celebrate the magic and ritual of Beltane.
Despite this, we’ve been unable to find many pictures from the festival in our collections. Fortunately, our fantastic press cutting collection in the Edinburgh and Scottish Collection has come to the rescue and alongside press photos and stories, there are even a couple of festival flyers. One is from the Third Annual Beltane Fire in 1990 looking for musicians with “a sense of adventure” to get involved.
Flyer for Third Annual Beltane Fire in 1990
Beltane Fire Festival flyer, 2009
Another is from Beltane 2009, almost twenty years later and shows how the festival has grown.
So, if you’re planning on going to Beltane tomorrow, we’d love to see your photos! Or maybe you have photos of Beltanes past?
Maybe you could add them to the Edinburgh Collected community archive, and help us fill this gap in our collections?
Please get in touch with informationdigital@edinburgh.gov.uk if you’d like to add your picture memories to Edinburgh Collected but are unsure how to start.
Whether you’ve got access to an allotment or window ledge, you can get into gardening and enjoy the fruits or flowers of your labour, not to mention the benefits to mind, body and spirit.
Central Lending Library has a fantastic new collection of gardening books which are currently on display and available to borrow.
Climate change is one of the biggest, most urgent issues affecting us all today.
If you live in Edinburgh, you may be aware that our city has a lot of climate related activity going on. There are many organisations and community groups working to tackle climate issues on a local level, and City of Edinburgh Council is leading the way with the 2030 Climate Strategy, which aims to deliver impactful change to issues such as our energy use, green economy and public transport.
To provide local residents with the opportunity to discuss these topics and to share questions and concerns, Central Library will be running two free climate events. These will be delivered by two of our partner organisations and you are warmly invited to attend.
Climate Meet-Up event
Edinburgh Community Climate Action Network (ECCAN) will host a Climate Meet-Up event fortnightly on Tuesday evenings from 30 April. You will be able to speak to well-informed volunteers and find out about local projects and initiatives. Teas, coffees and biscuits will be available. The sessions will last an hour and a half from 6pm and will take place in the ‘Warm and Welcoming’ space on the Mezzanine floor (one level down from the ground floor, accessible by lift).
This is not a drop-in event. If you’d like to attend, please register for the ‘Meet Up’, and then book your free place each session.
The Climate Psychology Alliance (CPA) will host a Climate Café-style Listening Circle on Tuesday 7 May from 6 to 7.30pm, with more sessions to follow depending on demand. The event will be held in the Boardroom (one level up from the ground floor, not accessible by lift). Teas, coffees and biscuits will be available.
A listening circle is a warm, friendly space to meet and talk about your responses to an issue such as the climate crisis. There will be no leading, advice-giving, blaming – just time to explore.
We can all feel unheard, even in the places where we act to make a difference. A climate listening circle aims to be an open, safe place where you can say what you want about the climate crisis and how it affects you.
The Group is facilitated, to organise and help keep the space safe for expression, allowing time for everyone present. There are no guest speakers, no lectures, just space to talk.
Did you know that at Edinburgh Libraries we have three different downloadable audiobook services? Want to know why and the reasons you need to check them all?!
We have eaudiobooks on Libby, BorrowBox and uLIBRARY. You can listen to these on your mobile phone, tablet or computer. We have 7380 titles and 121,497 copies!
We have three because we can’t get all the titles available from one supplier. This way we can offer as wide a range as possible with each service having a different selection of authors and titles. Each service has its own app and website.
Libby has books for adults, teens and children. BorrowBox and uLIBRARY just have adult stock (uLIBRARY does have a monthly children’s book club title too though!).
Not all publishers will sell downloadable audiobooks to libraries. Hence why some best-selling authors and titles might be missing from our collections.
Titles from a series of books might appear on a couple of different services. This is because publishers sell the rights to produce audiobooks and different producers win the rights to books in the same series. i.e. you’ll find audiobooks from Lin Anderson’s Rhona MacLeod books and Lucinda Riley’s Seven Sisters series on Libby and BorrowBox and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series appears on both Libby and uLIBRARY. Check all of our services when looking for a series!
eAudiobooks do appear on our library catalogue so you can check here for what services specific titles might be found on. But…the library catalogue is not always up-to-date regarding eaudiobooks as there will be a delay in adding the record for new stock and in removing the record for titles we no longer have. There is also no direct link to the app version from the catalogue (just the web site) so you need to open the app and search for the title anyway if you are wanting to use the app. So… the catalogue can be a guide to what we have, but you do need to check with the audiobook platforms to be completely sure.
Bottom line is check all our audiobook services if you are looking for audiobooks! If you have any questions about our audiobook services please get in touch at informationdigital@edinburgh.gov.uk
Throughout April and May in our staircase exhibition space at Central Library we are showcasing one of our special collections’ books, Baby’s Own Aesop, by Walter Crane (1845- 1915).
First published in 1887, it is a book for children which leads the reader, and the onlooker, through a series of beautifully elaborate pictures and rhymes. The wood-engraver William James Linton (Walter Crane first knew Linton as an apprentice in his workshop), wrote the verse in imitation of the ancient Greek fabulist Aesop, and the rest – the covers, the endpapers, the frontispiece, lettering, and layout – Walter Crane designed and the printer Edmund Evans printed. Behind it all was the belief that art and design could stimulate a child by being interesting and therefore it could help them learn.
