Number 22 - Information about residents

1818 – 1827 Mrs Bruce of Kennet

Mrs Bruce was the widow of Alexander Bruce, the 9th of Kennett, who had died ten years earlier. He had at one time been a merchant in China before he inherited Kennet in 1785. There were five sons and two daughters.

The eldest son was Robert. In 1808, on the death of his father, he became Laird of Kennet at the age of 12. It is likely that on reaching the age of 21 he would have taken on the estate, and house, at Kennet, Clackmannanshire, and this may be why Mrs Bruce and her children moved to Albany Street, or this may have been an Edinburgh address for the family. In 1818, Robert was serving with the Grenadier Guards, fighting in the Battle of Waterloo. On leaving the army he became MP (Tory) for Clackmannanshire and married in 1825.

Bruce tried on many occasions to press his claim to the forfeited Balfour peerage in view of government’s plans to restore the lineal descendants of attainted peers to their ancestors’ honours. He even petitioned the king on this during his visit to Scotland in 1822: ‘Mine is a case of peculiar aggravated hardship ... Both Lord Melville and the lord advocate are of opinion that it is a singular case.’ However, he was unsuccessful. In 1844, having accidentally discovered the patent of the Balfour peerage in a chest at Kennet, Robert tried again. He petitioned Queen Victoria and the petition was referred to the Lords’ committee of privileges in 1861, when his claim to the Balfour peerage was disputed by another descendant. Nothing had been decided by the time of Bruce’s death in 1864, but the following year his only son, Alexander Hugh, again a minor at the time (his father had been 54 when he sired Alexander) renewed the claim. His right to the Balfour peerage was allowed in 1868. Alexander went on to have a distinguished political career, including serving as Secretary of State for Scotland and Lord Rector of Edinburgh University.

The second son, George, who had gone to Jamaica and another son, Lawrence, both died in 1817, so moving into the house with their mother would probably have been Hugh, William, Helen and Margaret.

Hugh appears in his own right in the house record in 1823. This would have been around the time he became an advocate. He acted as the Ruling Elder for the Presbytery of Uist in a General Assembly debate, and was a member of the Edinburgh Commission of the Peace, a structure originally instituted in Scotland in the 16th century. Initially, justices were given the task of administering the county within which they resided until this work passed to the County Councils with their establishment in 1888. Like a number of other Albany Street residents, he and his brother William, who became a Wine Merchant, were mentioned as ‘fictitious voters’ in the House of Lords Select Committee.

When the family left Albany Street in 1827 for Moray Place, Hugh and William moved there with their mother while the two daughters Helen and Margaret – apparently unmarried – moved together to Young Street.

1827 – 1837 Charles and Amelia (neé Bell) Nairne

Charles Nairne, a solicitor (WS), was the son of the Reverend James Nairne, Minister of Pittenweem and he was apprenticed to his elder brother James, also a WS.

In 1832, the Ministers’ Sons’ Club was launched with Charles’ father as President, and Charles the Secretary. The club consisted of sons, sons-in-law and grandsons by blood, of Ministers of the Established Church of Scotland. Its objects were to promote a ‘kindly and convivial union’ and ‘forward the interests of such sons as may require assistance.’ Soon after its launch it had over 100 members. The club planned to meet annually and certainly there is a meeting of the club advertised three years later to take place in the Hopetoun Rooms of the British Hotel at 9.45pm, with ‘supper on the table at 10pm precisely’. Tickets for the evening were priced at 5s6p.

The Nairnes’ son, James, carried on the family tradition by becoming a WS in 1843, and later acted as Secretary of North British Railway. Nairne died in 1837 and Amelia moved to Henderson Row, and his son to Claremont Crescent.

The 1855 valuation record shows that at that date Nairn still owned the house.

When the Simpsons moved into Albany Street, although James was only 28, he already had established himself as one of the country’s leading obstetricians and gynaecologists. Many women died, or were injured, by traumatic or botched labours, but Simpson was known to take especial care in all aspects of a birth to avoid injury. Soon his house in Albany Street was being visited by a growing number of the aristocracy. Simpson wrote: ‘Saw yesterday one Countess and three Ladies. Good for one day among the nobility.’ Later he complained that he did not have enough time in the day to cope with the demand on his time. ‘Yesterday I had the honour of waiting professionally on severable Honourable Ladies, on the three daughters of the Lord President, on lady Dundas, and in the evening on lady Anstruther who had a nice little lively daughter after an hour or two of real suffering.’ During this period he designed the Air Tractor, the earliest known vacuum extractor to assist childbirth, although the method did not become popular until over a century later. He also improved the design of obstetric forceps that to this day are known as ‘Simpson's Forceps’.

