Number 43 - Information on residents
1817 – 1826 John and Jane (neé Ogilvie) Kermack
John Kermack became a solicitor (WS) in 1810, following his father’s career. In time, his son William and two of William’s sons, John and George, also would became solicitors. As the surname Kermack appears in law firms up to the present day, law careers continue to be a family tradition.
In 1817, the Kermacks had a daughter, Jane, and three years later William was born. Sadly Jane died at the age of 6 and perhaps sad memories of their Albany Street house caused them to move soon after to Broughton Place.
1827 – 1832 Miss Hardie
Nothing known but it seems likely that this is the Miss Hardie who moved to live at Number 49.
1832 - 1844 Miss Hannah Loraine
Hannah Lorraine was the unmarried daughter of James Loraine, who had been the Sheriff Clerk of Berwickshire. She was born in 1762 and died in 1844. She was the sister of Alexander Loraine who lived at Number 48.
Servant 1838 Jane Penny
Jane Penny is recorded as living here in the certificate of her marriage to Robert Fortune on 1 October 1838 (seen here). As Jane was a young twenty-year-old woman from a poor rural background it is likely that she was working as a maid for Hannah Lorraine at the time. Jane and Robert had both lived previously Berwickshire.When Robert left school he started work as an apprentice gardener on the Berwickshire estate of George Kelloe, one of a number of estate owners at the time who were interested in all matters botanical, including particularly plant breeding and the introduction of new species. There Robert gained knowledge and expertise in botany.
When Robert and Jane (photo in later life with their children) married he had just got a job at Edinburgh's Botanic Garden working for the renowned botanist William McNab.
Like almost all young woman in service, Jane ceased to be a servant after her marriage. It appears that she returned to live for a time in Kelloe as it was there their first child, a son, was born. He was named John Lindley after the famous English horticulturalist of the day. That same year, McNab recommended Robert for the post of Superintendent of the Hothouse Department of the Horticultural Society in Chiswick, London and the family moved south. There they had five further children, although two died in infancy.
The following year he was appointed the Society’s Collector for China and set out on an expedition to that country ‘to collect seed and plants of an ornamental or useful kind not already cultivated in Great Britain and to obtain information upon Chinese gardening and agriculture together with the nature of the climate and its apparent influence of vegetation’. His first trip to China lasted three years. When he set out Fortune had no knowledge of Chinese and during the course of the tour was several times attacked by bandits and pirates. Additionally he had to battle against severe attacks of fever and tropical storms and typhoons. In spite of the Chinese authorities banned foreigners to travel any distance from the European treaty ports, by wearing Chinese clothes and shaving off his hair and growing a pony tail, Robert was able to travel to the forbidden City of Souchow. On his return from China in 1846 he was recommended to the position of curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden. His salary was £100, a house for himself and family plus coals and the right to cultivate vegetables along the river bank.
In 1848, he was commissioned by the East India Company to undertake another trip to China; this time specifically to collect tea plants for cultivation in the northern hills of India. The purchase of tea plants by Westerners was illegal as the Chinese authorities as they wished to protect their monopoly. To circumvent the Chinese restrictions, he again disguised himself as a Chinese merchant and thus travelled to areas of China that had seldom been visited by Europeans. There he gathered tea plants and seedlings in secret, and by pioneering the use of the Wardian Case, a miniature glasshouse for the safe transport of plants by sea, introduced 20,000 tea plants and seedlings to the Darjeeling region of India. He also took a group of trained Chinese tea workers to India help establish the tea plantations. Fortune wrote: ‘I do not know anything half so refreshing on a hot summer’s day as a cup of tea; I mean pure and genuine as the Chinese drink it, without sugar and milk, It is far better and much more refreshing that either wine or beer.’
Fortune introduced many trees, shrubs and flowers to the West, including the cumquat, and many varieties of tree peonies, azaleas and chrysanthemums. Ill-health plagued him for the last eighteen years of his life and Jane cared for him at their family home in London. there Robert died in 1880 aged 68.
Intriguingly, in 1897, Jane returned to Edinburgh with her daughter, Alice Durie, also now a widow, and purchased Number 54. One doubts that there can be many instances of a servant returning to buy a house in the street where they worked almost sixty years before! She lived at Number 54 until her death a few years later, and Alice lived on in the house until 1927.
