Number 16 - Information on residents
1818 – 1827 Charles and Millicent (neé Goudie) Fleming
Charles Fleming had recently retired from the East India Company, where he had been Head Surgeon at Fort St George. Millicent was the youngest daughter of Major General Goudie, the commander of the army at Fort St George, and thus it would have been there that the two met.
The East India Company, which had begun to trade in India around 1600, needed to secure its commercial interests in the spice trade, and so built a fort and harbour close to the Malaccan Straits. As the fort was completed on St George’s Day, 1644, it was christened Fort St George, and soon became the hub of merchant activity. It gave birth to a new settlement area called George Town (historically referred to as Black Town), which grew to envelop the villages, and led to the formation of the city of Madras.
On returning to live in Edinburgh, Fleming joined the Caledonian Horticultural Society, established in 1809 by a group of seventeen Edinburgh worthies. The Society was established for the ‘encouragement and improvement of the best fruit, the most choice flowers and most useful culinary vegetables.’ The inspiration for the Society came from the Horticultural Society, founded in London five years earlier, and there were many links between the two societies. Sir Joseph Banks and Richard Salisbury, founders of the London Society, and Thomas Andrew Knight who was President of the London Society from 1811 until 1838, were honorary members from the outset. From the beginning, the Society flourished, bringing together ‘skilful professional gardeners and zealous amateurs’, with the support of nurserymen and professional gardeners important. The initial subscription was one guinea a year for ordinary members, but noblemen or gentlemen were invited to join free as honorary members. By 1829, the membership numbered about 1,000. Many well-known figures of the City joined, among them the artist Henry Raeburn, judge Henry Cockburn and architect William Playfair, and there were strong links between the Society and the creation of the gardens of the Edinburgh New Town.
The Society was ambitious and the creation of its own garden, first mooted in 1810, was a high priority. The garden was designed to provide advice on the best varieties and methods of cultivation, and to test, in local conditions, the many new plants arriving as a result of the travels of the plant hunters. The original proposal was for a site near Holyrood Palace, but a much better solution was found when, in 1823, the Society took on the lease of ten acres of land in Inverleith, adjacent to the new site of the Botanic Garden, which was moving from the cramped quarters in Leith Walk. In 1825 William McNab, Curator of the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, drew up a plan for the Society’s new garden, including orchards, a lockable experimental garden, a culinarium where ‘new and or little known varieties of culinary vegetables will be fairly tried’, an area for growing stocks for grafting and budding, nurseries, a wall for the finer kind of fruit trees, a rosary and compartments for perennials and annuals. The garden was known as The Experimental Garden.
Donations of plants were received from all over the world, including fifty different types of strawberry sent by the London Horticultural Society. A cottage was built for the head gardener, and James Barnett from the London Society appointed. Many shows were held in the garden, the first in August 1828. At such events there was usually a military band and dancing, and in the early days, the shows were fashionable events, with beautifully dressed ladies arriving in carriages.
Fleming died in 1823, but Millicent lived on in the house until 1826 when she moved to London Street. They had no children
1828 – 1835 Alexander Carnegy and Sophia (neé Gordon) Ritchie Carnegy and Sophia had recently married in Belfast and came to live here. He was the son of Alexander Ritchie, a banker in Brechin, and Sophia was the daughter of Thomas Gordon, a WS. Carnegy was an Advocate and became a Writer to the Privy Seal and the Registrar of Friendly Societies. See Friendly Societies. In 1861, Sophia ‘printed only for private circulation among friends’ the book, Poems Serious and Comic which she dedicated to her friend, Sophia Lumsden who lived in Cushnie, Aberdeenshire. Perhaps the book also was for the amusement of visitors they had staying with them in that year: Mary Klinke and four teenage brothers named Wecht, all from the Cape of Good Hope. In one poem she shows that the peril of lost luggage predates air travel. She recounts that her sister had been on a visit from Ireland, and 'by a strange mischance, her largest trunk, containing all her most valuable dresses and ornaments, in place of being taken on board of the steamboat for Belfast, was taken by a porter and put on board of a Dumbarton steamer. The address had been rubbed off, and for a whole year the missing trunk was kept in a cellar in Dumbarton'. Eventually, opened and by a letter inside, restored to its owner.