He recounted his life at Number 22: ‘I generally rise about eight, sometimes at six, or earlier, when urgent letters and addresses have to be written. We breakfast at 8.30. I see any patients that may come here (to Albany Street), and afterwards drive off to see folks at their own houses at 9.30. I lecture at the college from 11 to 12; see hospital patients; walk home to lunch at one, and generally get home for dinner, or, what I like better, tea, “tousie west-country tea,” about five. Then Maggie and Dave (his children) come down for fun and frolic . After an hour’s rest I am generally offf again, walking always at night, and then home to an egg or other supper about eleven or later. Some book is generally devoured with supper and a few minutes afterwards I am asleep, but ready to wake and rise at the slightest tinkle of the night bell. Occasionally in evenings I go out for a few hours to dinner, but I avoid this as much as possible, because I always enjoy myself most at home, or by having a friend or two to Albany Street.’

Due to the expansion of his practice, in 1845, he and his family moved to Queen Street. It was there that he first began considering the potential of substances to reduce pain. Simpson, together with two colleagues, tested the various potential substances on themselves, and eventually they obtained some chloroform to try. Morrice McCrae’s book, Simpson, The Turbulent Life of a Medical Pioneer, describes the events on 4 November 1847: ‘(The bottle of chloroform) was found on a side table, buried under a collection of papers. George Keith was the first to inhale its vapour from the sample in his tumbler. When Simpson and Matthew Duncan saw his reaction, they immediately tried it for themselves. All three became bright eyed and happy and, in the brief interval before they crashed to the floor, their conversation was of “unusual intelligence and quite charmed the listeners”. While still on the floor Simpson was heard to say that “this is far stronger and better than ether”. As he looked round, Duncan was lying quite still and snoring under a chair, while Keith was on his back kicking the supper table with “maniacal and unrestrainable destructiveness”. They were certain they had found what they were looking for.’

Only six days later, having used it to ease the pain for some minor procedures, Simpson decided to use it to ease childbirth, and the first woman to whom he administered chloroform was Jane Carstairs. who lived at Number 41 . In spite of its properties, it took time for the use of chloroform to be widely accepted. A number of doctors and surgeons were of the view that pain was a powerful stimulant, but those who previously would have had to endure shocking pain during operations or birth, saw chloroform as a miracle. Simpson was asked to assist Queen Victoria at the birth of her eighth child, and the Queen’s comment on its effect - ‘that blessed chloroform soothing and delightful beyond measure’ - was undoubtedly a further factor in the general acceptance of chloroform.

Simpson's intellectual interests ranged from poetry and archaeology, to an almost taboo subject at the time: hermaphroditism. He was renowned for an impish sense of humour, as exemplified by seating a Southern US slave owner next to a freed slave at one of his famed dinners. He was elected President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and, in 1866, was made a Baronet. Sadly his private life had many troubles. Five of his nine children died and Jessie, his wife, retreated into her bedroom, fixated on religious tracts and comforting whiffs of chloroform.

When Simpson died in 1870, over 30,000 mourners lined the streets of Edinburgh for his funeral. His memorial plaque in Westminster Abbey reads: ‘To whose genius and benevolence the world owes the blessings derived from the use of chloroform for the relief of suffering.’

1845 – 1850 George Hunter Marshall

George Marshall moved here from Number 18 as his brother, with whom he shared that house, had just married. His sister, Janet, acted as housekeeper. George came from a well-established family of jewellers in the city. However there appear to be two Marshall families involved in jewellery and goldsmithing in the city. There were other Marshalls involved in the jewellery business, although they do not appear to be directly related. William Marshall, listed at the time as goldsmith to the late King, was based on North Bridge, and James and Walter had their jewellery shop at 41/42 George Street.

1850 – 1867 Lodgings

These were run by William and Mary Anderson.

1855 Lodger - Count Valerian Krasinski

Count Valerian Krasinski died in the house in 1855. He was a Polish aristocrat who had travelled to England on a diplomatic mission from the National Polish Government. However, in 1831, when the Russian armies overpowered the revolutionary movement of his countrymen, he was still in England, and so became, with many others of his countrymen, a penniless exile. He first went to live in Sidmouth in Devon to improve his English. in order to earn a living as a writer. With no means of support he worked at his own expense to write and publish A History of the Reformation in Poland, but as sales were poor, he ended up in Fleet Prison in London as a result of unpaid debts. Fortunately, his creditors reduced their demands and he was freed. He went on to write further books and to lecture. After twenty years living in London, he spent the last five years of his life in Edinburgh.

