Number 19 - Information on residents

1805 – 1814 Archibald and Jean (neé Lundie - a cousin) Lundie

Archibald Lundie was a solicitor (WS). His father was a minister. He and Jean moved here from North Castle Street. There is mention of them having a large family but as they were in their late fifties when they moved here it is likely that most of their children would have left home by this time. Their eldest son was a merchant in Madeira and one of their daughters was married there in 1805. However, two other daughters were not married until 1810 and 1827 and so would have lived with them here.

As well as being a solicitor, Lundie was a member of an unusual club. In 1783 forty men who had attended Mr French’s class at the High School between 1759 and 1763, decided to hold an annual get-together. Twenty six years later the annual event was still taking place, although by then only thirteen of the class still survived. The 1809 meeting took the form of a Jubilee Ball, attended by the remaining members, together with their wives and families. By this time all the men had become eminent city figures, including Sir William Fettes, former Lord Provost of Edinburgh; Robert Blair, Professor of Astronomy; and Charles Barclay-Maitland, the great agricultural improver. What is not known is how long the club continued to meet after 1809 as their numbers dwindled.

Lundie also was a keen member of the Highland Society and is mentioned as subscribing to support the publication of A New Plan for Increasing the Number of Beehives across Scotland.

The Lundies moved to Duke (Dublin) Street, and later to Anne Street. Jean died in 11826 and Archibald in 1841.

Instead of dispersing the Highland emigrants as labourers throughout the colony, Dr Lang thought it desirable to keep them together if possible, so they might have their own schools and churches. Thus the twenty-three families who had landed in December 1837, were transferred together to Dunmore on Hunter’s River (shown here in a painting from 1801). This was an extensive and favourable district to the north of Sydney. Lang reported: ‘The Highland settlement, which was known in the neighbourhood by the name of Skye, was formed in the month of January 1838; some of the Highlanders preferring to have their land all wooded, that they might sit rent free for four years, and others to have it all clear, that they might have it immediately under cultivation. Houses, tolerably comfortable in some instances, were easily erected by means of saplings found in the neighbourhood—the roof consisting of reeds or bark. By a little economy, the Highlanders were enabled to make the government ration of beef, which had been granted them for two months, last out four; and my mother, who happened to be residing with my brother at the time, taught the women how to prepare porridge and bread for their husbands and children, from the Indian corn or maize meal of the colony, which they procured at a comparatively cheap rate ; supplying them, at the same time, with various little indulgences, which could easily be spared from a large colonial establishment. To enable them to get in their crops with greater expedition, my brother also supplied them by turns with a plough and bullock team, a ploughman and bullock-driver, receiving payment in labour; a day's ploughing being reckoned to so many days' labour. And when their crops were in, those of them who were inclined to be industrious obtained employment at remunerating wages—either on my brother’s property or on others in the neighbourhood. By this means, most of them acquired a little money for the purchase of pigs and poultry, and, in some instances, even of cows. When the settlement was thus fairly formed, and when various additional Highland families by other ships had joined it, my brother built a school for their children in a central locality. The school is also used as a temporary chapel on Sabbath, as often as the services of a minister can be procured to officiate, either in the English or Gaelic languages. In short, the original settlement had been completely successful, and a number of additional families of emigrant Highlanders had also been permitted, at their own earnest request, to settle in the meantime on other small farms in their immediate neighbourhood and in the same way…. When their current possessions are contrasted with the want of all things experienced in their native country, and when we consider that but a year had then elapsed from the commencement of the settlement, we cannot doubt that a few years will see a cluster of miserable Hebridean peasants transformed into a set of farmers equal to those in the average districts of their native country.’

Interestingly for an individual clearly concerned at the plight of Highlanders, among Bowie’s clients was John Gordon of Cluny. Gordon began life as a soldier and in 1804 made a grand tour of Egypt, carving his name on many ancient monuments. He returned home via Gibraltar where he boarded HMS Victory, which also brought home the mortal remains of Admiral Horatio Nelson. On the death of his father in 1814, Gordon inherited the family estates, including Cluny Castle, and then purchased further Highland properties, including North and South Uist, Benbecula and Barra. Although already a wealthy man as he also inherited a West Indian plantation estate from an uncle, his desire for further profit led him in 1851 to force around 3,000 of his tenants on the Outer Hebrides to emigrate to Canada.

