The Astronomer-Royal for Scotland also holds the chair of practical astronomy.
The museum and lecture-rooms of the Royal College of Surgeons occupy a handsome classical building in Nicolson Street. The college is an ancient corporate body, with a charter of the year 1505, and exercises the powers of instructing in surgery and of giving degrees. Its graduates also give lectures on the various branches of medicine and science requisite for the degree of doctor of medicine, and those extra-academical courses are recognized, under certain restrictions, by the University Court, as qualifying for the degree. The museum contains a valuable collection of anatomical and surgical preparations.
The Royal College of Physicians is another learned body organized, with special privileges, by a charter of incorporation granted by Charles II. in 1681. In their hall in Queen Street are a valuable library and a museum of materia medica. But the college as such takes no part in the educational work of the university.
Educational Institutions.—After the Disruption in 1843, and the formation of the Free Church, New College was founded in connexion with it for training students in theology. Since the amalgamation of the United Presbyterian and the Free Churches, under the designation of the United Free Church of Scotland, New College is utilized by both bodies. New College buildings, designed in the Pointed style of the 16th century, and erected on the site of the palace of Mary of Guise, occupy a prominent position at the head of the Mound.
Edinburgh has always possessed exceptional educational facilities. The Royal high school, the burgh school par excellence, dates from the 16th century, but the beautiful Grecian buildings on the southern face of Calton Hill, opened in 1829, are its third habitation. It was not until 1825, when the Edinburgh Academy was opened, that it encountered serious rivalry. Fettes College, an imposing structure in a 16th-century semi-Gothic style, designed by David Bryce and called after its founder Sir William Fettes (1750–1836), is organized on the model of the great English public schools. Merchiston Academy, housed in the old castle of Napier, the inventor of logarithms, is another institution conducted on English public school lines. For many generations the charitable foundations for the teaching and training of youth were a conspicuous feature in the economy of the city. Foremost among them was the hospital founded by George Heriot—the “Jingling Geordie” of Scott’s Fortunes of Nigel—the goldsmith and banker of James VI. At his death in 1624 Heriot left his estate in trust to the magistrates and ministers of Edinburgh for the maintenance and teaching of poor fatherless sons of freemen. The quadrangular edifice in Lauriston, sometimes ascribed to Inigo Jones, is one of the noblest buildings in the city. Even earlier than Heriot’s hospital was the Merchant Maiden hospital, dating from 1605, which gave to the daughters of merchants similar advantages to those which Heriot’s secured for burgesses’ sons. In 1738 George Watson’s hospital for boys was founded; then followed the Trades’ Maiden hospital for burgesses’ daughters, John Watson’s, Daniel Stewart’s, the Orphans’, Gillespie’s,[1] Donaldson’s[2] hospitals, and other institutions founded by successful merchants of the city, in which poor children of various classes were lodged, boarded and educated. Nearly all these buildings are characterized by remarkable distinction and beauty of design. This is especially true of Donaldson’s hospital at the Haymarket, which has accommodation for three hundred children. As the New Town expanded, the Heriot Trust—whose revenues were greatly benefited thereby—erected day-schools in different districts, in which thousands of infants and older children received a free education, and, in cases of extreme poverty, a money grant towards maintenance. Public opinion as to the “hospital” system of board and education, however, underwent a revolutionary change after the Education Act of 1872 introduced school boards, and the Merchant Company—acting as governors for most of the institutions—determined to board out the children on the foundation with families in the town, and convert the buildings into adequately equipped primary and secondary day-schools. This root-and-branch policy proved enormously successful, and George Watson’s college, Stewart’s college, Queen Street ladies’ college, George Square ladies’ college, Gillespie’s school, and others, rapidly took a high place among the educational institutions of the city. Nor did the Heriot Trust neglect the claims of technical and higher education. The Heriot-Watt college is subsidized by the Trust, and Heriot’s hospital is occupied as a technical school. Concurrently with this activity in higher branches, the school board provided a large number of handsome buildings in healthy surroundings. The Church of Scotland and the United Free Church have training colleges.
Charities.—Besides the Royal Infirmary there are a considerable number of more or less specialized institutions, two of the most important being situated at Craiglockhart. On the Easter Hill stands the Royal Edinburgh asylum for the insane, which formerly occupied a site in Morningside, while the City infectious diseases hospital is situated at Colinton Mains. The Royal blind asylum at Powburn in its earlier days tenanted humbler quarters in Nicolson Street. Chalmers’s hospital in Lauriston was founded in 1836 by George Chalmers for the reception of the sick and injured. The home for incurables is situated in Salisbury Place. The infirmary convalescents are sent to the convalescent house in Corstorphine. Other institutions are the Royal hospital for sick children, the home for crippled children, the Royal maternity hospital, and the deaf and dumb asylum. Though Trinity hospital no longer exists as a hospital with resident pensioners, the trustees disburse annually pensions to certain poor burgesses and their wives and children; and the trust controlling the benevolent branch of the Gillespie hospital endowment is similarly administered.
Industries.—Although Edinburgh is a residential rather than a manufacturing or commercial centre, the industries which it has are important and flourishing. From 1507, when Walter Chapman, the Scottish Caxton, set up the first press, to the present day, printing has enjoyed a career of almost continuous vitality, and the great houses of R. & R. Clark, T. & A. Constable, the Ballantyne Press, Morrison & Gibb, Turnbull & Spears, and others, admirably maintain the traditional reputation of the Edinburgh press. Publishing, on the other hand, has drifted away, only a few leading houses—such as those of Blackwood, Chambers and Nelson—still making the Scottish capital their headquarters. Mapmakers, typefounders, bookbinders and lithographers all contribute their share to the prosperity of the city. Brewing is an industry of exceptional vigour, Edinburgh ale being proverbially good. The brewers and distillers, such as M‘Ewan, Usher and Ure, have been amongst the most generous benefactors of the city. The arts and crafts associated with furniture work, paper-making and coach-building may also be specified, whilst tanneries, glassworks, india-rubber and vulcanite factories, brass-founding, machinery works, the making of biscuits, tea-bread and confectionery are all prominent. In consequence of the large influx of tourists every year the North British and Caledonian railway companies give employment to an enormous staff. Building and the allied trades are chronically brisk, owing to the constant development of the city. Fine white freestone abounds in the immediate vicinity (as at Craigleith, from the vast quarry of which, now passing into disuse, the stone for much of the New Town was obtained) and furnishes excellent building material; while the hard trap rock, with which the stratified sandstones of the Coal formation have been extensively broken up and overlaid, supplies good materials for paving and road-making. On this account quarrying is another industry which is seldom dormant. Owing to the great changes effected during the latter part of the 19th century, some of the
- ↑ James Gillespie (1726–1797) was a tobacco and snuff manufacturer, and when he set up his carriage Henry Erskine suggested as a motto the homely couplet:—
“Wha wad hae thocht it,
That noses wad bocht it?” - ↑ James Donaldson (1751–1830) was a printer who bequeathed nearly the whole of his large fortune for the purposes of a hospital for poor boys and girls, and the trustees have usually selected half of the children admitted from the ranks of the deaf and dumb.