Walter Crane (1845-1915), detail of photo by Frederick Hollyer, via Wikimedia Commons
As an artist Walter Crane was affiliated with the Arts and Crafts Movement, which elevated craftsmanship in the face of increasingly mechanised production techniques. Aestheticism and “art for art’s sake” are other common associations. The formal qualities of an artwork were important to him, as was his socialism, especially from the 1880s. His wish was to popularise the arts and make them a part of everybody’s daily lives.
View of the Walter Crane and art of Aesop staircase display at Central Library
You can also browse all the illustrated pages from Baby’s Own Aesop on our online image library, Capital Collections.
Who was Aesop?
Anonymous artist. Woodcut frontispiece from a Spanish edition of Aesop’s Fables, 1489 via Wikimedia Commons
What we know about Aesop is murky at best. He belongs to the oral tradition of storytelling and he reportedly lived in Ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. It is said that he may have been a slave, also that he was strikingly ugly, and that he was tongue-tied until the goddess Isis granted him the power of speech and storytelling prowess… Multiple versions of him exist and no original sources survive to tell us. As a storyteller he is as much a story himself as the stories he tells. The Greek historian Herodotus mentions him in the 5thc. BCE – and other ancient writers refer to him; Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, and more. His name was well known, and yet we still know very little about him factually. He is very much a legendary figure, and has become the associative, encapsulating name for the animal fable in general.
What is a fable?
There is so much variety in what a fable is but broadly, it is a short, fictitious story, where everyday animals, objects, plants, or natural phenomena are the central protagonists. They are given thought and speech, and treated as if they are human. Fables are also usually thought of as having an element of morality to them, with religious, social or political themes; some kind of truth, and this reflects back onto the communities and time period in which they are told. For example, a fable is a bottom-up way of talking truth to power in a highly hierarchical society like Imperial Rome. Fables are very fluid texts and are used by different ideologies and for different agendas. Often, they are strange and contradictory, with many meanings.
Over the centuries fables have been used for pedagogy as well as entertainment, and especially from the Renaissance onwards, they have been very much associated with children. A moral from the mouth of an animal is more persuasive somehow. Also, there’s something about using an animal as a character that can specify more in a narrative than using a human perhaps; using a fox to denote a cunning person tells us more than using a human for that same character.
What does being an animal say about being a human and human society? As we know from our own culture, the animal fable holds the means to discuss so much.
Origins and history
The animal fable tradition stretches back much further than Aesop’s Greece, and indeed fable stories have been found on Sumerian tablets from c.3000 BCE. They have grown out of the oral tradition; Aesop never wrote anything himself.
In the late 4th c. BCE Demetrius of Phalerum is credited with putting together the first collection of fables that we know about, but our oldest surviving manuscript that is a collection of fables dates from the 1stc. CE and was written by the Roman poet Phaedrus in Latin verse. In Greece, the poet Babrius wrote another collection in Greek verse – again this was a literary work.
Lhs. Fables 11, 16 and 17, Babrius. Greek – accompanied by Latin, [? Egypt: 3rd or 4th c.] Morgan Library, Amherst Greek Papyrus 26 Rhs. Fabularum Aesopiarum, Phaedrus.Latin, [Reims, France: 9th c.] M.906 [Codex Pithoeanus.] Images from Early Children’s Books and Their Illustration, text by Gerald Gottlieb, essay by J.H. Plumb. The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Oxford University Press, London; 1975.
In the European written tradition, the fables travelled over the centuries in both Greek and Latin – and around 1476 they were translated into German by the humanist writer and doctor, Heinrich Steinhöwel. From there they were translated into Italian, French, English (the Caxton edition from 1484), Czech, and Spanish. In the 16thc. Portuguese monks took Aesop to Japan; and in the 17thc. the fables were brought to China. They have spread into majority and minority languages all over the world.
With the invention of moveable type in the 15th c. Aesop’s Fables were among the first books to be illustrated, and they have been so enduringly popular they can almost be read as a history of the printed book and a showcase of printmaking techniques.
On display are examples of early woodcuts, and finer, more detailed copperplate etching – by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder in the 16th c., and Wenceslaus Hollar and Francis Barlow in the 17th c. (most of Hollar’s etchings were based on drawings by the artist Franz Cleyn.)
In the medium of wood engraving are beautiful examples by Thomas Bewick (published in 1776 and 1784), and in the 20th century by Agnes Millar Parker (collated and republished in 2020.)
Other notable illustrators of Aesop’s Fables were John Tenniel (he was unhappy with the work and redrew some of the tales for a later revised edition), Randolph Caldecott, Ernest Griset, and Harrison Weir. Arthur Rackham published a collection of fables in 1912 with a new translation by V.S. Vernon Jones, and more recent examples from the wonderful world of children’s book illustration include Lisbeth Zwerger, Brian Wildsmith, Jerry Pinkney and Charlotte Voake.
Laura Gibbs, who translated the fables for the 2002 Oxford World Classics edition, also has a comprehensive web presence which includes selections from all major Greek and Latin sources.
Lastly, in our special collections we hold a number of important editions: including a 1676 Latin edition printed in Edinburgh by George Swinton; a 17th c. English translation with illustrations by Francis Barlow (1687); and an 1887 edition translated by George Fyler Townsend (a popular 19th c. translation) with Harrison Weir illustrations. Also copies in Greek and Italian; translations by Samuel Croxall and Sir Roger L’Estrange; some of the John Tenniel illustrations; and a beautiful Ernest Griset copy.
