Number 41 - Information on residents
1817 - 1819 Mrs Pearson
Nothing traced
1820 – 1828 Mrs Jane Welbank
Mrs Welbank moved to York Place but nothing further traced. However, John James Audubon, the famous American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter recounted visiting Mrs Welbank at Number 41 in December 1826 and offers a description. He wrote of his visit to his wife: ‘ I went to Mrs Welbank, Albany Street, to dine with William Gregg — Dr Gardner was there - Mrs Welbank has a Red Nose. - Now, when I say red, I do not mean to say that it is covered with that soft downy, velvety light substance that I often have seen and felt on thine, composed of a Bloom of pure White, with a thought of vermillion - Not I - I Infer that the strongest decoction of the little Insect called cochenille would only be a very poor color compared with the Truly red colored Nose of the Lady here mention - This redness extends from the center of the ridge, off and over the cheeks, the forehead, & the chin in rich profusion, and along with the Cap, the Ribbands and the Dress, I thought that Nothing so very red had ever met my Eye before - She is aimiable, however, and so are her Daughters and so, Lucy, never mind the Color!’
1828 – 1830 Thomas and Jane (neé Brodie) Scott & 1830 – 1834 John and Louisa (neé Plimer) Scott
John Scott bought the house, but for the next two years Thomas Scott lived here, while John lived in Queen Street. It is likely that they were brothers. Thomas married his cousin, Jane Brodie, in 1829, so it is possible that John moved out to allow the newly married couple to live in the house for a time. When in 1830, John married Louisa, he and his new wife moved here and Thomas and his wife went to live in Gayfield Square.
Thomas Scott became an accountant in 1823 and during his career held a range of appointments. His corporate directorships included the Albion Shipping Company, British and Burmah Navigation Company, Irrawady Irrigation and Flotilla Company and the Edinburgh Board of the City of Glasgow Insurance Company. Thomas’s charitable positions included Vice President of the Religious Tract and Book Society of Scotland, and Treasurer of the Scottish Military and Naval Academy. He was one of the founders of the Society of Accountants of Edinburgh as were two other Albany Street residents. This was the first ever professional grouping of accountants and became the model for the chartered profession throughout the world.
Fifty years later, there was an event to mark the Society’s creation at which the Lord Advocate described the significant change: ‘There are probably few professions which can show a greater contrast between the present and the past….in the beginning of the 18th century accounting was practised by solicitors and other persons of integrity and position. In the last century as the complexity of business and trade increased, as the intricacy of modern finance grew, and especially owing to the great development of joint-stock companies, the demands made upon the skills of the professional accountants increased so their position was much advanced. Before the middle of the 19th century no standard of proficiency was required for an accountant. There was no settled form of training and anyone who pleased to call themselves an accountant could set up in business. It was in these circumstances, in this city of Edinburgh, that the accountants resolved to apply for a Charter in 1854. Since then the designation of Chartered Accountant has become well recognised and honoured all over the country, and in the colonies and wherever civilisation is known. The result is that all of us who are favoured to meet accountants – and happily or unhappily we lawyers have that fortune often – recognise them always to be men of capacity and skill, men of sterling integrity, men fitted to be what they are – honoured members of a learned profession.’
John Scott was a doctor and, in 1838, was appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria had a number of doctors appointed to look after her and her family. Some were specialists and others acted as her general practitioners. Like other patients, she had likes and dislikes, and naturally her attendants conformed to her wishes. The senior of the physicians was styled Head of the Medical Department and the senior of the Surgeons as Sergeant Surgeon. There were variable numbers in these offices, the usual being three physicians and three surgeons, so that in an emergency there would be at least one available. John Scott was one of the second grade - titled Physicians and Surgeons Extraordinary – that were a second tier, although individual doctors were often appointed to the higher grade when someone above them retired or died, as Scott later was. He was a contributor to the Cyclopedia of Practical Surgery. John Scott also was a member of the Phrenological Association. A German physician, Franz Joseph Gall, introduced the idea of Phrenology during the end of the 18th Century, although then it was called ‘Cranioscopy’. His pupil, Johann Gasper Spurzheim, renamed it Phrenology and Gall and Spurzheim toured Europe lecturing on their new science, convinced they had found the key to understanding the mind. A lawyer, George Combe, heard Spurzheim lecture in Edinburgh and was quickly convinced of the science, so founded the Edinburgh Phrenological Society and helped boost the subject’s popularity with large debates. Phrenology became hugely popular in the city in the 1820s and the Edinburgh Phrenological Society was the first and foremost phrenological group in Britain. Phrenologists believed that the brain was the organ of the mind and that human behaviour could be usefully understood in neuropsychological rather than philosophical or religious terms.