He was buried in Warriston Cemetery where there is a memorial to him which reads: ‘Sacred to the memory of Count Valerian Krasinski. A Polish Patriot illustrious by birth, by intellect, by nobility of nature. Author of numerous works on the history of his country. Through life a zealous champion of her rights and independence. He died in exile pleading her cause. December 22 1855. Erected by his grateful countrymen.’

His burial plot was purchased by Dr Dionysius Wielobycki, the central character in an Edinburgh cause celebre. Like Krasinski, Wielobycki had been forced into exile. He was a soldier in the Polish War of Independence, and so had to assume a German name to enable him to study philosophy. But he was unmasked and imprisoned. He managed to escape and ended up in Leith. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University, and worked with Francis Black and John Rutherford Russell at the Edinburgh Homeopathic Dispensary, having become convinced of the value of homeopathy through being successfully treated homoeopathically as a boy.

Although extremely successful and a well-regarded homeopathic practitioner in the city, he was plagued by debts. So, he persuaded an elderly patient, Thomas Darling, whom he knew to have saved the substantial sum of £6,000, to entrust the money to him: assuring Darling that he could invest it at a high rate of interest. The grateful patient passed over all his savings and Wielobycki used the money to liquidate his own debts. He then paid Darling the agreed interest every quarter to allay any suspicion. However, when it became clear that Darling had not long to live, Wielobycki discovered that the elderly man had willed all his money to his two daughters, and that the elder daughter Margaret, who also was in very poor health, planned to leave her share to a nephew. Alarmed that his embezzlement would be discovered, he persuaded the other daughter Isabella, whose handwriting resembled her sister's, to write out a will that he dictated. This he induced the dying Margaret to sign, adding the signatures of the witnesses later. When Margaret died, Isabella, who was completely under the influence of Wielobycki, inherited the mythical six thousand, and the doctor volunteered to secure probate of her sister's will for her. However, the relatives and friends of the Darlings became suspicious. They wondered why an eminent Edinburgh physician with a fashionable practice, should devote so much of his valuable time to the affairs of a working-class family. So Margaret Darling's nephew announced his intention of disputing the will of his aunt. Wielobycki immediately offered the nephew twelve hundred pounds to destroy the will. Although appearing to agree, the young man instead went to the authorities and Wielobycki was arrested.

Fashionable Edinburgh crowded the court to witness the trial. Such was Wielobycki's standing in the city that the judge whose turn it was to preside at that particular session had to withdraw because he knew the doctor too well. Wielobycki was convicted and sentenced to fourteen years' penal servitude. The report of the case said: 'This trial, which ended last night, has been the cause of intense excitement, and its result will fill many a home with poignant regret. Whatever the Doctor's demerits, he had fixed himself deep in the affections of a large number of friends; and however strong the evidence of his legal blame-worthiness, thousands still refuse to believe in his moral guilt…. Wielobycki claims to have acted out of benevolence, while the woman who conceived and executed the forgery for her own behoof, and for the avowed purpose of cheating her nephew and nieces, has been returned unpunished to society.’ It appears the sentence was never carried out as by 1861, Wielobycki was practicing at the Leicester Homeopathic Dispensary and by 1871, was back living in Edinburgh.

1856 Lodger - Harriet Emma Siddons (neé Emms)

In 1856, another lodger, Harriet Siddons, the cousin and widow of Major Henry Siddons died in the house. Both she and her husband were grandchildren of the famous Welsh actress, Sarah Kemble, the best-known tragedienne of the 18th century, and Walter Siddons, also an actor. Henry’s father, also Henry, joined the Covent Garden Theatre company, and there met an actress Harriet Murray, whom he married. They both performed regularly at Drury Lane. Then in 1809, largely through Sir Walter Scott's influence, Siddons took over the Edinburgh Theatre Royal. With his wife and her brother, William Henry Murray, also an actor, they decided that the forty year old theatre was no longer fit for purpose and opened the New Theatre Royal in Leith Walk in 1809. Siddons regularly appeared on stage, but as an actor he was at the disadvantage of having to suffer constant comparison with his more talented relatives, the Kembles, and as a result never received the acclaim that he perhaps deserved. Harriet’s first appearance in Edinburgh was in 1808, at the Theatre Royal, where she played Ophelia to her husband’s Hamlet. The couple also shared the running of the theatre but when Henry died in 1815, the theatre was in a bad state. With her brother’s help Harriet turned the theatre round; to a large extent by staging adaptations of Sir Walter Scott's novels, which were hugely successful. Harriet continued to perform after her husband’s death but took her leave of the stage on 29 March 1829, delivering an address written by her great patron, Sir Walter Scott. She died in Edinburgh in 1844.

