Number 12 - Information on residents

1809 – 1825 David Roberston

Major David Robertson may have been the brother of George Robertson who lived at Number 28. Robertson moved to Gloucester Place. He was a director of the Edinburgh West Dispensary for Disease of the Eye and Ear. Nothing more traced.

the 1855 valuation shows that his estate still owned the house.

1825 – 1828 Alexander and Margaret (Ker) LoraineLieutenant Colonel Alexander Loraine, was born in 1761, the son of James Loraine, the Sheriff Clerk of Berwickshire. Loraine had a distinguished military career. He joined the army in 1778, and was appointed Assistant Military Secretary at Horse Guards, before serving in four campaigns in America, including taking part in the capture of the French West India Islands. In 1807, he was appointed Deputy Governor of Southsea Castle and then, after having served for 29 years in the army took up the civil post of a Commissioner for the Affairs of Barracks. When ex-army officers left to take up a civil post, usually this meant giving up their rank. However, Loraine was able to sell his Lieutenant Colonelcy but retain his rank. The purchase of officer commissions in the British Army was a common practice through most of its history. This practice was designed to preserve the social exclusivity of the officer class; ensured that the officer class was largely populated by persons having a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, thereby reducing the possibility of Army units taking part in a revolution or coup; and provided honourably retired officers with an immediate source of capital. The practice was abolished in 1871.One of Alexander’s sisters, Hannah, later lived at Number 43. Another sister, Williamina, married James Geddes who, although trained as a doctor, became a merchant in Gibraltar. In 1804, the Army Garrison in Gibraltar experienced a fever epidemic and Geddes offered to assist. Sadly, as a result, both he and Williamina died of the fever within three days of each other, leaving four boys and one girl as orphans. The Executors in Gibraltar appointed by their father neglected them, and so the five were sent back to Scotland to be reared by their mother's relatives, who had to bear the sole expense of supporting and educating them. General Sir Thomas Griggs, the Gibraltar Commander, argued that Dr Geddes had, in effect, lost his life in the service of the army, and endeavoured to procure a pension from the Government to assist these orphans in their destitute situation. All that was forthcoming was £50 per annum. It was decided to settle this on the daughter, Anne, thinking her situation the most needy, while the four Geddes boys were looked after by Alexander and Margaret.

The Loraines moved to Number 48, where Colonel Loraine died in 1838, and Margaret in 1844.

1828 – 1836 Frederick Bowes

It seems likely that Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Bowes was the son of (the same named) Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Bowes who lived at Number 20 and died in 1836, as Lt Col Bowes moves on from Albany Street in that year. He moved to Madras serve with the 41st Bengal Regiment of the East India Company army and was promoted to Major General in 1838. He may have married Anna Maria in India as their first daughter was born there. Frederick and Anna went to Italy around 1841/2 and Frederick died in Rome in 1842 and Anna in Genoa in 1847.

1836 – 1846 Martha (neé Gloag) Bruce and her daughters, Isabella and Margaret

Martha Bruce was the widow of James Bruce who had been Secretary of Excise and died in 1826. Living with the elderly Mrs Bruce were her two unmarried daughters, Isabella and Margaret. Her eldest son, James who had been a doctor, died in his thirties. In 1838, another son, Thomas, a solicitor, died, and the year after, Thomas’s wife, Matilda, also died, leaving four orphaned infant children, James, Thomas, Martha and Isabella. Mrs Bruce and her daughters took in the children.

Martha died in the house in 1846.

There were two other sons. Archibald, an accountant, at this time living at Hillside Crescent, and John, who worked for the Inland Revenue. As John was the eldest surviving son, he inherited the family estate near Prestonpans, including Bankton House, a late 17th-century house. However, John sold the estate and house to his brother, Archibald, and for a couple of years lived at Albany Street. In 1845, probably following the death of his mother, John moved to York Place with his sister Margaret and, one presumes, the four young children.

