53 Albany Street

In 1895, the house was purchased by St George’s Episcopal Chapel in York Place as its Vestry. The church was the first Episcopal church in the city, and Sir Walter Scott worshipped there from 1801 to 1825. The church was referred to as ‘the soldier’s church’ as, in 1837, a link had bene established between the church and Edinburgh Castle.The Reverend Ernest Molesworth became minister at St George’s and took the house. Molesworth previously served with the Royal Army Medical Corps at No.13 Brigade Field Hospital in the first Boer War of 1880-81 (photo of Boer War Field Hospital), and, on his return from serving in the army, he became Curate of St. George's, Barrow-in- Furness. He married Adele in 1886 and the couple lived in Corfu for a year where he was Chaplain. They then briefly moved to London before he became Rector of Jedburgh from 1889, and then of St George's. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society

In 1901, he wrote to The Scotsman stating that he had received letters from chaplains in South Africa thanking those who had responded to an appeal from Molesworth for ‘magazines and light literature’ to be distributed in hospitals and army garrisons there, and encouraging further donations.

Adele and he had four children: Charles, who became Assistant Commandant of Police in Rangoon and was killed in the First World War; Eric, who became a Surgeon-Lieutenant in the Royal Navy; Selwyn, who fought in the First World War, and although wounded, survived; and Dorothea, who married Bernard Swithinbank, a Civil Servant and went to live in India.

In 1908, Adele died and, the following year, Ernest remarried Hilda Cramp. He became a vicar in Suffolk.

1907 – 1929 Hugh MacKean

The next minister at St George’s was the Reverend Hugh MacKean. In 1914, MacKean took a Harvest Thanksgiving service in St George’s attended by 600 soldiers from the 5th Battalion, South Lancashire Rifles. Instead of the usual Harvest Thanksgiving decorations, offerings were made for the patients at the Craigleith Military Hospital, including 80 lbs of apples, 1000 sheets of notepaper with stamps, and 550 cigarettes. At the service, MacKean recounted that at the very first service held in the church in 1793, a collection also had been taken to supply flannel to the British troops in Flanders. MacKean also acted an Army Chaplain.

On 21 May 1910, MacKean was one of a number of city ministers who led a service in St Giles Cathedral marking the funeral of King Edward VII. The Scotsman reported: ‘To the many interesting, beautiful and memorable services that have been held in the ancient Cathedral will fall to be added that in honour of the late Majesty Kind Edward the Seventh..…The Rev Hugh Mackean read the lesson of the day with fine elocutionary effect.’

MacKean was President of the Edinburgh Shakespeare Society and two years after his death a fellow member, John Hogben, recounted: ‘Mr MacKean was, I believe, the last president of the Society, that dwindled and, I think, died a few years ago. He was an enthusiastic student of Shakespeare. I regret to say that I never heard him preach, but I remember well not a few papers read by him at the society. He possessed an extraordinary fluency, and spoke, when he was at his best, something like one in a trance, with eyes half-closed, but with his mental faculties very much alive the while. Shall we ever forget the Society’s annual fish dinner at Newhaven, with the breezy walk along the pier at “half-time”’.

In 1923, the MacKean's daughter, Helen, married Roderick Swaye, MC.

Following MacKean’s death in 1929, St George's church was put up for sale and it lay empty for five years before being converted into a warehouse. When St George closed, the congregation was amalgamated with St Paul’s, on the corner of York Place and Broughton Street, and that church renamed St Paul’s and St George’s.

After a period of non-use, Number 53 became that church's manse.

1934 – 1937 Theodore Edgar Keyden

The Reverend Keyden was appointed Rector of St Paul’s and St George’s following the death of the St Paul’s rector, Canon Henderson-Begg. Keyden had previously been rector at churches in Wimbledon and Norwich. He was unmarried and his widowed mother, Jean (neé Wilson) lived with him until her death in 1935, aged 80. Theodore, died in the house in 1937.

1938 – 1944 Claude Philip Moore

The next rector of St Paul’s and St George’s was the Reverend Claude Moore. Previously he had been Vicar at Flookburgh.

1946 – 1955 William Benjamin Harvey

Moore was followed by the Reverend William Harvey. In 1955, he moved to be Vicar of Epworth, Lincolnshire.

1956 - at least 1980 Thomas Veitch

Veitch was the next rector of St Paul’s and St George’s and published a history of the church in 1958.