Bowie’s concern for the disadvantaged led him to take up the voluntary role as an Extraordinary Manager of the Edinburgh Lying-In Institution for Delivering Poor Married Women at their Own House. This society offered ‘every requisite attendance, either by a Medical Gentleman or a Midwife, to Poor married Women; to furnish them with the necessary medicines; to supply the most needy of them with the temporary use of bed Linen, Flannels, Blankets, etc., and with any other addition to the means of comfort and health that may be essentially necessary.’

The Bowies had at least one son, William, who married Annetta Thurburn, and two daughters. One, Maxwell Catherine, lodged at Number 51 when she was in her late seventies and died there in 1900. John Bowie and his wife moved to Albyn Place.

On 6th May, 1837, Mary, who had been at the theatre with Charles and Catherine, was readying for bed when she collapsed. A doctor was called but was unable to help. Dickens wrote: ‘Mary... died in such a calm and gentle sleep, that although I had held her in my arms for some time before, when she was certainly living (for she swallowed a little brandy from my hand) I continued to support her lifeless form, long after her soul had fled to Heaven.’ Dickens later recalled: ‘Thank God she died in my arms and the very last words she whispered were of me.’ The doctor presumed that Mary must have had undiagnosed heart problems. Dickens had become very attached to Mary and she became a character in many of his books, and her death is fictionalised as the death of Little Nell.Despite constant pregnancies – the couple had ten children - the couple’s early years appear to have been happy. Catherine accompanied Dickens on his celebrated trip to America in 1842. However, relations soured over time. Dickens publicly accused Catherine of being ‘an incompetent mother’, and blamed her for the financial problems brought by having had ten children. Dickens’ callousness to Catherine may have been linked to his liaison with the actress, Ellen Ternan, who remained his companion until his death. In 1858, Catherine and Charles formally separated. Catherine was given a house and her eldest son Charles moved in with her, but access to her other children was restricted. Dickens, along with the other nine children, and Catherine’s sister, Georgina, who had moved in with the couple 14 years earlier to help raise the children, went to live at Gad’s Hill. Dickens died in 1870 and Catherine in 1879.

George Hogarth worked on various London papers and served as the Royal Philharmonic Society's secretary from 1850–1864. He died in 1870. See Music

More about Catherine (nee Hogarth) Dickens

1831 -1840 George Graham and Jessie (neé Martin) Bell

George Bell was an Advocate. He also was a member of the Edinburgh Society for Promoting the Mitigation and Ultimate Abolition of Slavery and therefore may well have attended the meeting in 1830 in the Assembly Rooms, that according to a report in The Scotsman was, ‘as numerous a meeting as could be (full of) respectable, enlightened and fashionable citizens.’ At the meeting a number of distinguished speakers paid tribute to the efforts of those such as William Wilberforce, Granville Sharp, and Thomas Clarkson in the anti-slavery campaign, and to the Scottish Enlightenment’s attitude to slavery. Francis Jeffrey, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, proposed a motion to petition Parliament for the abolition of colonial slavery ‘at the earliest possible opportunity,’ and for legislation that would free all children born of slave parents after January 1831. These resolutions reflected an increasing public impatience with the slow speed of parliamentary action to end slavery, and the need to set a date to begin that process.

Bell clearly was a keen angler as he is reported to have caught fifty pounds of fish from The Tweed in just four hours: ‘The largest yellow trout taken by him on that occasion weighed five pounds.’

Another daughter married John Wilson, a Farmer in Dumfriesshire. Two other daughters married the sons of the WS (solicitor), James Steuart, with whom their brother Richard had been an apprentice: Christian marrying Archibald, and Margaret marrying Robert.

1840 - 1847 Robert and Jane (neé Anderson) Rhind

Robert Rhind, a Writer to the Signet (solicitor), moved into Number 19 with his new wife, Jane Anderson. He had previously lived at Number 40 Albany Street with his widowed mother and family, and then moved with his mother to live with his brother Williamson, firstly in Forres Place and later in Abercromby Place. Their father was John Rhind, Accountant for the National Bank of Scotland and Cashier of the Friendly Insurance Company.

