Number 48 - Information on residents

1819 – 1823 Daniel and Margaret (neé Dixon) Fisher

Daniel Fisher was a solicitor (SSC) and like many lawyers of the period also acted in financial affairs, including being auditor for the Edinburgh Life Assurance Company. He also was a Director of the Scottish Widows Fund. He was Vice President of the Society of Solicitors in Scotland for a time. In 1822 the family moved to Forth Street. Later Fisher appears to have moved his legal practice to Glasgow. The eldest son, John, also became a solicitor in 1838.

Margaret was involved in an extended legal wrangle linked to her father’s marraigae settlement to her and other aspects of his will. Although he had died in 1822, the culmination of the legal action was an appeal herad by the House of Lords in 1837.

1823 – 1828 Alexander and Barbara (neé Fullerton) Manners

Alexander Manners was a solicitor (WS). In 1828 the family moved to Saxe Coburg Place and at some point before 1850, Alexander became blind and had to retire from the law. The family moved to Marown on the Isle of Man.

An advert for the sale of house at this time mentions that it includes coach houses and stables. The asking price was £1,700. This is possibly equivalent to £200,000 today, although comparing prices is difficult.

1829 – 1843 Alexander and Margaret (Ker) Loraine

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Loraine purchased the house and moved here from Number 12 with his wife, Margaret and their daughter (also Margaret). Loraine was the son of James Loraine, who had been the Sheriff Clerk of Berwickshire, and was born in 1761. His sister, Hannah, later lived at Number 43.

Loraine had a distinguished military career. He joined the army in 1778 and was Assistant Military Secretary at Horse Guards before serving in four campaigns in America, including taking part in the capture of the French West India Islands. He served in the Ninth (or The East Norfolk) Regiment Of Foot.

In 1807 he was appointed Deputy Governor of Southsea Castle, and then, after having served for 29 years in the army and take up the civil post of a Commissioner for the Affairs of Barracks. When ex-army officers left to take up a civil post, this at times meant giving up their rank. However Loraine was able to sell his Lieutenant Colonelcy but retain his rank. The purchase of officer commissions in the British Army was a common practice through most of its history. This practice was designed to preserve the social exclusivity of the officer class; ensured that the officer class was largely populated by persons having a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, thereby reducing the possibility of Army units taking part in a revolution or coup; ensured that officers had private means and were unlikely to engage in looting or pillaging, or to cheat the soldiers under their command by engaging in profiteering using army supplies; and provided honourably retired officers with an immediate source of capital. The practice was abolished in 1871

Alexander’s sister, Williamina, married James Geddes who had trained as a doctor, and was with her husband in Gibraltar where he was engaged on mercantile business. In 1804 the Army Garrison in Gibraltar experienced a fever epidemic and Geddes offered to assist, and as a result both he and Williamina died of the fever within three days of each other, leaving four boys and one girl as orphans. The Executors appointed by their father neglected them and the five were sent back to Scotland to be reared by their mother's relatives who had to bear the sole expense of supporting and educating them. General Sir Thomas Griggs, the Gibraltar Commander, argued that Dr Geddes had, in effect, lost his life in the service of the army, and endeavoured to procure a pension from the Government to assist these orphans in their destitute situation. All that was forthcoming was £50 per annum. It was decided to settle this on the daughter, Anne, thinking her situation the most helpless. The Loraines looked after the four Geddes boys.

Colonel Loraine died in 1838 and his widow and daughter lived on in the house, until her death in 1843.

1844 - 1847 George Dunbar and Frances (neé Beckett) Clayhills-Henderson

Captain George Dunbar Clayhills-Henderson was born in 1798. His father was James Clayhills of Invergowrie, and his mother Henrietta Kinloch, heiress of Hallyards. He married Francis in 1828, and they had three sons in the 1830s. As the third son was born in Germany it may be that the family returned to Edinburgh from abroad and took the Albany Street house while their children grew up.

Henderson was an army officer and served in the 40th Regiment of the Madras Native Infantry. This 1835 watercolour by Tanjore shows the different uniforms and equipment of the various ranks in the regiment. As the most senior Indian officer, the subadar was very important as the link between the British officers and Indian soldiers. He died in Budleigh Salterton in 1861.

The eldest son, George, joined the Royal Navy and became a Commander. In 1865 he succeeded to the Hallyards Estate from his father’s brother. The house of the estate in Fife was Invergowrie House. Built originally in the 14th C., revamped in the early 1600s, and significantly extended and baronialised in 1837. In 1867 he married Catherine Warren and became a Justice of the Peace of Forfarshire, and Provincial Grand Master of the Dundee Freemason’s Lodge. He

Their second son was James, a Lieutenant-Colonel in 7th Fusiliers. In 1861 he married Eugenia Watts, daughter of an Admiral.