A recent addition to our Edinburgh Collected community archive is an online scrapbook of fabulous photos gathered together by the Living Memory Association from a collection from Dorothy Law and Christine Couper, two avid followers of the Edinburgh Monarchs speedway team in the 1960s.
Meadowbank Speedway and Monarchs Supporters on a trip to London, 1967, shared by Living Memory Association on www.edinburghcollected.org
Speedway was, and still is, a popular Friday evening family sport with clubs competing up and down the country. Our collection focuses on Edinburgh Monarchs which was founded in 1928 and operated from Marine Garden in Portobello for several years into the 1930s.
Edinburgh Monarchs Speedway heartthrob, Reidar Eide at Meadowbank, c1966, shared by Living Memory Association on www.edinburghcollected.org
After the Second World War, Marine Gardens was not available for use and the team moved venue to Old Meadowbank. The team raced there until the stadium was redeveloped for the Commonwealth Games in 1970. The team then moved to a new track at Cliftonhill, Coatbridge in North Lanarkshire and operated as the Coatbridge Monarchs for the later part of the 1960s.
Edinburgh Monarchs Speedway Motorcycling Team, c1965, shared by Living Memory Association on www.edinburghcollected.org
They returned to Edinburgh in 1977, racing at Powderhall Stadium until 1995. When Powderhall was sold to a housing company, the Monarchs were on the move again. In 1997 their home was Armadale Stadium, West Lothian, where they remain. And for anyone wanting to catch this sport, the Scottish speedway season has just restarted this month!
Meadowbank Speedway Supporters Club Banner, c1966, shared by Living Memory Association on www.edinburghcollected.org
As part of the Traditional DanceForum of Scotland’s Pomegranates 2024 festival of international traditional dance, a new exhibition, Dance Around the World,is on display at Central Library until 30 April 2024.
Dance Around the World exhibition on the mezzanine at Central Library
Dance Around the Worlddisplays over 100 items on loan from public and private collections of world traditional dance books and artefacts. It features items from over 20 different countries including Scotland, Greece, Estonia, Poland, Bali and Japan.
Our collaboration with Edinburgh Central Library began in June 2023 when we brought trad dance performances to the library, possibly for the first time, while celebrating the feisty women-tradition keepers and dance innovators as part of the 10th anniversary of the Harpies, Fechters and Quines Festival. We even recorded one of our Trad Dance Cast video podcast episodes at the library with the legendary trad dance artist and costume maker Margaret Belford. It was then when we pencilled and penned our love letter to the library – this very dance exhibition and all the related festival activities, including the craft workshops and the walking tour. Iliyana Nedkova, Co-curator of the Dance Around the World exhibition
Poster for the Pomegranates festival, Dance Around the World exhibition
Some of the exhibition highlights include an Ukrainian folk dance headdress commissioned for their inaugural Pomegranates Festival 2022 in tribute to the millions of displaced Ukrainians around the world (pictured in the exhibition poster and the installation view above); an original Estonian dance dolly ‘rescued’ from a Finnish flea market and a full outfit worn at Scottish country dances since 1978 by a lifetime member of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society.
This year’s festival commission is a Barbie doll clad in a tartan frock! It is by their fashion designer-in-residence Alison Harm of Edinburgh’s Psychomoda brand, whose solo exhibition Vengefully Changed Allegianceoffers further insight into her sustainable fashion practice while exploring the role of tartan in Scottish trad dance.
A Barbie doll dressed in a tartan frock in the Dance Around the World exhibition
Alongside the numerous books on display selected from seven private collections, as well as the catalogue of the Edinburgh City Libraries, there are rare artefacts, including a pair of exquisite lacquer Geta shoes and an Obi bow and sash belt worn as part of the traditional wrap-around costumes for the Bon Odori summer dance festivals in Japan, and at our inaugural Pomegranates Festival 2022 in Scotland.
Look out for the Vengefully Changed Allegiance exhibition at the Scottish Storytelling Centre from 23 to 30 April 2024, as well as the Pomegranates festival programme of craft workshops, dance, shows and walking tours.
Phase 2 for the statutory consultation of the Scheme for Community Councils and their Boundaries has been extended until 3 May 2024.
Phase 2 of the statutory consultation and review of the Scheme for Community Councils and their Boundaries is underway and we welcome your views on how Edinburgh’s scheme can be improved to best represent and support your community. To encourage participation and feedback, the timescale to provide views has been extended up till 3 May 2024.
What are Community Councils?
Community Councils are voluntary organisations set up by statute and by the Local Authority to act on behalf of their areas. They are involved in a range of activities which promote and protect the well-being and identity of their communities; and help bring local people together to make things happen. They advise, petition, influence and advocate numerous causes and cases of concern on behalf of local communities. Community councils also have a statutory right to be consulted on planning applications and are statutory consultees in terms of licensing.
Edinburgh currently has 46 community council areas. All local authorities must provide a Scheme for Community Councils, which is a document that outlines their governance arrangements and also includes details on boundaries for Community Council areas too.
Why is there a public consultation of the Scheme for Community Councils and their Boundaries?
The last review and public consultation of the scheme was carried out in 2019.