On a visit to Edinburgh, Audubon, the well-known naturalist and bird artist described having his personality assessed by Combe. ‘I reached Brown Square at 9, and breakfasted most heartily on mutton, ham and good coffee with George Combe. We proceeded upstairs into his sancto sanctorum. A beautiful silver box containing the instruments for measuring was opened. I was seated facing the light. Combe thrusting his fingers about my hair, began to search for miraculous bumps! My skull was measured as accurately as I measure the bill or legs of a new individual, and all was duly noted by a scribe. Then with the most exquisite sense of touch each protuberance was found, as numbered by the phrenologists, and also put down to their respective sizes. I was astounded when they both said that I must be a strong and constant lover and affectionate father, that I had great veneration for highly talented men, that I would have made a brave general, that music was not to be compared with painting in me, that I was extraordinarily generous, etc. Now I know all these to be facts, but how they discovered them to be so is quite a puzzle to me.’
Phrenology’s claim to be scientific was mocked by many at the time yet it had many strong supporters. However, in a letter dated 1836 to Sir George Mackenzie, Scott wrote; ‘Your writer takes the liberty of communicating to his Lordship his thorough conviction of the truth of Phrenology. He has not passed a day for the last twenty years, without bestowing at least some thought upon it; and the vast number of facts which he has witnessed, without any certain exception as to any of the chief points, convince him that it is as real a science as Astronomy or Chemistry. Nor does he know any branch of science more important, as it is interwoven with morals, religion, government, education, and in short with everything that regards human or brute nature…..and having been informed by Mr Combe of the nature of your correspondence with Lord Glenelg, relative to the proposed experiment as to a number of convicts to be sent to New South Wales, I have much satisfaction in stating my conviction of the very important advantages to be derived from it, in shewing the practical usefulness of the science of Phrenology ; of the truth of which I have been fully satisfied, from the period in which I studied it under Dr Spurzheim in Paris, fifteen years since.’
Although many disparaged Phrenology at the time and it is now regarded as a pseudoscience, phrenologists’ distaste for supernatural explanations meant that - in Edinburgh, at least – the movement encouraged thinking about evolution. Charles Darwin, a medical student in Edinburgh from 1825-1827, was much engaged in phrenological discussions. It also inspired a renewed interest in psychiatric disorder and its moral treatment. By the mid-19th century interest in phrenology had declined in Edinburgh, although the theory remained popular in other countries, and around 1870 the society disbanded. This miniature painting of Louisa Scott is by her father, Andrew Plimer. Along with his brother, Nathaniel, they were trained as clockmakers by their father, but after roaming the countryside for a few years with Gypsies, the brothers settled in London and became artists, specialising in portrait miniatures. Both artists exhibited extensively at the Royal Academy from around 1770 to the early 1800s. In 1804 Nathaniel moved to Edinburgh for a decade, helping to establish the Associated Society of Artists. Perhaps his niece visited him in Edinburgh and there met a young John Scott. The Scotts had two children; William, who died unmarried in 1855, aged twenty-three, and Frances, who married the Rev. John Rose Dakers of Hawick in 1862.
1834 – 1836 Lady Mary Gordon (neé Glendonwyn)
Lady Gordon was the recorded resident. She was the wife of Sir James Gordon, of Gordonstoun, and the couple’s main house was Letterfourie in Banff. Perhaps, the Albany Street house was a temporary home while Lady Gordon visited the city. Lady Gordon certainly would have had to be in the city for a time, as she was the key witness in a trial relating to a theft of her possessions: ‘Janet Charters, late in the service of Mrs Alison Henry, was charged with taking part in a robbery, by embezzling property consisting of pearls, precious gems, gold and silver plate, and valuable articles of wearing apparel, amounting to about £5,000 the property of Lady Gordon, wife of Sir James Gordon, of Gordonstone, and Letterfourie, at present residing in Albany Street. The indictment enumerated 219 charges, comprising nearly a 1,000 articles. The public is aware that Mrs Henry was brought to trial on the same charge about three months ago, when she admitted the charge, and was sentenced to fourteen years transportation. The accused pleaded not guilty and the trial proceeded, a number of witnesses being examined, among whom were Sir James and Lady Gordon. The list of the articles were read over, which occupied the Court for a very considerable time, and a great number of them were produced in Court, which were found in the possession of the accused and brought in evidence against her. The principal article produced was a gold ring set with valuable jewels, and which was identified by Lady Gordon. The Jury having returned a verdict of guilty, the prisoner was sentenced to 14 years transportation.’
1836 – 1841 David Cathcart and David Douglas
David Cathcart, a solicitor (WS), was the son of Lord Alloway, one of the Senators of the College of Justice, and David Douglas, also a WS, the son of another solicitor, James Douglas. In 1841 Cathcart moved to Gayfield Square and Douglas moved to Walker Street.