His brother, Williamson, also was a WS, and they worked in partnership and ran the law practice from the house. There were three other brothers: John, Cashier to the Edinburgh Friendly Insurance Company; Macduff, an advocate, and later Sheriff-Substitute of Wigtownshire; and David, a successful architect whose buildings include the Head Office of the Commercial Bank of Scotland in George Street, today The Dome Bar.

As well as being the their law firm address, Number 19 was the business address of the Scottish Reversion Interest Society and the Legal and General Life Assurance Society, for which the Rhind brothers would have been agents.

In 1847, Williamson died unmarried when just thirty nine years-of-age, and Robert and his family moved to Number 8 where they lived until 1854, before moving on to Portobello. They had five children before Jane’s early death aged thirty four in 1856. Sadly two of the children died in infancy and their two daughters both died in the mid-twenties. The surviving son, John, became an advocate.

1847 - 1897 Lodgings

the 18455 Valuation shows that the property was owned by Robert Smith, SSC, living in Stafford Street. It was let as lodgings run firstly by James and Beatrice Dangerfield. The lodgers at the 1851 census were William Cruikshank, a lander proprietor, and Elizabeth Hunter, a widow, and her twenty year old daughter, Agnes. By 1855 the lodgings were run by Thomas Burns.

1847 Lodger - Jane Carstairs

Although Jane Carstairs was living at Number 41, she appears to have lodged here for the birth of her child. See Number 41 for a full account of this, the first ever birth assisted by the use of chloroform by Dr James Young Simpson.

1847 – 1850 Lodger - Patrick Fraser

Patrick Fraser was an advocate and later in his career published the pamphlet, The Conflicts of Laws in Cases of Divorce. Scottish divorce law had always been different as The Church of Scotland had, since the Reformation, accepted divorce on the grounds of adultery by either a husband or wife, and desertion for more than four years. From 1830, Scottish divorces were decided by the Court of Session, like other cases in civil law. Both men and women could seek divorce for adultery or desertion. While The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 created changes in England, until 1923 a husband only had to prove that his wife had committed adultery, as it was presumed that it was natural for a husband to be unfaithful, whereas a wife had to prove that her husband had committed aggravated adultery, and desertion was not generally grounds for divorce until 1937. Also Scottish divorces were cheaper than English ones, and were certainly not confined to the higher classes. Very poor people could claim financial help from the Poor Law authorities if they had a good case against their spouses. However, the social stigma of divorce was strong and divorce cases could be heard only in Edinburgh, which added the extra cost of travel and taking time off work to attend the court. Until 1938, the law of Scotland did not allow divorce on the grounds of cruelty, insanity or conviction for a criminal offence, though a judicial separation might be allowed on those grounds.

Some reviewers did not feel Fraser’s pamphlet to be wholly successful: ‘Mr Fraser treats the conflict of the Laws of England and Scotland on the subject of Divorce in a didactic way. The questions are unquestionably of the deepest interest and most vital to both countries …however Mr Fraser has, we fear, been too strongly stirred by unwarrantable discourtesy and contempt for the principles if all international law as recognised among all civilised nations.’

The Dangerfields and their three children moved in away 1851 to run a similar lodging house at Number 47, and the lodgings were taken over by Thomas and Lilias Purves. They had three children, one born here. Thomas Purves also describes himself as a coachman, and at the 1861 census there were three young employees living in the house described as Postilion (driver), Footman and under Coachman. There were also a Lady’s Maid and two servants in the house for just the two main paying two lodgers. The main boarder was Marion Rouston, a forty year old widow, and noted as living on income from land. It was perhaps Marion Rouston who advertised in 1861 that she had lost her sable boa between the Music Hall and Number 19.

1853 - 1858 Lodger - Margaret Bogle (neé Orr)

Margaret Bogle was the widow of Colonel James Bogle, whom she married in 1815. They had at least three children, although their youngest daughter died as an infant when they were stationed in Gibraltar.