As the city’s population increases the Council needs to review the scheme to make sure that our Community Councils are the right size to fairly represent our new and growing neighbourhoods.
At a Special Meeting on 8 February 2024, Council agreed to initiate Phase 2 of the statutory consultation and the review of the Scheme for Community Councils and their Boundaries. Phase 2 closes on 3 May 2024.
How many phases of the public consultation are there?
There are three phases to the public consultation process.
Phase 1 sought initial thoughts and views on the existing Scheme for Community Councils and their Boundaries and completed on 8 December 2023.
Phase 3 will give the opportunity to make any last comments before the final scheme is adopted.
Please note that consultation timescales are indicative and subject to change and a Public Notice of the period of the statutory consultation has been posted.
How can you and your communities provide feedback during the public consultation?
If you have an accessibility need and would like help to provide feedback please email the Governance Team at community.councils@edinburgh.gov.uk or call 0131 529 4494.
Where can I find out more information and who can I share this with?
The Music Library dig into the past to highlight the women whose names survive his-story
For the most part, over the ages, histories or perhaps his-stories, have been written by men, about men. From the tweed-jacketed dons in their dreaming spires, back through the ages of the frock coated Victorian, or the cod-pieced court historian to the cassocked priest or monk appointed to record their version of their times, for education of future students of the past.
It follows that history may be the opinion of the person that records that history and it is more than possible that their account was/is biased in favour of opinions of the time or who the audience was. Histories or his-stories mirror the times and are voiced by a servant of the times. The commentators on the past were mostly from a certain sex and class, it follows that people and things out with their “sightlines” were not part of their history. It is hard to say, at this distance of time, whether this was by design or circumstance.
With all that said and repeated in different ways, just to labour a point, the next thing to say is for every famous artist, every Titian, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Goethe, Wordsworth, Mozart, Beethoven or Paganini, there are artists, writers, musicians, singers, composers, poets, who are women, who are of equal, if not greater, talent than those mentioned above.
In a letter to Felix Mendelssohn in 1825, Goethe, the German writer and polymath, states: “Give my regards to your equally talented sister”.
The further back we go in history the less we know, and unfortunately the less we have to demonstrate the talents of women composers. It can be a remarkable set of circumstances that the names and pen portraits we have, have survived. Even more remarkable that we have any of their music.
Clara Wieck, 1819 – 1896
Clara Wieck was a prodigious talent from an early age, making her debut at the age of 9 and maintaining a 60 year career as a soloist, accompanist and a piano teacher. For many years apart from her solo career, she toured far and wide with the violinist Joseph Joachim. She played in Edinburgh and Glasgow in a 1867 tour. She was outspoken about the musicianship in England and critical of the lack of rehearsal time given for a performer and orchestra to prepare a concerto for performance.
Clara Schumann, 1857 Franz Hanfstaengl, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In 1840, Clara Wieck married the composer Robert Schumann and became Clara Schumann. For the rest of their marriage and her working life it would seem that Clara was an adviser and an a emotional and musical support to Robert and their musical friends such as Johannes Brahms, Joseph Joachim. Robert Schumann became unwell in 1854 and a breakdown and an unsuccessful suicide attempt saw him hospitalised for the last two years of his life. While the Schumanns’ friend, the composer, Brahms, was able to visit with Robert regularly, the doctor in charge of the sanatorium felt that any contact with either Clara or their 8 children might agitate the patient, and they were forbidden from ever visiting. Robert died two years later, in 1856, without ever seeing his wife or children again.
There are threads of discussions in different articles that, unfairly, suggest that Clara’s career was due in part to Robert’s illness and her successes were due to forbearance shown in the period of his final decline.
Fanny Mendelssohn, 1805 – 1847
Fanny Mendelssohn was the eldest of four children born to Abraham and Lea Solomon Mendelssohn. Fanny’s first piano teacher was her mother until the family moved to Paris in 1816 when both Felix and Fanny both began to study with Marie Bigot. The Mendelssohn family begin a Sunday concert series in the family home in 1822 which continued until Fanny’s death in 1847.
Living and growing up in a patriarchal society and in a family where there was a great respect for that Pater. Pater’s opinion was listened to and respected. Fanny’s father wrote in an often quoted letter to her in 1820, “Music will perhaps become his [i.e. Felix’s] profession, while for you it can and must be only an ornament and can and never should become the ground bass of your being and doing”.
In all that is written of Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn it is often stated that she was a great adviser to her brother and on occasions aided how he presented certain works, he set great store in her advice. In a letter to Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Felix and Fanny’s mother, Felix writes that “she has neither the inclination nor the vocation for authorship.” He also says “publishing would only disturb her in these (management of household duties), and I cannot say that I approve of it”. Although he says this to his mother, it would seem that his private view on Fanny publishing her works was quite opposite.
Fanny Hensel, nee Mendelsohn-Bartholdy, 1847 Portrait by her husband, Wilhelm Hensel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In a comment on Fanny’s abilities as a player the German composer, Carl Zelter, in a letter to Goethe, in 1831 wrote, “She plays like a Man”. Hopefully, we live in more enlightened times and that kind of description to critique a performance wouldn’t be considered today.
Fanny died at the very young age of 42, she was rehearsing one of her brother cantatas for performance when she had a stroke and never recovered.
