Number 20 - Information on residents

1853 – 1896 Lodgings

The house was purchased by Hugh Somerville, a spirit  merchant, who was married to Agnes Amelia Diey whose father ran livery stables at Regent Terrace. In 1858, Somerville found himself in court on a breach of the peace charge for having been ‘exceedingly uproarious in the house of his parents-in-law in Regent Terrace Lane’ and was fined 30s. Perhaps our over-excitable Hugh Somerville felt the need to leave the country following this blot on his character as he immigrated to Canada in 1861 and there bought a farm near Lake Erie and grew potatoes.

1861 – 1896 Lodgings

Margaret Cameron, a widow, bought the house and took over running the Lodgings. At the 1861 census, her lodgers were: James and Mary Pourie, landed proprietor; James Robertson, a medical student and Major-General Joseph Clarke. 

1861 Lodger - Major-General Joseph Clarke and his family

Major General Joseph Clarke (image) and his wife, Helen (nee Cumming) lodged here with four of their children William (33), Annie (27) and Emily (25) and Reginald (11). Another son, John, had joined the army later would emigrate with his family to New Zealand. Clarke was in his seventies and his wife twenty years younger. Clarke was retired, having served for forty-seven years with the 76th Regiment. His first action was in the Peninsula War, serving under the Duke of Wellington. He then fought in the war with the United States, and at its end the regiment were stationed in Canada for about ten years. There he met and married Helen and they had their first child. This son, James Cumming Clarke, later became a Major in his father’s regiment. Joseph and Mary moved to Scotland where the 76th were employed in suppressing bread riots in Scotland. William and Annie were born during this posting. Emily was born in the West Indies and Reginald when the regiment was in Corfu in 1850. Soon after, the regiment was again posted to Canada, where it remained until 1857.

On returning to Britain, Clarke retired, although he was appointed Honorary Colonel of the Regiment. In his farewell address he said: ‘On resigning the command of the 76th Regiment after a period of 47 years, I cannot leave without expressing, to the Regiment generally, my high sense of that ready obedience to authority so necessary and conducive in carrying on the various and responsible duties of that office. I have always endeavoured by his best and undivided efforts to uphold the regulations of Her Majesty's service ; and in the maintenance of that discipline so essential to good order it has always been his desire to promote the well-being and condition of those under his charge… It will ever be a constant and great source of satisfaction to me to know that the creditable and meritorious spirit of subordination and good discipline now existing will continue to distinguish the corps under all circumstances, and that, in the event of being called into active service, the name which it had obtained for bravery and valour will be revived, and that the glory gained on its former campaigns may be emulated. In bidding farewell, as its commanding officer, to the Regiment in which his life has been passed, and to which his warmest interests are still attached, I wish that prosperity and good fortune may attend it, in whatever clime or country its services may be required.’ The children’s birthplaces again indicate a military father, being Ireland, Stirling, Dominica and Corfu. He and Helen moved to  live in Dublin where he in 1871. .  

1878 – 1896 Lodger - Alexander E Macknight

Alexander Macknight rented an apartment in this lodging house for 18 years, before moving to live for his final years at Number 47. Macknight became an advocate and although he continued to deem himself an ‘advocate in practice’, and used the advocates’ library, he does not appear to have practised as one.  When Macknight's father, the Reverend Thomas Macknight, died in 1836, his mother, Christian, moved to London Street with her two sons. Macknight's brother, James, had just become a WS. 

James married in 1842 and his wife, Helen, moved into the London Street house with the Macknight family. Although James and Helen had seven children, Alexander and his mother continued to share the house with the expanding family. Christian died in 1862, and when James died in 1878, Alexander, now sixty years-of-age, moved to an apartment in the lodging house of Mrs Cooper. 