The other son Thomas married Elizabeth Rob. He changed his name to Clayhills and worked as a solicitor in Darlington.

The court was told that Dr Sinclair had become a regular visitor to the Pairman's house, although Ellen’s husband had asked her to stop seeing him. A neighbour said that she had noticed a flower-pot on the window ledge of the Pairman’s house that she was certain was used as a signal to indicate when Mr. Pairman was not at home. When Dr Sinclair arrived, in John Pairman’s absence, he would be shown into the drawing room and, often, before Ellen joinde him, she would ask one of her children if her breath smelt sweet. Usually she and the doctor would spend up to an hour in the room alone. The Pairman’s fourteen year old son was called as a witness. He told the court that when he got home from school he often found Dr. Sinclair sitting with his mother but he was told not to tell his father of the visits. He added: ‘When Dr Sinclair came in he was given cakes and cream, and sometimes claret. My father never got any of the claret. There was only one claret glass in the house, and the doctor got use of it.’ He also confirmed earlier evidence that his mother ‘occasionally took spirits in excess.’The circumstantial evidence about his secret visits to the house were one thing, but firm evidence was presented of clandestine meetings between the two elsewhere. Ellen admitted that they had gone together to a temperance hotel in Portobello where they had tea. She further admitted that she had borrowed a bedroom at the hotel so she could repair her hair which had been disturbed by the wind but nothing had occurred between her and the doctor there. However, the wife of the hotel owner said that the pair had spent an hour or two together in the bedroom. This arrangement had not just been on one occasion either, she added. There was much laughter in the court when the hotel owner commented that Sinclair had paid excessive attention to Mrs Pairman: ‘And you have never seen a gentleman show politeness to ladies? asked the defence lawyer. 'Oh yes, but not excessive politeness.' 'What do you consider excessive politeness?' To which the hotel owner replied, 'When a gentleman attends to a lady as if she were a piece of blown glass, and he were afraid she might break. Husbands are not generally so particular.’

As if meetings in hotel rooms were not suspicious enough, the court heard that Ellen had later taken a room in Chambers Street and paid half-a-year’s advance rent. When asked why, she explained that this was so that Dr Sinclair could visit her professionally given he could not attend to her at home any longer because of her husband’s dislike of him, and she wanted to avoid telling her husband of her continuing illness that required this on-going medical treatment.

The main substance of the defence that Ellen had been so assured would see the action dismissed was an indirect counter claim about John Pairman’s infidelity. There was a claim that he had had a relationship with the servant who had been the one to alert him to his wife’s possible affair. While the servant confirmed that Mr. Pairman sometimes took dinner in the kitchen, she insisted that she never sat down when he was there. And while he sometimes had amused her by telling her stories, these had never been obscene ones. She did admit that on one occasion he had been in her bedroom when Mrs Pairman was staying away but she did not know that ‘he was in undress at this time’.

Alexander moved to Northumberland Street and it may be that the unfortunate Mrs Sinclair lived with her son and daughter there. It certainly is hard to think she would have followed her husband to London. Alexander continued to practice and worked at the Royal Public Dispensary and Vaccine Institution. In 1891, he was appointed Second Lieutenant in the 1st Edinburgh Rifle Volunteers. See Scotland's Volunteer Force Veitch Sinclair continued to live in London, where he died in 1892.

1879 – 1885 Catherine Moir and her son, Oswald Moir

Catherine Moir was the widow of David Moir, a wine and spirit merchant, and her son Oswald took over the running of his deceased father’s firm, White, Moir & Company. The firm had been owned by Adam White, who had been Provost of Leith in 1833. When he died in 1843, the business passed to Oswald’s father. The company traded into the 1900s. For a time a nephew, Alexander Spence, lived with them while he was at school.

1886 – 1901 Isabella Chirnside and her son, Charles Chirnside

Isabella Chirnside was the widow of Dr John Chirnside, a surgeon, who practiced in Dalkeith. Their son, Charles, became an accountant and was a member of the Society of Accountants Edinburgh in 1891. He later moved to Ireland, becoming a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountant in Ireland. There he practiced in the partnership, Aitkens and Chirnside. He captained the cricket team when at Edinburgh Academy and continued his cricket career by captaining Cork Cricket Club. In 1901 he married Louisa Oakshott.