The Wanderer's Return Come, all my friends, with one accord, Along with me rejoice, My long lost trunk is now restored With its contents all so choice. Alas! 'tis almost a whole year Since last I saw its face, Or looked upon the cherished gear That used to form my grace. My gowns, my caps, my chemisettes, Which so becoming were! My ribbons, laces, blonds and nets, So lovely all and rare! And when again we leave our home Upon some pleasant tour, Be sure that, whereso'er we roam Your safety I'll secure.
In 1840, they returned to live at Number 10. It is not known where they lived in the intervening five years.
1835 – 1843 William and Janet (neé Denniston) Cunningham
William Cunningham (portrait by John Watson Gordon - collection Scottish National Portrait Gallery] ) was a minister. When he married Janet, they set up home here and began their family. They had five children in the house, and a further six after they moved to Salisbury Place, although only six survived into adulthood.
Cunningham was born in 1805 in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, where his father was a merchant. His father died when the children were young, and the family moved to Duns where Cunningham received his early education. He was renowned for the amount of reading he did while at the University of Edinburgh and in his vacations; the list of books he read during six vacations amounting to 520, besides pamphlets and magazines.
In 1830, he was ordained as assistant-minister of the Middle Church, Greenock, and soon became known as a controversial debater. At the 1833 General Assembly he supported a motion in a speech of two hours' length, which made a great impression. Edinburgh’s Lord Provost was so impressed he had Cunningham appointed as Minister of Trinity College Church in the city. Here, however, his tendency to get involved in ecclesiastical controversy put many of the congregation off. He published a number of controversial pamphlets and his severity of language led many to form an unfavourable view of his character. The peculiar character of his speaking was described thus: ‘Mr. Cunningham opened the debate in a speech of tremendous power. The elements were various—a clear logic, at once severely nice and popular; an unhesitating readiness of language, select and forcible, and well fitted to express every minute shade of meaning, but plain and devoid of figure; above all, an extent of erudition and an acquaintance with church history that, in every instance in which the arguments turned on a matter of fact, seemed to render opposition hopeless. But what gave peculiar emphasis to the whole was what we shall venture to call the propelling power of the mind—that animal energy which seems to act the part of the moving mind in the mechanism of intellect, which gives force to action and depth to the tones of the voice, and impresses a hearer with the idea of immense momentum.’
In 1843, following the breach in the Scottish church, the Free Church appointed Cunningham to one of the chairs of theology in the New College, Edinburgh. Before beginning work, he was commissioned to visit the United States to explain what had taken place in Scotland, and to collect information respecting theological institutions in that country. On his return home many accused him of consorting with Americans who supported the slave trade, but Cunningham responded that however much he and others might disapprove of slave ownership, they could not withdraw from all fellowship with men that upheld it. In 1845, he was appointed Professor of Church History and later Principal of New College.
See also Religion
In 1859, two years before Cunningham died, his wife was presented with £6,500, that had been raised in her husband’s honour.
The 1855 Valuation record shows that the house was owned by Colonel Templeton and thus leased.