Sophia Dussek. 1775 – 1830
Sophia was born in Edinburgh to Domenico Corri and Francesca Bachelli, who moved to Edinburgh in the early 1770s and quickly became mainstays on Edinburgh musical life. Sophia born in 1775 was given a musical education by her father. Her father entered into a publishing partnership with the composer, Jan Ladislav Dussek. When the business became bankrupt Jan Ladislav left the country never to return. Sophia continued her musical life but was unable to remarry until Dussek her estranged first husband passed away. The news of Dussek’s passing came through in 1812 and Sophia married the violist, John Alvis Moralt they lived together in Paddington London, where they started a music school and Sophia continued to write and perform.
Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of France, 1755 – 1893
Marie studied with the composer Gluck, played the harp, sang and composed songs. Most people know two things about Marie. The quote “let them eat cake”, most probably wrongly attributed to her, and for being beheaded. Now we know that as with a lot of gentile ladies of the 18th century, she could write and perform music.
Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre, 1666 – 1729
Elisabet was born to the family of instrument maker, organist and harpsichordist Claude Jaquet. Louis XIV undertakes her education with his mistress, Madame de Montespan supervising. She is described in the journal, Mercure Galant, as something of a child wonder and “the marvel of our century”. Elisabeth had a successful career in the French court and beyond, so much so, that she retired from her performing life in 1717 at the age of 61. When she died in1729, she was a wealthy women accorded royal and critical recognition and a medal struck in her honour by Louis XV.
Portrait of Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729), François de Troy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Isabella Leonarda, 1620 – 1704
Isabella was born into a noble family and she entered the Convent of Saint Ursula of Novara where she stayed for the rest of her life. She became Mother Superior in 1686 and Madre Vicaria in 1693. For the most part, Isabella’s output was sacred music but she is recorded as the first women composer to write a sonata for violin and continuio.
Barbara Strozzi, 1619 – 1677
Born to the poet, librettist and dramatist, Giulio Strozzi and his maid, Isabella Briega or Garzoni or Griegha, Barbara Strozzi’s date of birth is not recorded but her baptism was recorded as the 6 August 1619. Giulio and Isabella remained unmarried but Giulio, the poet continued to support Barbara, his only daughter. Barbara Strozzi studied composition with Cavalli who was a pupil of Monteverdi. The details of Barbara’s life are vague but she seemed successful, admired and much sought-after. Her death is recorded in 1877 at the age of 58. However, it is possible she was older at the time of her death as an account by an attendant places her age at nearer 70.
Francesca Caccini, 1587 – 1645
Francesca Caccini was born in Florence to a musical family, father, a composer and mother, a singer. Her early studies were with her father in singing, lute harpsichord and composition. She entered the court of the Medici in 1607, a sought-after singer and composer. In 1645, the guardianship of guardianship of her son is passed to his uncle, suggesting that this may be the year of Francesca’s death. In some records of her life, this date is given as 1640, in one it is 1627, a date possibly confused with the year she gave up her position with the Medici Court.
Hildegard of Bingen, 1098 – 1179
Hildegard was an abbess, composer, poet, mystic, teacher, consultant to Popes and politicians, writer and visionary.
Hildegard von Bingen, line engraving by W. Marshall Welcome Collection, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Born into a noble family who had pledged the life of their tenth child to God, Hildgard was placed in a convent at the age of eight. Hildegard led a significant life and so we have a good amount of writing on her and much of her work survives. It is only in recent years that her musical output was transcribed from a form of medieval notation to a more traditional 20th century notation.
The Forth Rail Bridge was officially opened on 4 March 1890 after an 18-year construction. The new bridge had to withstand the strong currents of the narrows between North and South Queensferry, and when completed, the Forth Bridge was the longest bridge of its type, a single cantilever, in the world.
View from North Queensferry of the construction of the Forth Rail Bridge by George Washington Wilson, c1887 from www.capitalcollections.org.uk
The foundations of the bridge lie on the bed of the Firth of Forth and island of Inchgarvie. One of the earliest stages of construction was to create huge wrought iron blocks, known as caissons, into position to effectively hold back the water and allow the workers, known as the Briggers, to the bed to lay the foundations. The 6 caissons were assembled on land and towed out by barges to be sunk into place. This was an exceptionally dangerous phase in the construction; caissons were known to burst, flooding the space inside, and access to the site involved unsteady transfers from barge to pier in the swirling tides of the Forth. The first caisson was launched 140 years ago this year.
To mark the anniversary of this key date, Museums & Galleries Edinburgh have published on Capital Collections a book listing all the accidents taking place during the early phase of construction of the Bridge in the 1880s.
The ‘Accidents’ book donated to Museum & Galleries Edinburgh and now available to view on www.capitalcollections.org.uk
The book was recently donated to Queensferry Museum and is a perfect compliment to the existing collections telling the story of the three Forth bridges. Its plain cover belies the detail of its contents; a catalogue of injuries ranging from mild bruising to some of the most gruesome and painful accidents imaginable. It is a unique insight into the construction of the bridge, the lives of the Briggers working on the iconic bridge and the dangers they faced, and also how they were treated by the earliest ambulance services in Scotland. It records 197 accidents, including nine fatalities, over a 32-month period from 1883 to 1886. As far as we know, it is one of the only surviving working documents from the Bridge’s construction.
