Number 25 - Information on residents

This house may have been bought by Mrs Saville of whom nothing traced and let for two years to Miss McNab and Robert Kerr as Mrs Saville sold it in 1811.

1806 - 1807 Miss McNab’s Boarding School

Nothing traced about this short-lived school.

1809 – 1810 Robert Kerr

Robert Kerr, a physician, was the son of a jeweller. After studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh he practised at the Edinburgh Foundling Hospital as a surgeon.

He translated several scientific works into English, and in 1792 published The Animal Kingdom, the first two volumes of a four-tome translation of Linnaeus' Systema Naturae, which is often cited as the taxonomic authority for a great many species. However, he never translated the remaining two volumes. In 1794, he left his post as a surgeon to manage a paper mill at Ayton, Berwickshire, but unfortunately lost most of his fortune with this enterprise. In 1809, out of economic necessity he returned to writing, publishing a variety of minor works. These included a General View of the Agriculture of Berwickshire. In 1811 he began a massive historical study, entitled A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, in eighteen volumes. Following his death in 1813, other writers completed the series in the 1820s.

1814 – 1815 Alexander Nairne of Drumkilbo

Colonel Alexander Nairne, a retired army officer and landowner, was a widower; his wife Preston Balnaves having died 30 years before, possibly in childbirth as a daughter, Anne, was born the year of her death. Nairne also lived at Drumkilbo House which he had enlarged in 1811. Sadly, just before the renovation works were completed, Nairne’s only daughter Anne died of palsy. Her husband Robert Anstruther brought up their only son, Philip, who later became Colonial Secretary of Ceylon.

An anonymous Home Office intelligence account to the Lord Advocate reports: ‘An association of persons friendly to the present constitution is at present forming in Coupar Angus. The members are principally farmers, and are headed by Mr Murray of Lintrose, Captain Murray his son, Mr Nairne of Drumkilbo and some other Gentlemen in the Neighbourhood.’ This would have been one of a number of groups, mainly landowners, that emerged in the face of concern at the potential threat to the status quo in Britain, arising from the negative influence of the 1789 French Revolution and the earlier American Revolution. These revolutions had encouraged many in Britain to increase their calls for political reform in Britain in order to bring greater freedom and enlightenment. The debate gave renewed energy to existing reform societies, and fostered new associations, some organised by ordinary working people who objected to the patronage and control of the wealthy. Those in positions of authority became worried that: ‘ If the lower orders are allowed to express themselves or where they create their own opportunities the invariable consequence is, as we have seen, not the passage of loyalist but of pro- reform resolutions.’ In May 1792, the government reacted to the growing debate with a Royal Proclamation against seditious writing. In the subsequent prosecution of the activist Thomas Paine, the Attorney General expressed the government's anxieties about the subversive arguments: ‘Gentlemen, to whom are these positions addressed...to the ignorant, to the credulous, to the desperate.' The fear of a British revolution is portrayed by the 1819 George Cruikshank cartoon, The Age of Reason; or, the World turned Topsy-turvy exemplified in Paine's Works!

Nairne died in 1815.

1815 – 1823 Ephraim and Janet (neé Learmonth) Lockhart

Ephrain Lockhart was born in 1776. He became a solicitor (WS) in 1803 and married Janet in 1818. They had at least one daughter, Margaret, and a son, also called Ephraim. About ten years after leaving Albany Street, Lockhart acted for Alexander Humphrys in a famous forgery trial. To sum up a complicated situation, suffice to say that in the 17th century, Sir William Lord Alexander (Earl of Stirling) had been given a claim to ‘the Countie of Canada’, and the titles were passed through the family until 1739, when the fifth Earl died without issue.

In 1802, Humphrys became a teacher near Worcester and would, in all probability, have passed his life in relative obscurity had it not been for a certain Mr. Banks, a genealogist. Mr Banks, the writer of Extinct and Dormant Baronage of England, discovered that Humphrys’ mother was related to the Earl of Stirling. He approached Humphrys, encouraging him to lay claim to the title, and with Banks’ help, Humphrys succeeded in being declared the lawful heir to the Earl of Stirling.