1845 – 1846 Robert Laidlaw
Robert Laidlaw was a solicitor and insurance agent. As he moved in fairly rapid succession through various addresses in the city, it seems all too likely that the regular flits were due to financial problems, as Laidlaw was declared bankrupt in 1848, and so ceased to be eligible to practise law.
1846 – 1849 Robert Charles Forsyth
Charles Forsyth was an advocate. In 1844 he had published the book, The Principles and Practice of the Law of Trusts and Trustees in Scotland.
He left Albany Street to take up an appointment as Sheriff Substitute of Caithness. the neighbouring Sheriff Substitute of Orkney, James Irvine Robertson, kept a daily journal from 1842 until 1875 and on Thursday 23 August 1849 wrote: ‘Fine breezy clear day…Walked with Tankerness towards Birstane: we met Mrs Blake and Emily returning, and walked across to the Tankerness Road. Mrs Balfour is still unwell. At night we heard that Charles Forsyth, Sheriff Substitute for Caithness, was drowned this day in the Loch of Watten. I hope the report is not true.’ And the following day: ‘Got a copy of the John O’Groat (paper) containing an account of the loss of Charles Forsyth. He was lost on Wednesday, not on Thursday, and private letters say that the body has been found.’
1849 - 1853 Catherine Smith and James S Milne
James Milne was an Advocate and lived here with his aunt, Catherine Smith. In 1851 he published, along with two other advocates, William Peddie (who lived at Number 16) and Robert Stuart, the book, The first of a new series of Reports of Cases Decided in the Court of Session.
Milne also was a member of the Edinburgh Angus Club. Formed in 1840, it encouraged pupils in schools throughout Angus by awarding prizes for scholarly achievement. He was one of those officiating at the annual dinner in 1854, at which it was reported that over 600 books had been given as prizes in that year, and that a silver medal for the best Latin pupil had been awarded for the first time. (Here a 1896 Angus Club medal) At the dinner various toasts and speeches were enjoyed, including ‘a humorous account of the Ladies of Angus’, and Mr Hoffman’s band provided entertainment. The Club has continued to support outstanding students in Angus to this day. In 1861 Milne was appointed Sheriff Substitute and Commissary Depute for Selkirkshire.
1853 – 1858 Charlotte Blair
Nothing traced. The valuation record for 1855 shows that the house was owned by Mrs Janet Hogg who also owned number 39.
1858 – 1859 Margaret Bell
Margaret Bell’s death notice stated that she was ‘the faithful nurse of John McCulloch of Barholm.’ Thus she must have spent many years in service at the McCulloch’s house, Barholm in Galloway, a grand mansion built by Robert Adam.
1859 – 1869 Mrs Joanne Sanders (neé McCulloch)
Joanne Sanders was the widow of Captain John Park Sanders who had served in the Indian Navy. She was the daughter of John M'Culloch of Barholm and would have grown up in the grand family mansion built by Robert Adam. Captain Sanders entered the Indian Navy as a Midshipman in 1825 and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in 1830. He became a Captain in 1847, the same year he and Joanne married, but was taken seriously ill in 1848 and had to relinquish his command. He died at sea off Malta on his way home. Much of his career was devoted to surveying. Photo of his sword which has the badge of the Honourable East India Company in its hilt from the collection of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.Thus, Joanne was widowed while still in her early thirties. In the house at the 1861 census were her 12 year old daughter, and her three sisters - Mary, Janetta and Elizabeth. Mary and Janetta were still unmarried but Elizabeth was married to Captain Alfred Weekes, who also was staying in the house. Elizabeth had just given birth to a girl and assisting her were a ‘monthly nurse’ and a maid/nurse. The other servants were a man-servant, a cook, and a maid
Captain Alfred Weekes.