In 1871, James, the eldest of the orphans, married Katherine Russell, but yet again tragedy haunted the family for two of their three sons died in the First World War. Alexander, a captain, although working as a supply officer near the Suez Canal, volunteered to fight when an overwhelming number of Turks and Arabs attacked the oasis. He and the small unit held the outpost for some hours until reinforcements arrived, but then Alexander went to rescue an injured officer and was mortally wounded. The other son to die, John, a Major in the Royal Scots, was killed in France when entering German trenches while leading an attack.

1846 – 1848 Catherine Hathorn (neé Maxwell)

Catherine Hathorn was the widow of Hugh Hathorn of Castlewigg whom she had married in 1824. She was the daughter of Sir William Maxwell, 5th baronet. Hathorn’s family owned the Castle of Wigg, Whithorn, Newton Stewart, and Hugh incorporated the castle into a larger manor house, Castlewigg House. Prior to his death Hugh and Catherine lived there. However, as they had no children, on Hugh’s death in 1842 the Hathorn estate passed to Hugh’s sister Anne, and Catherine had to move out.

1848 – 1858 Robert Graham and his four sisters

Graham was the owner of Simpson & Graham, silver-platers, saddlers, and ironmongers. His four sisters are listed in the 1851 census as having income from the ownership of properties.

In 1825, Graham had become a partner with his uncle, Mr Simpson. Simpson had learnt the craft of silver-plating in London and set up in Edinburgh where no one else was creating silver-plated objects. The partnership plated bridle-bits, stirrup-irons, buckles and other horse-furniture and carriage ornaments. In 1830, the Corporation of Hammermen took Simpson and Graham to court, accusing them of having encroached on their exclusive privilege as these objects fell within the ‘lorimer craft’ [making of horses bits]. The court found against Simpson and Graham and they had to pay £5 damages and a £20 penalty.

1857 – 1869 William and Jane (neé Massiah) and later Janet (neé Rankin) Ivory

William Ivory was an advocate. He married Jane Massiah, the daughter of a merchant in Barbados, in 1850. They lived in Nelson Street where Jane gave birth to a stillborn girl. However, three healthy children were born over the next six years; Holmes, Mary and Annie. The family then moved here but Jane died within a year of the moved to Albany Street. Two years later William married Janet, the wife of a banker. William and Janet had three further children: James, Janet and Elizabeth.

William was the son of Lord Ivory, who was Solicitor-General for Scotland under Lord Melbourne's ministry in 1839, and in 1849 appointed a lord of justiciary (taking the title of Lord Ivory).

William had become an advocate in 1849, and, in 1859, was appointed Junior Advocate Depute. In 1862, he was appointed Sheriff of Inverness, Elgin and Nairn, an office he held until 1900. His time as Sheriff of Inverness-shire coincided with the ‘Crofters’ War’ in Skye in the 1880s, and Ivory was personally involved in one of the most famous incidents in the ‘Crofters’ War’, the 1882, ‘Battle of Braes’.

In response, Ivory assembled an even larger force of police and military personnel to round up those responsible. The seventy strong force left Portree in the morning on the gunboat, Seahorse. It sailed round the Trotternish peninsula in clear weather, so that by the time that it reached shore in Duntulm Bay, sentinels posted along the hills had given the local residents generous warning of its arrival, and all the men had taken to the hills, leaving only women and children behind closed doors. Frustrated at not being able to identify and apprehend the earlier ring-leaders of the disturbances, Ivory had one man, John Beaton, detained in Portree Prison. However, after three days Beaton was released without charge and without explanation. As the Skye disturbances had been extensively reported, various funds had been established to assist the crofters with any legal costs. So, John Beaton raised an action in the Court of Session against William Ivory, claiming £500 in damages for wrongful arrest and detention. Sheriff Ivory’s defence rested on the fact that his orders had been to arrest everyone in sight, and thus proved there was no personal malice to Beaton. The court agreed, judging that the indiscriminate nature of the Sheriff’s orders, something we might object to today, put it beyond challenge and so Beaton’s case was dismissed. No information has been found for the four daughters, although it seems likely that neither Annie, Janet nor Elizabeth got married. The eldest son, Holmes, became a solicitor and married Margaret Dick, daughter of John Dick Peddie (who was born in Number 14). Peddie became Crown Receiver for Scotland, the senior agent responsible for collecting the land revenues due to the Crown.