Although he did not practice law, in 1848, Macknight published the pamphlet, Practical Suggestions for the Improvement of Trial By Jury in Civil Cases. Many in the legal system at the time were calling for an end to the use of juries for certain civil cases. Their argument was that randomly selected individuals were unable to consider complex cases effectively. One newspaper summed up that view: ‘For although today it is your neighbour who is ruined by a Jury Trial, the fate tomorrow may be your own.’ Macknight disagreed. He wrote: ‘This is a land renowned among the nations of the earth for its intelligence, information and morals, where the blessings of a Christian education are universally spread …[and thus] the people of Scotland are fully competent to fulfil the duty of dispensing justice between man and man in civil, as well as criminal, cases…Trial by Jury is the palladium [safeguard] of civil liberty, and despotism can never exist where it is untouched.’

Macknight had strong opinions, and these extended far beyond legal subjects. He was a well-off owner of properties, and thus he spent the majority of his time attending a wide range of meetings where he ‘aired his views on social topics.’ The diversity of views on which he proffered an opinion is evidenced by the recurring mention of his name in newspaper reports: at a meeting of the United Liberal Association he argued for tenants’ rights; as a member of the City Parochial Board he objected to the idea of old age pensions as ‘compulsory provisions encouraged vice, imprudence, unthrift and every kind of wickedness’; at the Agricultural Society he commented on the cost of cheese, noting that due to unfair duties Scottish Cheddar cost more than English Cheddar; and he toasted the success of the Stewarton Bowling Club at its opening. Whether his interventions were always welcomed as positive contributions is less certain. In one account of a discussion, the reporter inserted ‘(Mr Macknight advocate – “no”) that suggests a passionate intervention, and another related that ‘the motion was adopted – Mr Macknight dissenting.’ He also may have, on occasion, extended the audience’s patience: ‘Macknight was here drawn up by a sharp cry of time, and the meeting rose at a late hour.’

In his earlier years, he had been a member of an Amateur Orchestral Society and was an excellent violin player. Thus he doubtless felt his view on the suggestion of introducing instrumental music into the services at St Mary’s Free Church in 1886 carried even greater credence: ‘an organ is always out of tune, and has the effect of killing the singing, and as a musical man (laughter) I object to its introduction. We are a well-sung congregation, and don’t need any so-called assistance. (Laughter) The organ came into the Christian Church through the influence of Popery. (Renewed laughter) First of all came the bishop, then the organ and next the Pope. (Continued laughter).’  This vociferous objection to Roman Catholicism is further reflected in an essay he wrote for a book published to celebrate the Ter-centenary of the Reformation in Scotland: ‘Whereby the priesthood is sent forth to corrupt, demoralise, and degrade a large portion of the people of Ireland, and to conspire and plot against the religion and liberties of Great Britain. Rome has ever been the enemy of the press and real popular education….The time is hastening for her final destruction. Witness Northern Italy, freed from papal despotism, and Sicily throwing off the yoke of the oppressor.’

Macknight was a keen huntsman. He kept his horse, a stallion named Rosinate, near to Albany Street - reputedly in a field near Pilrig - and was still riding with hounds into his late seventies. In his youth, it was said that he: ‘rode to hounds with considerable dash’, and at the Linlithgow and Stirlingshire Hunt he was described as: ‘a well - known character, nick-named "Paganini" in consequence of his skill in playing the violin, who, although noted for his parsimony, was undoubtedly a lover of the chase.’  While it was reported that in his youth, Macknight had been ‘one of the best dressed and smartest looking men in Modern Athens’, in his later years his dress sense and hygiene declined. A member of staff at the Advocates’ Library said that following a visit by Macknight, ‘the windows had to be opened, so strong the taint of the old clothes shop and stable did he leave behind whenever he went.’

As a landlord, Macknight also had his failings. Perhaps his own disdain for washing was the reason why six of his houses were in a bad state of repair, with neither running water nor toilets. The city’s engineer’s demands that Macknight improve them went unheeded. One of his tenants, Jessie Morrison, sued him over the death of her husband, who had died from falling from the top step of the stairs leading up to their house, rented from Macknight. She claimed her husband’s death was due to the lack of a handrail and lighting on the stairs. Although Macknight countered that the deceased man had probably been drunk, the jury found in the favour of Mrs Morrison and awarded her £120 damages.