Captain Alfred Weekes was an officer with the 78th Highlanders [Photo of 78th Highlanders from 1860s] and had fought in Ceylon and India. He had returned with his regiment to Scotland the year before. In April 1860, on its return, the regiment were: ‘entertained at a dinner by the good folks of Edinburgh in the Corn Exchange on Tuesday, They are Scotchmen; they come from India; that is the key to the sympathy felt for these gallant heroic avengers of Cawnpore, and the saviours of our Indian empire. The room was splendidly and appropriately decorated with rare, ancient, or valuable military and hunting trophies lent from gentlemen in various parts of the country, admirably displayed by the light of gas. The Duke of Atholl sent a magnificent Highland bull's head, and a number of deerskins; six large Scotch fir-trees were brought from the Duke of Buccleuch's plantations at Dalkeith; and stags' and rams' heads, eagles, and other Highland emblems were contributed by other gentlemen. Ancient Scotch armour and weapons from the Castle and elsewhere, were formed into a gigantic Highland trophy, draperied with folds of the Mackenzie tartan. Above, radiant in golden letters, were the words, "Welcome 78th," and the motto of the regiment," Cuidich'n Righ," the whole surmounted by the royal crown of Scotland blazing in gas, surrounded by a wreath of green and gold foliage. The centre of the southern wall was graced by a corresponding oriental trophy, which, as beseemed its origin, had a still more rich and ornate appearance. The centre- piece was the dark hide of a splendid yak, or wild bull of Chinese Tartary, which had fallen under the rifle of Colonel Dewar ; and around it were grouped a magnificent lion's skin with head and tusks preserved, and skins of tigers, leopards, and other eastern animals. The general appearance of the exchange, when garnished with its military and hunting trophies, lighted up by innumerable decorative gaseliers, and animated by the forms of brave men, and the bright eyes of fair women, was that of some vast baronial hall of the olden time, where the armed retainers of a powerful chief had been assembled to celebrate their victorious return from some well-fought field.’
In 1859 Margaret Bell, who clearly had been a much-loved servant of the McCullochs, stayed here when she presumably was in need of care as she died in the house. Unusually for a servant a death notice was published stating that she was ‘the faithful nurse of John McCulloch of Barholm’.
1869 – 1871 William and Jane (neé Turnbull) Maxwell
William Maxwell was a solicitor and Depute Keeper of the minute-book of the Court of Session Register of Edictal Citations. The Maxwells had four children, but nothing traced.
1871 – 1884 Lodgings
These were run by Miss Strachan. Her boarders at the 1881 Census were three elderly unmarried women, all annuitants, and a young scholar. In 1883, Miss Strachan moved her lodging house to Number 5 and this house was advertised for sale at £700, which seems to indicate a significant drop in house prices.
1884 – 1899 Frederick and Margaret (MacGlashon) Huth Frederick Huth was an Artist Engraver and Lithographer - here his engraving of Sir Walter Scott, ‘after Sir Henry Raeburn’. He was German by birth, having been born in Wehrheim in the Duchy of Nassau in 1831; and became a naturalised UK citizen in 1865. Margaret was the daughter of Alexander McGlashon, a well known Edinburgh photographer.Huth’s work was exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1890 and a review said: ‘Accompanying draughtsmanship rather than tone characterises the agreeable etching by Frederick Huth after Boughton of The End of a Spring Day. In 1900, he won a silver medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. Huth also acted as secretary of the Committee for the Relief of Deserving Foreigners. The Society provided help to foreigners who were unemployed or otherwise fallen on hard times. This included paying their fares to America. It was reported that passages had been paid for 70 Germans, 67 Russians and Poles, and 19 Americans in the previous year. The Chairman, the Reverend Dr Macgregor, was certain they all were in distress. He too had suffered a great deal which was why he would subscribe to any scheme that eliminated organ-grinders! The meeting was especially concerned about the influx of poor Jews due to their ‘cruel expulsion from Russia and who, poor wretches, finding no open asylum on the face of the earth, were driven to these shores, and especially to London. The result was that they greatly undersold the labour of the lowest labouring class of the country, which should not be made the receptacle of all the rubbish of the continent.’ Frederick owned a number of properties in the city, including a house in Bonnyrigg and it was to there that Frederick and Maragaret moved in 1899. Frederick died in 1911 and Margaret in 1919.Their eldest son, Frederik, was born 1861 and also became an engraver and he had a studio in Shandwick Place, dying there in 1904. The second son, Charles Edwin, was born in 1883 and, ironically was killed in October 1918 in France fighting Germany while serving in the Highland Light Infantry in the first World War.