Their youngest son, James was educated at Harrow School, England, before spending some time in Hanover, Germany. He became a Chartered Accountant in 1886, and the year after, married Florence Wyckoff of New York. In 1895, Ivory went into partnership with Thomas Sime, as Ivory & Sime, and they set up British Assets Trust Ltd, an overseas investment company in Edinburgh, with a capital of £15,000. The late nineteenth century was a period when many Edinburgh lawyers were developing a growing interest in the management and investment of other people's money, the first investment trust being the Scottish American Investment Company, established in 1873. When Sime emigrated to Canada in 1907, Ivory continued the business, and by 1939, the company’s trust was managing funds totalling £7 million. By 1985, Ivory & Sime was managing a total of 13 investment trusts, all of which were listed on the London stock exchange. The interconnections within Edinburgh continued into the 20th century. Although there were a growing number of firms in the financial community, these were led by a relatively small number of men who often sat on the boards of one another's companies. The same names recur in various permutations as chairmen and directors of the different trusts.

William and Janet Ivory moved to Ainslie Place.

1869 – 1871 John Cheyne and family

John Cheyne, an advocate, moved here from Royal Terrace with his widowed mother, Barbara (neé Hay), and his brother and two sisters. Their father, Henry Cheyne, a solicitor (WS), had died the year before. As John was about to marry Margaret Simpson, it appears possible that the family took the house for two years or so while they arranged their respective futures. Mrs Cheyne and her three children went to live with another son, Harry, in Rutland Square, and perhaps John and Margaret moved to Dundee, as he was appointed Sheriff-Substitute of Forfarshire there in 1870. He became Sheriff for various parts of Scotland at different times; and Procurator of the Church of Scotland and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Advocates. In 1897, he was knighted at Balmoral.

1871 – 1884 William R Skinner

William Skinner was born in Tain in 1815 and became a solicitor (SSC). From the press law reports, Skinner’s main business appears to have been handling sequestrations and bankruptcies. However, he also acted as an agent in law cases, including assisting in the defence of a shepherd accused of illegally shooting rabbits on an estate. The shepherd was found guilty, but the conviction caused outcry among the farmers in the area, as it undermined the long-standing right of farm tenants to shoot rabbits on their lands for the protection of crops. The case was referred to the High Court who over-turned the conviction on the basis that rabbits did not count as game.

1885 – 1887 James Russell James Russell was the proprietor of John Matcher & Son, wine merchants in Leith, although at this time he was in the process of selling the business. As he lived and worked from the same Leith address, he probably moved to live at Albany Street so as the business premises were available to the buyer. He planned to continue to carry on his ‘wine merchant, Scotch Whisky Blender and Cigar Importer’ business under the name of J. B. Russell & Son at 15 Hope Street. However, as for whatever reason, his new business does not appear in Hope Street and he is no longer shown at this address or elsewhere in the city, it is probable that he died in 1887.

1887 – 1892 William Darling and Helen (neé Moretin) Lyell William Darling Lyell was born in 1860, the son of David Lyell, a solicitor, and followed his father into the law, becoming an advocate in 1882. In 1890 he was appointed Sheriff-Substitute for Wigtownshire and then in 1900, Sheriff-Substitute of Renfrew and Bute, based at Paisley. In 1920, he wrote a novel - see Writers. Lyell and his wife moved away from Edinburgh when he was appointed Sheriff-Substitute of Wigtownshire.

1895 – 1907 Lodgings

These were run by Mrs Ellen Hunter Tait and her sister, Margaret Wilson. Part of the house was used as a boarding school, and for German lessons, as there were three girls and two boys, all in their teens, recorded as lodging here in the 1901 census.