Consider for instance Matthew Snowden (listed as accident 61), who was lucky enough to get away with just hurting his right hand after falling off a jetty. He was seen by the doctor and soon returned to work. Or poor William Hawkins, a foreman painter who was crushed by a barge, the Tamar, while coming ashore. His left leg was completely smashed above the ankle and had to be amputated at the knee. He was “removed to Infirmary Edinr. by Ambulance”. Hawkins survived, and was paid until he was able to come back to work.
Page 60 from the ‘Accidents’ book detailing Wm. Hawkins injury and treatment. Read the full volume on www.capitalcollections.org.uk
This wonderful small book has already started to fill in gaps in what is known about the rest of the Forth Bridge collection held at Queensferry Museum; a medal has been linked back to its original owner, Patrick Lee for the first time. Lee was listed in the book when he caught his sleeve on a drilling machine on the 5 February 1886. Thankfully he only sustained a bruised wrist.
Alongside the details of accidents, the book also gives information on sick leave, compensation and any resulting sick pay. It lists the various doctors who attended the injured; among them a certain Dr. Hunter who was one of the Forth Bridge doctors and also the South Queensferry GP.
Collections staff at the City of Edinburgh Museums & Galleries approached a group of Queensferry local historians about the book. Since 2005, The Briggers (taking their name from the nickname of construction workers), have been collecting and researching the history of the Rail Bridge. In 2009 they compiled a list of all known deaths which took place during the bridge’s construction, so it seemed fitting to let them know about the Accidents book.
Thanks to tireless efforts of The Briggers, the book has been entirely transcribed. The full text is now available on Capital Collections, the image library for Edinburgh Libraries, Museums & Galleries. Anyone looking at these pages will be able to search for names of relatives working on the Bridge and find out what happened to them.
The Briggers continue to analyse the book and compare it with other existing records. Already, they are aware of one death previously unrecorded and are starting to put together enough information for an emerging picture of how accidents were treated. Who knows what more questions this book will answer?
If you took part in the ‘Edinburgh Women’s Mural’ project at Central Library in 2022, or visited the exhibition on tour at one of our community branches, you may like to see the Mural on display again at its temporary new home at the Museum of Edinburgh. During March 2024 this beautiful collaborative work will feature as part of the Museum’s International Women’s Day celebration. Please drop in to see it!
Watch our interview with two of the women depicted on the Mural, Sigrid Nielsen from the Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive, and trailblazing author Ellen Galford in our film Edinburgh Women’s Mural Talks 2022: LGBTQ+ Trailblazers.
Do you run a charity, community group, social enterprise or voluntary organisation? Are you looking for local grants and funding sources for your climate project?
Did you know that you can search through dozens of government, National Lottery, charitable trust and other funds via the Edinburgh4Community funding opportunities website? You’ll need to create an account, but it’s quick and free to sign up and use! If you’re not sure how to get started, please take a look at our handy How to Use Edinburgh4Community guide.
And here’s a handful of funding ideas to get you inspired: • Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration fund, aimed at projects that restore wildlife and habitats on land and sea, and address the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change • The National Lottery’s Climate Action Fund, for projects that encourage communities to promote energy efficiency and/or use energy in an environmentally friendly way • The Freshfield Foundation, for charitable organisations working in the areas of sustainable development and climate change mitigation • Faith in Community Scotland’s Greener Places, Fairer Spaces fund, aimed at local faith groups and other related organisations for projects that address poverty and climate change in communities across Scotland.
When you think of Edinburgh 100 years ago, do you imagine bohemian gatherings of artists and writers in a European-style salon?
To mark LGBTQ+ History Month 2024, Nicky from the Art and Design Library team shares an intriguing journey through Edinburgh history that she stumbled upon thanks to a series of serendipitous events involving books from the Art and Design and Edinburgh and Scottish collections. A small display of books accompanying this blog post can be found in the glass cabinet outside the Art and Design library.
Back in 2019 in a previous job, I first came across the book Rainbow City: Stories from Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Edinburgh. It contains stories and histories gathered during Remember When, a collaborative, community-history project organised by the City of Edinburgh Council and The Living Memory Association in 2004–2006. The book tells how, in 1972, while ‘homosexual acts’ were still illegal in Scotland, the University of Edinburgh’s Catholic Chaplaincy basement café, the Cobweb at 23–24 George Square, became “with the support of the then chaplain, Anthony Ross”, “the meeting place for Scotland’s first official gay and lesbian rights organisation, the Scottish Minorities Group” (1). The book also briefly mentions a John Gray and a Marc-André Raffalovich who “made new lives in Edinburgh after [Oscar] Wilde’s imprisonment for sodomy in 1895” (2). However, these names meant nothing to me at the time.
Fast forward to 2023 and the Art and Design Library, and I was processing a book requested by a reader, Caroline Maclean’s Circles and Squares: The Lives and Art of the Hampstead Modernists. Not knowing exactly who the Hampstead Modernists were, I flicked through the pages. The Hampstead Modernists included sculptors Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and her husband John Skeaping; painters Ben and Winifred Nicholson and Paul Nash; Bauhaus founder architect Walter Gropius who first sought refuge from Nazi Germany in England; and critic and poet, Herbert Read (all of whom you can find out about in the Art and Design Library).