This was not Macknight’s first court appearance. That took place in 1885, when he appeared, aged around 70, accused of assaulting one of his employees, the sixteen-year-old Allan Ritchie, who was employed as a stable boy by Macknight. Ritchie told the court that Macknight had called him into the house and said he wished to examine his skin to see if he kept it clean. Macknight had instructed him to take down his trousers and when he did, was knocked him down on to a chair, bound and given him five or six blows with a riding whip. Ritchie managed to escape into Albany Street and went to the police. When the police called, Macknight claimed that Ritchie had agreed to be flogged if he erred. At the trial, the court heard from another boy called Heath, who said that when employed by Macknight he had agreed to sign an undertaking that if he offended, he would allow Macknight to flog him. He added that he was instructed by Macknight to go to Sunday School and on his return was, on a number of occasions, then flogged. However, Ritchie denied that he had ever agreed to any flogging, and Macknight was fined £1. Ritchie later brought an action of damages but Macknight settled out of court with a payment of £60.

A year later, Macknight was back in court, again accused of having assaulted another young man, Alexander Hutton, a tenant who had fallen behind in his rent. Following a reading of some passages from the bible and 'a sort of moral homily, in which the importance of not spoiling the child by sparing the rod was dwelt on [Proverbs 23.14, ‘Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell] Macknight instructed Hutton to remove his jacket, vest and trousers, then bound him to a chair, and, with a small cane, whipped him on his legs and buttocks. The bewildered Hutton wrestled free of his bonds, quickly dressed and left, with Macknight shouting after him that we would feel the better for it afterwards. Not quite seeing the matter in this light, Hutton went straight to the police. This time Macknight said to the investigating police that he had administered the punishment on scriptural authority, but the police did not accept this defence. Nor did the Sheriff, who said he found the evidence extraordinary and wondered whether Macknight was ‘in a fit state of mind.’ Again, the elderly Macknight was found guilty, and as this was a second offence, fined £2.

Later, there is an intriguing mention of a young man being arrested for sending threatening letters to Macknight seeking money, but no further information on this has been unearthed. It is hard not to leap to the conclusion that this may have had a link to Macknight’s bizarre need to punish young men with the cane. Following the second court case, one of the members of the Edinburgh City Parochial Board called for the resignation of Macknight on account of his ‘disgraceful conduct’, but as all members were up for re-election in a few months, other board members decided not to support the motion.

Around 1890, we have a glimpse of Macknight, aged about eighty, at Number 20. George Fothergill, a British artist who painted hunting scenes and portraits for Vanity Fair, had been on a hunt in which Macknight had taken part. Intrigued by the sight of this very elderly man still riding with hounds, Fothergill visited Macknight to ask if he might paint his portrait. ‘The front door was opened, after I had rung several times, by a civil old housekeeper – the only servant. It was 11am and Mr Macknight was still reposing. “He has naethin in particular to get up for,” the housekeeper remarked. I was taken into the only room he occupied in the whole house – the large dining room on the left, where he fed, read, fiddled (he was a great violinist) and slept. He frequently went to bed in his day things, which saved him from washing…. The room had the appearance of something between an old clothes shop and a Dutch interior – his “wardrobe” scattered about on the backs of chairs and on the floor, and victuals, or what remained of them, books, papers, crockery, etc. all jumbled up together at the other end.’ Sadly, Alexander Macknight did not allow Fothergill to paint him.

Macknight died in 1899. When his house furniture was advertised for sale the list included a grand pianoforte, a number of violins, a mangle and an invalid carriage, but no riding crops or canes. His obituary glossed over his court appearances - and his nickname ‘Dirty’ - and simply noted: ‘Macknight was a well-known figure in the city and a bit of a character.’