1841 – 1843 F. G. Mitchell
Mitchell was a Tea and Spice Merchant. He moved on to Claremont Street, and in 1856 his firm was wound up.
1846 – 1847 Jane (neé Meldrum) CarstairsJane Carstairs was the third wife of Dr William Carstairs, a doctor who had recently retired from the Indian Medical Service. Jane’s first child had been born dead in 1845 after a terrible labour lasting three days and fearful that her second pregnancy might end in a similar tragedy, Jane consulted the celebrated Professor of Midwifery at Edinburgh University, Dr James Young Simpson, who consulted from his house in Queen Street. Some years earlier Simpson had lived at Number 22 Albany Street.
Doctor and Mrs Carstairs lived in Cupar, Fife and in 1845/46 Mrs Carstairs leased Number 41, possibly thinking it prudent to have an Edinburgh house near to Dr Simpson so that she could call on his medical advice when she next became pregnant. Early in 1847 she did become pregnant and for the few days up to the birth lodged in Number 19 where, on 8 November, she began her labour. Dr Simpson was in attendance and after his patient had been in labour for three hours, the doctor decided to administer chloroform to see if it would assist in easing Jane’s labour. Given it had only been a a few days since he had first discovered the effects of chloroform (see Number 22) and in the intervening days only tested its effects on one or two patients with minor ailments, such as toothache, this was a bold move.
Simpson recounted the historical moment: ‘(It was administered) by moistening, with 1/2 a teaspoonful of the liquid a pocket handkerchief rolled up into a funnel shape. In consequence of the evaporation of the liquid it was once more renewed in about 10 or 12 minutes. The child was born in about 25 minutes after the inhalation had begun. The mother subsequently remained longer stuporose than commonly happens after ether. The squalling of the child did not arouse her; and some minutes elapsed after the placenta was expelled, and after the child was removed by the nurse into another room, before the patient awoke. She then turned and observed to me that she had enjoyed a very comfortable sleep and indeed required it as she was so tired…. Shortly afterwards when the baby was brought in by the nurse from the adjoining room it was a matter of no small difficulty to convince the mother that the labour was entirely over and that the child presented to her was really "her own living infant".’ Thus, Mrs Carstair's daughter was the first child ever to be born with the aid of anaesthesia.
An elated Jane returned with her baby daughter to Cupar, and there, on Christmas Day, the baby was christened Wilhelmina Carstairs, although a myth grew up that she had actually been named Anaesthesia. This myth arose from the real fact that Simpson kept in touch with the family, and was sent this photograph of Wilhelmina at age seventeen taken by Dr John Adamson, a doctor in St Andrews and one of the pioneers in photography. Because of her pious expression, Simpson jokingly named the study ‘St Anaesthesia’, and always kept it above his desk. Wilhelmina married in 1868 and died in 1910.
The house was advertised for sale for a period and eventually the price reduced and bought by the Frasers.
1850 – 1901 William and Philadelphia (neé Veitch) Fraser
William Fraser’s father was a Commander in the Royal Navy and had participated in Lord Rodney’s victory that relieved Gibraltar in 1782. Fraser was a solicitor (WS) and Master Extraordinary of the Chancery in The Court of Chancery. This was an assistant who assisted the Chancellor and acted as a witness to various legal undertakings. The Court of Chancery had long been seen as inefficient and, to a large extent, simply a way for those supposedly administering justice to line their own pockets. In spite of supposed reforms in the first half of the 19th century, Charles Dickens in Bleak House, written in 1852, famously scorns the Court of Chancery, with the novel’s plot revolving around a fictional long-running Chancery case, Jarndyce and Jarndyce. In his introduction, Dickens observed that at the time he was writing there was a case before the Chancery court ‘which was commenced nearly twenty years ago ... and which is (I am assured) no nearer to its termination now than when it was begun’
Like many residents of Albany Street, Fraser also had a family country property, Tornaveen House in Aberdeenshire. There, in 1865, he erected the Tornaveen Obelisk in Memory of his Uncle Colonel Robert Winchester who was one of the Peninsular Heroes and according to the memorial: ‘during 37 years of active service with a sprit which shunned no danger, he accompanied in many sieges and in many marches and battles with the 92nd Regiment Gordon Highlanders.’
Fraser was a Mason. See Freemasonary.
The Frasers had five children - the 1861 Census shows that they had a governess, nurse, cook and housemaid to help – but only three have been traced. The eldest daughter, Philadelphia, married James Patrick Bannerman Robertson in 1872. He was a Scottish judge and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 until 1891, when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Robertson. Another daughter, Mary, remained unmarried and died here in 1898. One son, Francis, became a Major and married Alexia Macdonald in 1881.
William died in 1878 and Philadelphia senior lived on in the house until her death in 1901.