This book contains a chapter on Read (1893–1968) and his second wife, viola player, Margaret Ludwig (1905–96), known as Ludo. And because of a distant family connection to Margaret Ludwig, I skim-read that whole chapter, and discovered that she and Read had first met at a Sunday lunch party hosted by Marc-André Raffalovich and Father John Gray at Raffalovich’s house in Whitehouse Terrace (3), while Read was the first professor of Art History at the University of Edinburgh (1931–33) and Ludwig was teaching in the University’s music department. Their subsequent affair caused scandal in the city. This story is confirmed in more detail in James King’s The Last Modern: A Life of Herbert Read (4).
By 2023, I hadn’t remembered my previous encounter with the names Raffalovich and Gray, but the descriptions in these two books of their lives in London and friendships with other men in Oscar Wilde’s circle, and close friendship in Edinburgh, sent me back to Rainbow City where I rediscovered their names. By this time, my curiosity was well and truly sparked, and I wanted to find out more and whether there were any books about Raffalovich and/or Gray in our library catalogue. It turns out that there are books, at least eight about Raffalovich and Gray, and of Gray’s prose and poetry.
But who exactly were Raffalovich and Gray and what were their Sunday lunch parties in Whitehouse Terrace all about?
Marc-André Raffalovich (1864–1934) and John Henry Gray (1866–1934) were both incomers to Edinburgh, arriving in the early years of the twentieth century.
Marc-André Raffalovich, around 1889, portrait by Sydney Starr (1857-1925), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Raffalovich was born in Paris, youngest of the three children of Herman, who became a successful banker, and Marie, whose salon attracted famous creative names of the day such as actress, Sarah Bernhardt, and writer, Colette. Herman and Marie were also philanthropists. The Jewish Raffalovich family had emigrated from Odessa in the Russian Empire (today in Ukraine) to Paris the year before Marc-André’s birth rather than convert to Christianity. Aged 18, Marc-André himself moved on, with his former governess Florence Gribell (1842–1930), to England with the intention of studying at Oxford. However, he ultimately settled in London and became part of the literary, artistic homosocial and homosexual circles including Oscar Wilde and artist Aubrey Beardsley among others and wrote poetry and essays. It was here that he and Gray met (5).
Gray was the eldest of the nine children of John, a carpenter at Woolwich Arsenal, and Hannah, who converted to Catholicism in the 1890s. Gray left school in south-east London aged 13 for an apprenticeship at the Arsenal and later moved on to its drawing office, all the while continuing his own learning in literature, French and German. This led to work as a civil servant and in the library at the Foreign Office. By late 1880s, Gray was writing and translating poetry, his own poems appearing in literary magazines, and he was a regular at literary clubs where he became friends with contemporary writers and artists including Wilde for whom Gray is widely believed to have inspired the character Dorian Gray (6).
During the 1890s, Raffalovich and Gray continued to write and together penned and produced a play, and Raffalovich wrote a defence of alternative sexualities, Uranisme et Unisexualité; ‘uranism’ was the word used medically and otherwise in various European languages at the time to describe male homosexuality, and both men were increasingly interested and involved in Catholicism. In 1898, Gray moved to Rome to train as a Catholic priest at the Scots’ College in Rome and was ordained there in 1901. A year later he had arrived in Edinburgh as curate for the impoverished city-centre parish of St Patrick’s, Cowgate. Meanwhile, Raffalovich had visited his friend in Rome and had also converted to Catholicism. He became a lay brother of the Dominican order (Blackfriars) and followed Gray to Edinburgh in 1905, where he bought no. 9 Whitehouse Terrace, with Florence Gribell as his dedicated housekeeper. There, he quickly developed a salon after his mother’s model in Paris (7).
From 1905 until the early 1930s, Raffalovich, Gray and Miss Gribell co-hosted Sunday lunches and Tuesday evening dinners at no. 9 Whitehouse Terrace. Attendees and atmosphere are recollected by poet and regular visitor, Margaret Sackville (herself another cause of local and national scandal due to her long-term liaison with widowed prime minister Ramsay Macdonald). In her contribution to Two Friends, ‘At Whitehouse Terrace’, published in 1963, she noted the presence of: Walter Sickert (1860–1942), painter; Gordon Bottomley (1874–1948), poet; Max Beerbohm (1872–1956), writer and caricaturist; Charles Saroléa (1872–1956), lecturer from 1894 and professor of French at the University of Edinburgh from 1918 to 1931, Belgian consul in Edinburgh and book collector; Compton Mackenzie (1883–1972), writer of fiction, histories and biographies; James Pittendrigh McGillvray (1856–1938) sculptor, poet, painter, printmaker and photographer; Peter Anson (1889–1975) writer and Catholic convert; and Father Hugh Benson (1871–1914) writer and Catholic priest (brother of E. F. Benson, author of the Mapp and Lucia stories); as well as numerous international visitors (8). She continued by describing the society and atmosphere at Whitehouse Terrace and Raffalovich’s hospitality:
“These and sundry other artists, writers, professors, some famous, some forgotten, who enjoyed that friendly atmosphere of sophisticated simplicity, if I may so call It, form a Gallery notable in any city, but in Eastwind-swept Edinburgh certainly unique. André’s gifts as a discerning host were evident in the care with which he chose his guests. He shrank from anything, whether human or inanimate, which was out of scale with his own preferred dimensions. This sensitive selection suggested his careful arrangement of the small flowers he loved so well and displayed with true affection to a responsive guest. … This happy appreciation of exquisite detail gave his hospitality the quality of a work of art: art saved from mere aestheticism by the human warmth which inspired his generous friendships. Many must still remember these unique gatherings with lasting gratitude” (9).