Captain Bogle served with the 94th Regiment. A report of his death in 1835 says of him: ‘He was one of the most gallant officers in the Service. On being sent to India, he first commanded a party of marines in the severe action in which the French frigate La Forte was taken; he then accompanied the army under Lord Lake in the Delhi campaign 1803-4, during which he was wounded. On his return to Europe, he served with his regiment in the Peninsula, again being wounded, and fought in The Battle of Redinha in Portugal in 1811. The French were retreating and against a considerably larger Anglo-Portuguese force under Wellington Marshal Ney successfully delayed the Allied advance and bought valuable time for the withdrawal of the main body of the French army.’ After his retirement in 1828, he was frustrated at not being given a rank that would bring him full pay.

Margaret moved to Glasgow, where she died in 1866.

Around 1861 – 1873 Lodger - Daniel Scott

Daniel Scott was a retired army surgeon. He served in the Peninsular War before training to become a surgeon and after serving with various regiments was appointed Inspector General in Malta. Scott swiftly decided that the existing hospital was not a suitable building for the sick. The sewers of the privies passed under many of the rooms, so that there was always an offensive smell around these badly ventilated yards. The large back yard, where soiled bedding was laid out to dry and purify, was always damp. The dirty linen, remarked Scott, created ‘a vitiated atmosphere which circulates through all the wards of the hospital, a further proof that the locality alone is sufficient to condemn the place’.

Scott wrote: ‘Regarding the late outbreak of cholera in the military hospital Valletta, having drawn special attention to the probable origin of it there, the experienced medical officers of the garrison, and others versed in sanitary matters have come to the conclusion, that the concentration of the disease in the establishment may be attributable to the locality, the imperfect drainage, and the bad construction of the buildings. The site of it being low and dirty, and close to the outlet of two main sewers, and in close contiguity to badly drained streets, of which several of the dwellings occupied by filthy population, actually run in the shape of damp close cellars under the wards of a portion of the hospital’. He argued that there was an urgent need for another hospital and eventually his recommendation was accepted, and a new hospital established in the old Palazzo Parisio and the Auberge De Castille. For his last few years in the service he was the army’s Inspector General of Hospitals before retiring at 66 in 1859. He died here in 1873.

1853 – 1866 Lodger - John Lorimer

John Lorimer was an advocate with a broad interest in the arts. He was a member of the Architectural Institute of Scotland and in 1853 delivered a lecture ‘upon the Ecclesiastical Architecture of the Rhenish Provinces’ and, in response to a prompting from Professor Kinkel Lorimer: ‘discriminated between a Romanic and Byzantine element in the architecture of the Rhineland.’ The Institute developed out of the Institute of Architects of Scotland, founded in 1840 by architects pre-eminent in the neo-classical revival in Scotland, including three with Albany Street links, David Rhind, James Gillespie Graham and William Playfair. The aim of the Institute was ‘cordial co-operation and frequent correspondence’, and it established a library, museum, drawings collection and a programme of meetings. The embryo body survived barely two years and was re-founded in 1849 as the Architectural Institute of Scotland, with various classes of members in addition to architects.

Lorimer also was on the Council of the Edinburgh Amateur Choral Society. Established in 1854, the society met every Thursday evening in a hall in George Street. The conductor of the Choir was Adam Hamilton who, in 1872, was asked to be the musical director of a new amateur music group to be formed in Leven. An advert was placed inviting the local people in Fife to take part in ‘the practice of Vocal Music, particularly music of the higher class.’ Around 150 people joined and the rehearsals began in the church school. However not all was plain sailing as a letter was sent to Adam Hamilton asking ‘if it would be too much trouble to select a good piano for rehearsals.’ Hopefully, a better tuned piano was found for the group’s first ever performance, The Creation by Haydn. The Leven Amateur Musical Association is still performing 140 years later.

By 1871 the lodging house was still being managed by Thomas and Lilias Purves, who also had private means, so running the lodgings was not their only income. Their twenty year old daughters, Maggie and Maria, were both governesses, though still living here. Daniel Scott also still resided here. The other lodgers were John and Euphemia Binny and their new baby. Binny was a solicitor, as his father had been.