1823 - 1828 Andrew and Janet (neé Spens) Inglis

Also lived at Number 11. See residents of Number 11.

1828 – 1851 Isabella Miller and Susan Miller

Nothing known of these sisters except that Isabella died sometime in the 1840s when in her early fifties and Susan put the house up for sale in 1851 for £1,200, when she moved to Broughton Place where she died in 1862, aged 66.

1870 – 1874 William and Janet (neé Foot) Grant

William Grant ran a small publishing firm in Hill Street. In 1871 he had five men and four boys working for him. This is one of their published titles. In the house at the 1871 census were William and his wife, Janet; a daughter and two sons - one a solicitor’s clerk and the other at school; and two boarders - Peter Smeaton a legal clerk, and one of the firm’s young compositors, David Baldwin. Both William and Janet died in 1874.

1876 – 1877 Andrew Smith Brewster and David Brewster

Andrew Brewster was a sculptor and exhibited regularly in the Royal Scottish Academy’s annual exhibition from 1860 until 1876. Works he showed included Thomas Kay, Deputy Inspector General, Indian Army and Portrait of a Gentleman. He first began producing work in Glasgow in 1860 and moved to Edinburgh around 1865. He had studios at various addresses and during the year he worked in Albany Street he shared the studio with his brother, David.

David Brewster, in the 1871 Census, described himself as an ‘author – general literature’, but at a later census listed his job as ‘artist’. Andrew lived in Lower Broughton Road and David in Summerfield Place in Leith.

Their father was the Minister of Abbey Church in Paisley. He was extremely popular locally due to his forceful support for the rights of the poor of Scotland. However, his views were seen to be intemperate by his presbytery and he was reproached. This did not stop him and such was his esteem among the working classes, that a public subscription was raised to erect a monument to his memory in Paisley cemetery. He also is celebrated in John Mitchell’s poem, A Braid Glow’r at the Clergy.

1878 – 1904 Thomas and Catherine (neé Reid) Carmichael

The Carmichaels married in 1874 and moved here with their daughter. Thomas Carmichael was solicitor (SSC) and worked in partnership with another SSC, Schaw Miller; the two trading as Carmichael and Miller. The law firm’s chambers were in Duke (Dublin) Street. As well as his legal work, Carmichael was a member of the Edinburgh Burns Club and President of the Edinburgh West Liberal Club.

The couple attended the Albany Street Chapel. Thomas coordinated a fund-raising bazaar for the chapel and, later, chaired a fractious meeting about the fate of the Minister. The Reverend A B Morris was the minister of the Chapel in the 1890s and, in 1892, was missing from the pulpit on three consecutive Sundays. On the third, the substitute minister read out a letter from him to explain why: ‘Dear Brethern, it has become my duty to acquaint you with the reasons for my absence from my pulpit. In doing so I am obliged to refer to a very painful experience. I was summoned to appear at a special meeting of deacons. At that meeting there was given to my mind and nervous system a shock that has rendered me unable to discharge my normal duties. Being greatly excited by certain accusations which were then made against me I requested the five deacons who made them to formulate them in writing. This they have refused to do.’ It transpired that the deacons had asked for Morris’s resignation as they considered his preaching to be ‘too scientific and not evangelical enough.’ They also charged him with neglect of is pastoral duties. A church meeting was called, presided over by Carmichael. After what was described as a long and stormy meeting, the majority expressed their support for Morris, and the deacons who had called for the resignation of Morris all resigned. A few months later Carmichael, on behalf of the congregation, presented Morris with a silver salver, an autograph album and a purse with one hundred sovereigns. Carmichael complimented Morris on his ten years’ service to the chapel. He said that the whole congregation hoped ‘that he might long be spared in health and vigour to brighten and cheer their hearts and edify his congregation.’ Morris, clearly touched by the support he had received through the disagreeable dispute replied that his congregation had done much to confirm his confidence and promote his happiness.

In 1904 the Carmichaels moved to Strathearn Place.