Looking back with The Old Edinburgh Club

Each month The Old Edinburgh Club reminds us of the notable dates in Edinburgh’s past.

1st In 1918, Dame Muriel Spark (author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) was born Muriel Sarah Camberg in Edinburgh; Spark spent her childhood in the Bruntsfield area of Edinburgh and began her working life as a secretary in a department store, William Small & Sons on Princes Street which closed in 1957.

3rd In 1700, fire destroyed Edinburgh’s, some say Europe’s, highest buildings behind St. Giles; and the Darien colony was abandoned.

4th In 1520, the masters of the shoemakers (cordiners) presented a request to the burgh council that their statutes, articles, and regulations should be approved; the purpose of this was to harmonise the many conflicting regulations that had been decided over the course of time. And in 1649, Charles II proclaimed king in Edinburgh – but not in England. Also in 1818, the Crown Jewels of Scotland were rediscovered in Edinburgh Castle by a search party led by Sir Walter Scott; the jewels had last been used to crown King Charles II in 1651.

5th In 1523, Sir William Sinclair of Roslin gave land beside Rosslyn Chapel as an endowment for the construction of 4 houses for 4 priests.

6th In 1875, The Scotsman reported that the Theatre-Royal in Broughton Street had burnt down.

7th In 1700, the council considered the aftermath of the fire that devastated the meal market, both sides of the slope beside St Giles, part of the Royal Exchange, and all of Parliament Close bar the Treasury Room.

8th In 1592, Lady Margaret Campbell of Argyll brought the body of her son, James Stewart (later Stuart), 2nd Lord Doune, 2nd Earl of Moray (‘Bonnie Earl of Moray’ of ballad fame), to Edinburgh to confront King James VI to demand that the Earl of Huntly be brought to justice for his murder. And in 1626, due to unrest abroad the council decided that all inhabitants of the city should be instructed in the rules of war and subject to military service.

10th In 1567, at about 2 AM an explosion destroyed Kirk o’Field which was roughly at the south east corner of what is today Old College; Mary, Queen of Scots’ husband, Lord Darnley, was found strangled in a garden nearby. And in 1800, 34 Princes Street was advertised for sale in the ‘Caledonian Mercury’.

12th In 1624, George Heriot, goldsmith to Anne of Denmark, wife of King James VI, and founder of the eponymous School, died. And in 1829, a crowd of men marched from Calton Hill to the home of Dr Robert Knox where his effigy was symbolically murdered and then burnt.

13th In 1826, the inaugural meeting of the Institution for the encouragement of the Fine Arts in Scotland was held modelling itself on the British Institution in London.

14th In 1659, in response to a paper sent by the Kirk Sessions listing a number of profanations of the Sabbath, the council ordered several pairs of stocks. And in 1666, the treasurer of the university accused the janitor of illegal brewing, gambling, smuggling, and embezzlement.

15th In 1699, the Council banned all lotteries. And in 1878, A man named John Litherland, residing in Scotland Street Lane, was fined 5s, with £1 expenses, for refusing to send two of his children, aged ten and eight years respectively, to school.

17th In 1598, a solar eclipse between 9 & 10 in the morning frightened the people of Edinburgh who thought it presaged Domesday. And in 1688, Scottish minister James Renwick became the final Covenanting martyr when he was executed at Edinburgh’s Grassmarket for refusing to swear fealty to King James VII; he was executed by hanging and his severed head and hands were hung on the city gates to serve as a warning to others.

18th In 1473, the provost, bailies, and council granted a seal of cause to the Hatmakers. And in 1842, the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway opened.

20th In 1598, Thomas Dobie drowned himself in the Quarry Holes beside Holyrood Abbey; the following morning his body was hanged on a gallows in the town for having committed suicide.

21st In 1826, John Kay, caricaturist who created a unique record of the social life and popular habits of Edinburgh during one of its most interesting epochs, died in Edinburgh. And in 1842, an intercity railway service between Glasgow and Edinburgh was officially opened by Queen Victoria. Also in 1940, a sand-filled dummy shell had to be fired across the bows of the Naval trawler ‘Peter Carey’, to stop it straying into a mined area; the shell ricocheted off the water and ended up bursting into a tenement flat at 118 Salamander Street in Leith; fortunately no-one was injured.

22nd In 1371, King David II of Scotland died at Edinburgh Castle. And in 1834, several people were killed by a collapsing wall in Leith Wynd. Also in 1885, Adam Bruce Thomson OBE, RSA, PRSW, painter perhaps best known for his oil and water colour landscape paintings, particularly of Edinburgh and the Highlands, was born in Edinburgh.

23rd In 1820, Eliza Wigham, suffragist, abolitionist, & graffiti artist (she carved messages into the Salisbury Crags, notably the message ‘Send back the money’), was born in Newington. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliza_Wigham And in 1827, Walter Scott revealed himself as author of the Waverley novels.

24th In 1923, steam locomotive, the “Flying Scotsman”, went into service with London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), on the London (King’s Cross) to Edinburgh route.

25th In 1657, by Act of Council and ratified by Parliament, the surgeons and apothecaries were united into one community.

27th In 1510, Master Gavin Douglas, provost of the Collegiate Church of St Giles, and all the canons admitted their failure to celebrate the mass of the Most Holy Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ with the dignity it merited.

28th In 1638, the 2nd Scottish National Covenant was signed in Edinburgh.

• Compiled by Jerry Ozaniec, Membership Secretary of the Old Edinburgh Club, [email protected]