In 1881 Mr and Mrs Purves were still running the lodgings and Thomas was continuing as a coachman. Margaret was still a Governess but Maria was now a servant in the house, along with another housemaid and a cook. The Purves’ son, William, was a commercial traveller in the tea trade. The lodgers were Sophia Grant, the widow of a Royal Navy officer, and her daughter, Jane; and Henry Graham, a Minister, and his wife Alice.

1870 Lodger - John and Euphemia Binny

John Binny was a Writer to the Signet (solicitor) and worked from Number 37 with his lawyer father, Graham. Before his marriage to Euphemia Crole in 1869, John lived with his family in Hart Street. Euphemia’s father, David Crole, was a Solicitor to Inland Revenue. John and Euphemia took lodgings here and in 1870 advertised for a ‘Nurse (experienced under) wanted immediately. Must be a Good Needlewoman. Liberal wages.’; presumably to assist Euphemia with the birth of her first child who was born in the house. Following the birth, the couple moved to live at Number 37. Unfortunately, John died there in 1873, aged only thirty-six. Around 1900 Euphemia returned to Albany Street, lodging at Number 11. Both the Binny’s children, Graham and Euphemia (Effie) became painters.

1870 – 1887 Lodger - William David Thorburn

In 1871 William David Thorburn left his family home in Leith where his father, the Reverend David Thorburn, was Minister of South Leith Free Church and took lodgings at Number 19. He lived here for sixteen years and then moved to live in Heriot Row.

William was born in 1846 and graduated from Aberdeen University in 1867. He became an advocate with special expertise in the law of banking. As well as writing on the subject he delivered a series of lectures to the Institute of Bankers.

He served on the Leith Schools Board and stood as the Conservative candidate for the Leith Member of Parliament. At one meeting he gave his views on the subject of free education: ‘You cannot have free education unless teachers agree to teach without charging for their services. The experience of the Leith School Board is that the children who receive free education are not the most regular attendees. The absenteeism in the free schools of America is far greater than in this country. If the Parliament brought in free education, the cost would tell very heavily on the community. To take money from the Church funds, as was suggested, would be insufficient (cheers) and voluntary schools not being able to compete with free schools would be extinguished.’ At another pre-election meeting he spoke to railway employees and referred to English polls showing that working men were supporting the Conservative party candidates in many towns, because the Conservative Party had passed seventeen measures in support of workers, including The Masters and Servants Act that enabled a servant to now sue the master for damages where there was non-fulfilment of a contract. However, William was unsuccessful in his bid to win the Leith constituency.

William moved to Heriot Row and died there in 1888. His funeral cortege, including a large number of fellow advocates, started from his house in Heriot Row and travelled along Albany Street, Forth Street and Pilrig Street to Warriston Cemetery. ‘Around the grave were a number of children belonging to Leith Board schools, who sang a requiem while the internment was taking place.’

1897 – 1942 George Keppie Paterson

George Keppie Paterson was a doctor. He moved from Number 22, buying this house, with stables and coach-house, for £1300. After studying at Edinburgh university with honours in 1882, he studied in Berlin and Vienna. For ten years he was assistant to Sir Alexander Simpson, the holder of the chair of midwifery and diseases of women in Edinburgh University. He acquired an extensive general practice which he carried on until a few years ago. He became in 1891 a member of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and in 1895 a Fellow. He was one of the oldest members of the British Medical Association, his membership extending over 58 years. In 1903 he became hon. secretary of the old Edinburgh North-East Division, an appointment he held until 1911, and then, for a further ten years, he was hon. Secretary, and later Chairman, of the new Edinburgh and Leith Division.

One of Dr Paterson's greatest interests was medical missions. He travelled extensively in North Africa, Egypt, Palestine, and the West Indies. He joined the Edinburgh Medical Missionary-Society in 1890, and was for several years its hon. treasurer and vice-president. He also served as was vice-president of the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society for a time and there is a report on a discussion about Simpson's description of Egyptian birth-chairs. Paterson recounted that he had been told by a woman doctor that in Morocco the women were often confined sitting on the thighs of two neighbours who squatted down close to each other. A rope was hung down from the apex of the tent, and the patient grasped this during the bearing-down pains. He had a keen interest in music, including running a choir in his dispensary.

He died here in 1942.