Henry junior was born in Forth Street in 1812. Although his grandparents, parents and uncle were all in the theatre, he chose a career in the army. Things might have been different though, for when his famous grandmother came to act in Coriolanus in Edinburgh, she wanted to have young Henry and his two siblings come on stage, but their father would not consent.

In 1831, Henry went to serve in India. Another uncle, George Siddons, worked for the Bengal Civil Service and was stationed in Calcutta. Thus Henry re-met his cousin Harriet and they were married in Calcutta. In 1842, their only child, Sarah, was born. During his service in India Henry commanded sappers and miners during the Sikh campaign, including participating in the Battle of Sobraon; was a superintendent of canals; and finally again involved in military action, this time in the siege of Moultan. He wrote a Journal about this siege of which his obituary said: ‘the proceedings of the engineers are narrated with perspicuity and exactness, and with a modest suppression of all mention of his own share in them which was consistent with his character.’ Unfortunately, he became seriously ill as a result of being in the trenches there, and returned to Scotland in 1849. The family took a house in Portobello, but within the year Henry was dead, at just 37 years old. Harriet lived on in the house for three years afterwards, before moving here sometime before her own death in 1856.

At the 1861 census the lodgers were Henry Lancaster, an advocate, and William Anderson, Deputy Lieutenant and Magistrate of Aberdeen.

1867 – 1899 John and Ann (neé Gloag) Galletly

John and Ann married in 1852 and had their first child, Matthew, in 1854. Galletly had a large legal practice, having been practising as a solicitor (SSC) in Edinburgh since 1851. He was a Bailie of Holyrood, a post that was responsible for law and order within the Holyrood Abbey Sanctuary.

They had five sons. Matthew for the Scottish Widows Fund; John and Alexander followed their father into the law; Edwin worked for the British Linen Bank; and William became a doctor, serving first as an army surgeon and then becoming the Poor Law Medical Officer for the workhouse in York. John, senior and his son, John, worked in partnership from the house from 1879 when John junior also became a SSC.

In 1879, John and Ann lost £3,500 when the City of Glasgow Bank collapsed. ‘This great social and commercial disaster - the result of utterly reckless and dishonest speculation on the part of the Board of Directors - was made public late in the evening of the 1st of October 1878’, was how one newspaper reported the Bank’s collapse. As more information came to light the newspaper’s accusations of speculation changed to ones of fraud: ‘Shareholders have seen in the case of the City of Glasgow Bank how fraud may empty the coffers of such institutions. It has impoverished men of great wealth, and has created throughout the country a sense of insecurity among bank shareholders.’

Established in 1839, the City of Glasgow Bank catered particularly for small investors with branches opening in the evenings to receive deposits. In June 1878, the directors reported that there were now 133 branches of the bank; that business was booming with deposits of £8m; and that the Bank had capital reserves totalling £1.6m. Given the health of the bank they declared a dividend to shareholders of 12 per cent. However, following the bank’s collapse soon after, it was discovered that, in fact, the Bank had a deficit of an astonishing £5.19m, as a result of large loans made to borrowers on inadequate security, and speculative investments in land, sheep, farms and wool in New Zealand and Australia. To cover up these disastrous losses the directors had fabricated the accounts and maintained the high share price by secret purchases of the Bank's own stock. As a result of the insolvency hundreds of firms folded, especially in Glasgow, and the 1,200 shareholders and their families lost their money. Charles J Pearson who lived at Number 7 was in charge of prosecuting the directors; all of whom were found guilty of deception and sent to prison.

Living here in 1881 also was Galletly’s father who had been a type founder. Around 1890 John, senior, died. From 1892, Matthew was listed as residing at the house along with his brother, John.

1899 – 1903 John and Elizabeth (neé Hamilton) Laidlaw

John Laidlaw was the only child of a family that had been sheep farmers for many generations. He studied at Edinburgh University in the early 1850s, and won four gold medals and prizes in philosophy. He had planned to become a teacher, but changed his mind, instead becoming a Minister. He was minister at Free Churches in Perth and Aberdeen. In 1869, he married Elizabeth and they had one daughter. In 1881, he was appointed Professor of Systematic Theology of Divinity at New College, Edinburgh. He published a number of his lectures including The Biblical Doctrine of Man, and wrote other books. A review of one said: 'An important and valuable contribution to the discussion of the anthropology of the sacred writings; perhaps the most considerable that has appeared in our own language.' He was influential in bringing about the union of the Reformed Presbyterian church with the Free Church of Scotland in 1876, and the later discussions by the Presbyterian churches on possible union.