The nature of Raffalovich and Gray’s relationship over the years is not clear, and it would be wrong to apply our present-day understandings of romantic, sexual and platonic relationships to their lifelong committed and close friendship. Nevertheless, during Raffalovich’s first years in Edinburgh, his generosity as a patron and friend to Gray was demonstrated in his significant financial contribution to the construction of St Peter the Apostle Church, Falcon Avenue, Morningside. Gray was its first parish priest, from 1906 until his death. The church was designed by celebrated Edinburgh Arts and Crafts architect, Robert Lorimer (1864–1929) in a rural-Italian style, perhaps a reminder of churches seen by Gray and Raffalovich in the countryside around Rome (10). The church and presbytery (priest’s house) were constructed and fitted out between 1906 and 1927 and included sculpture and stained glass by frequent Lorimer collaborators, Alice and Morris Meredith Williams, who became friends with Father Gray (11). The community at St Peter’s today has compiled fascinating and detailed resources about the history and art of the church.
St Peter the Apostle Church, Falcon Avenue, Morningside
The public expression of Raffalovich and Gray’s friendship represented by St Peter’s Church brought, I thought, my discoveries to a close. However, just last month, I opened a book newly arrived in the Art and Design Library, Andrew McPherson’s William Gillies: Modernism and Nation in British Art accompanying the recent exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy. In it, I spotted a chapter titled ‘Bohemian Edinburgh’ and the names Raffalovich and Gray jumped out. Of the Whitehouse Terrace salon, McPherson writes that “[i]ts axis of refinement, Catholicism and homosexual apology attracted a variety of minority interests and tastes, and also scores of young men of various, and sometimes insecure, sexual orientation.” Raffalovich and Gray’s circle
“included many of Gillies’ friends, colleagues, and students. Among them were Willy and Denis, the sons of S. J. Peploe and cousins to Margery Porter, Harry, the son of Henry Lintott, who had taught Gillies, Hew Lorimer, a Catholic convert and son of Robert Lorimer, architect of the National War memorial, Henry Harvey Wood and from an older generation, two of Gillies’ ECA Principals, Morley Fletcher, and Hubert Wellington, both of whom were again Catholic” (12).
Finally, for now, or at least until another book pops up, the contemporary significance and impact of the Whitehouse Terrace Sunday lunch and Tuesday dinner parties are neatly summed up by McPherson:
“For thirty years, the Raffalovich salon was the centre of high cultural life in Edinburgh and a node in the cultural life in Britain, with links to the highest levels of government and society, the elite colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and two generations of Bloomsbury artists, writers, critics, bibliophiles, and publishers. It was also a perennial subject of Edinburgh gossip that found in the ambivalent celebrity of its habitués a confirmation of the equation, common to other capitals in Europe, of modernism in the arts with decadence in private life. Intellectual Edinburgh loved it.” (13).
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During the 1890s, Portobello grew rapidly along the High Street which ran in parallel to the shore road, the Promenade with numerous smaller streets forming a web between them. The population of c3000 in 1800 increased to 8684 in 1891.
As the town grew, in 1833, together with Leith and Musselburgh, it became a Royal Burgh and had a Member of Parliament. Population growth continued and in 1896, Portobello was incorporated into Edinburgh.
Our chosen image from Capital Collections dates from around 1895 and shows Portobello High Street busy with people. The date of the image is approximate and the photographer is unknown. The property we will follow in this article is no. 182 High Street, Portobello which can be seen in the image just before the group of women and children.
Above our chosen property is the photographic studio of William Halkett, who had a studio at 106 High Street and then here at 180, above the ironmongers shop at number 182. He moved to Bath Street in 1909 before living at 37 Wellington Street from 1910 to 1930. Could he be the person who took this photograph?
From 1889 to 1892, the occupant of the shop at 182 was William McVey, a watchmaker and clockmaker. Mr McVey was previously at 137 or 156 High Street and moved to 36 Hillside Crescent in 1892. He died in 1926.
The next occupants of no. 182 were the Baxendine Brothers. The Baxendine family were already well established in Portobello as plumbers, ironmongers and blacksmiths. Father, John Baxendine, originates from Corstorphine and married Jane Brunton, who was born in New Lanark. For a while the family lived in Penicuik before moving to Portobello. They had eight children, five sons and three daughters. Three of the boys continued in various skills relating to ironwork.
John died in 1872 followed by his wife, Jane, in 1875. Although they already had other properties in Portobello, when number 182 became available in1892, their oldest son, John Young Baxendine became owner and established an ironmongers which continued under the Baxendine name until 1937.
From 1938 until 1972 the business is listed as John Pearson, Ironmonger.
The Baxendine name however was not only associated with plumbers and ironmongers. Andrew Baxendine, John and Jane’s fourth son was born in 1863 and followed a more academic route. He went into the bookselling business and eventually opened his own shop at 15 Chambers Street, close to the University.
Advert for Andrew Baxendine, School, College and General Bookseller in the 1909-1910 Post Office Directory.
Andrew Baxendine and Sons booksellers facilitated the sale of a copy of the National Covenant, which was subsequently presented to St Giles Cathedral and which remains on display there.
Did you know that at Edinburgh Libraries we have three different 
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Tales of One City 
