31 Albany Street
1902 – 1907 Boarding House
The Boarding House was run by Mrs Bertha Broome who advertised her lodgings as ‘first class with cheerful society and every home comfort.’ In 1907, she gave up running the premises, and her furniture and household effects were auctioned. The house then became a mix of offices and dwellings.
1907 – 1952 Offices of William Morris & Co.
John Morris and William Louis Morris were wholesale tea merchants. In 1913, William was admitted as a member of the Edinburgh Merchant’s Company. In 1912, their company was acquired by R. Drysdale and Co, coffee essence manufacturers, although William and John continued to be employed, and this remained the company office. John died around 1932.
1913 – 1960 Office of R Drysdale & Co.
Robert Drysdale is credited as being the first tea manufacturer in the UK to produce breakfast tea. The company moved here from Potterrow. In 1913, there was a fire in the house which started in the premises of Drysdale on the ground floor. Although the fire brigade managed to stop the fire spreading to the flats above, the storeroom ‘containing a considerable quantity of tea in boxes’ was destroyed, and blending machinery in the basement damaged.
In 1991, the company merged with Brodies to become Brodie Melrose Drysdale & Company which still trades today.
Drysdales acted as the Edinburgh office for Tetleys Tea.
1909 – 1913 Evangeline Oliphant Kinloch
Evangeline Kinloch was an unmarried daughter of Sir George Kinloch, an advocate. She moved here from Drummond Place and died in the house, aged 54.
1911 – 1913 R D Glover and Miss Annie D Glover
One daughter, Agnes, was married in the house to Francis Gibson who lived in Broughton Place. Nothing else traced.
1931 – 1938 Janet F Morell (neé Fox)
In 1934, Janet Morell’s mother died in the house. Nothing more traced.
1939 - 1940 Office of Murchison & PatersonThis Wholesale Tea Merchants had previously been at Number 28 since 19041960s and 1970s Thomas G SalmonSolicitor (SSC)
(around) 1961 - (at least) 1975 – Cinematograph Exhibitors Association, Edinburgh and East Scotland
This was a branch office of the national trade association for cinema operators in the United Kingdom. It later became the UK Cinema Association.
(around) 1961 - (at least) 1975 Edinburgh Architectural Association
The Edinburgh Architectural Association was established in 1858, and is the oldest Architectural Association. The Association grew from the Architectural Institute of Scotland which was founded in 1850. One of the founders was John Lawson, who lived at Number 31. The Institute's membership embraced architects in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen - noblemen, landed proprietors, clergymen and lawyers. As pupils were ineligible to join the Architectural Institute, they decided to form a society of their own. The first official meeting of the Edinburgh Architectural Association was held in Darlings Hotel and G S Aitken was appointed President.
By 1873 The Architectural Institute of Scotland was thought to be superfluous: its functions were closed, and its assets and drawings transferred to the Edinburgh Architectural Association for safekeeping.
(around) 1961 - (at least) 1979 Offices of Cuthbert, Marchbank, Paterson & Salmon
A law firm. The partners were David Cuthbert, James Marchbank, Thomas Graham Salmon and ? Paterson. They were all solicitors (SSC). The partnership dissolved at a later stage.
1981 - 1985 7.84 Theatre Company
The offices of 7:84 (Scotland). The company was a leading Scottish left-wing agitprop theatre group that took its name from a statistic, published in the Economist in 1966, that 7% of the population of the UK owned 84% of the state's wealth. The group was founded by playwright John McGrath in 1971, and operated throughout Great Britain. Its most famous production was The Cheviot, The Stag And The Black, Black Oil (1973), based on a Scottish ceilidh and telling the story of the nation's exploitation, from the Highland clearances to the oil boom: much toured, it was also successfully adapted for BBC TV. But McGrath tackled a whole range of subjects, from the rise of the Scottish National party in Little Red Hen (1975) to alcoholism in Out Of Our Heads (1976) and the growing political consciousness of a working-class woman in Yobbo Nowt (1977). In 1988, McGrath wrote in response to a leader in The Scotsman: 'It was touching to find such concern for the future of political theatre from such an unexpected quarter. Would it be churlish of me to make two small points? 1. I am far from 'ignorant' of 'today's tastes and cconomic circumstances.' I oppose them - which is a different thing. 2.1 have not 'run out of steam.' Watch this space!' That same year saw McGrath leave the company in protest over changes recommended by the Scottish Arts Council. But 7:84 remains a testament to McGrath's visionary sense and to his belief that there was an audience, stretching from England's west country to Scotland's northernmost reaches, for theatre that addressed serious issues in a popular form.