1843 Lodgings These were run first by Mrs Ballantyne and, later, by Margaret Grieve, a widow, and her daughter, Mary. Margaret’s other daughter, Isabella, was a private piano teacher. The lodgers at the 1851 census were an agricultural student, an advocate’s clerk, a portrait painter, and a mercantile student. In 1852 James and Elizabeth Malden moved from Number 14 to take over the lodging house, and that year, Mary Pettigrew, one of the young servants, was arrested and jailed for eighteen months, ‘for several acts and attempts of wilful fire-raising in the house.’ In 1854, James Malden died, leaving his widow with three children under the age of ten. She continued to run the lodgings. One older son was already working as a Grain Merchant’s Clerk at fourteen. Her other son, Robert, became a gilder. Through to 1865 many individuals are listed as lodging here, although most appear to have lodged for around one year. These included Thomas Potts, Assistant Clerk of Session; G. Burnett and J. Sherriff, both Advocates; Frederick Lehman, a Corn and Commission Agent; and Dr John Scott and his family. A newspaper report recounted the unfortunate end to one lodger: ‘In 1854, when suffering from galloping consumption, Richard Leslie Dundas and his sister, Margaret Dundas were residing in furnished lodgings at 7 Forth Street, Edinburgh. Here he made a trust disposition dated the 18th March 1854 and signed by a notary. He shortly afterwards moved or rather was carried by sedan chair to lodgings at 16 Albany Street where he died on 19th April.’
The house’s furniture was advertised for sale in 1866 when Mrs Malden moved to run lodgings in Hill Street.
1866 – 1867 Lodger - J. Wicks
Wicks was a dentist and this advert from the Fife Herald in 1859 shows that at that time he travelled around Fife and Perthshire carrying our his dentistry. He moved here from North Frederick Street and died here in 1867.
1867 – 1908 Lodgings
These were run first by Mrs Ballantyne and, later, by Margaret Grieve, a widow, and her daughter, Mary. Margaret’s other daughter, Isabella, was a private piano teacher. The lodgers at the 1851 census were an agricultural student, an advocate’s clerk, a portrait painter, and a mercantile student. In 1852, James and Elizabeth Malden moved from Number 14 to take over the lodging house,
1867 and 1868 Lodger - Dr Culverwell In both these years, regular advertisements appeared announcing monthly visits by Dr Culverwell ‘of Great Marlborough Street, London’ to Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee. His regular Edinburgh consulting venue was at Leek’s lodgings. There Dr Culverwell offered, for 10s6d, a consultation of a variety of ailments including: ‘cases of nervous debility, involuntary blushing, palpitation, loss of memory, incapacity, spermatorrhoea, sterility, cauterisation and galvanism.’ He also was the author of the book, Marriage, its obligations, happiness and disappointments.’ From 1862 to 1864, Culverwell (photo) was in America, where he served as a surgeon for the Union Army in the American Civil War, but it was acting that became his real ambition. While in the US he began acting, including appearing on stage in Hamlet, with the later assassin, John Wilkes Booth, playing the title role. Although his American theatre appearances were less than successful, after his return to England, his theatrical career took off. The agony uncle of Great Marlborough Street was replaced by the stage name of Charles Wyndham, and his only continuing connection with the medical world was mounting fund-raising performances for hospitals. He bought (and named after himself) Wyndham’s Theatre in the West End of London, and was knighted in 1902. He died in 1919.
1876 Leek moved on, and John and Annie Smith took over as the lodging house keepers. John also worked as a clerk, and the couple had four children. At the 1881 census the lodgers were Jean Crawford, a fifty year old widow living from investments; Hannah Whyte, the wife of the Secretary of the Scottish Widows Fund; and Charles Burnett, a farmer of ‘228 acres all arable employing two men, two girls and two boys’, and his wife, Jane, plus their newly born baby and a nurse. At the 1881 census the lodgers were all women living on private means. In 1893, the Smiths left. Mrs Agnes Douglas, a widow, took over. Living with her was her daughter-in-law, Janet, also a widow (although only 31) and her infant daughter Roberta.
In October 1892, lodger - T Carlyle Beatty wrote to The Scotsman on the subject of Uganda: ‘Are we going to desert our fellow-Christians in Uganda! Are we going to give up to massacre those friendly tribes who , trusting in our promises of protection , have given us their assistance? And are we going to give up that immense and fertile region, pregnant with mineral and other wealth , to another nation? If we are true to our God , to our country , and to ourselves , the crime of deporting Uganda will - not rest upon us.’
