The capitalist, the professor and the soldier: the re‐making of Edinburgh Castle, 1850–1900

Abstract

The remodelling of Edinburgh Castle in the later nineteenth century was an important stage in the making of Edinburgh as a medieval historic city. It represented an important change in local attitudes towards old buildings and provided a setting within which the national story of a Scotland whose governance had been subordinated to England could be told. It also marked an aspect of the modern response to the deep anxieties produced by economic, social and political change, as social change fostered new sources of conflict. The actual process of the Castle’s remodelling involved three key actors – the capitalist William Nelson, the historian David Wilson and the soldier, James Gore‐Booth. Their interaction with each other and with other interests, particularly the War Office in London, brings out the interplay of ideas and attitudes that were informing the emergent conservation movement. Though the term was not actually used, the central theme in the remodelling was about how to achieve authenticity, between the extremes of restoration and preservation. These extremes were represented by the contemporary writings of Viollet le Duc and John Ruskin which were well known to the remodellers. Le Duc advocated restoring buildings to a historical unity based on careful scholarship but ignoring later accretions, thus creating something that had never actually existed. Ruskin, by contrast, advocated a preservationist approach that maintained irregularities and imperfections. The remodelling was influenced more by the former, and was successful in creating a historic identity for Edinburgh that proved resistant to later pressures for change.

Acknowledgement

The author is grateful for comments and guidance from Charles McKean, Charlie Withers, Nick Prior, Helen Meller and Nick Hewitt; he benefited from an international workshop held at Nottingham University in 2004, the Urban History Group Easter meeting, Leicester 2005, the architectural history seminar of Edinburgh University, as well as the editor and reviewers of this journal.

Notes

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3. Peter J. Larkham, The place of urban conservation in the UK reconstruction plans of 1942–1952. Planning Perspectives 18 (2003) 295–324.

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7. Edward N. Kaufman, Architectural Representation in Victorian England. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 46, 1 (March 1987) 30–8.

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11. John Gifford, Colin McWilliam and David Walker, The Buildings of Scotland: Edinburgh. London: Harmondsorth Penguin, 1984, pp. 85–101.

12. This article has retained the nineteenth century spelling of Argyle throughout. The name Arygle Tower is now rarely used.

13. John S. Gibson, The Thistle and the Crown. A History of the Scottish Office. Edinburgh 1985.

14. The office of the Dean of Guild was derived from the old corporate structure of Edinburgh but, during the nineteenth century, became the effective agency for granting building permissions and enforcing building regulations in the city. Richard Rodger, The Evolution of Scottish Town Planning, in George Gordon and Brian Dicks (eds) Scottish Urban History. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1983, pp. 71–91.

15. Graeme Morton and R. J. Morris, Civil Society, Governance and Nation, 1832–1914, in R. A. Houston and W. W. J. Knox (eds), op. cit. [8], pp. 355–416.

16. Sir Daniel Wilson, William Nelson. A Memoir. Edinburgh: for private circulation, 1889. The copy quoted here is in the National Library of Scotland. Heather Holmes and David Finkelstein (eds) Thomas Nelson and sons. Memories of an Edinburgh Publishing House. East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 2001, pp. xv–xxii. Sian Reynolds, Britannicas’s Typesetters. Women Compositors in Edinburgh. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989, pp. 10–13.

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18. Sir Daniel Wilson, op. cit. [2], 1848 and subsequent editions.

19. A. S. Bell (ed.), The Scottish Antiquarian Tradition. Essays to Mark the Bicentenary of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1780–1980. Edinburgh: John Donald, 1981, pp. 86–114.

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21. H. H. Langton, Sir Daniel Wilson. A Memoir. Toronto: T. Nelson and sons, 1929.

22. National Library of Scotland (NLS) Mss 1734 f.65. Correspondence. 18 Sept. 1885.

23. NLS Mss 1735 f. 1. War Office to William Nelson, 19 February 1886. Sam McKinstry, Rowand Anderson. The Premier Architect of Scotland. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univerity Press, 1991, p. 115.

24. NLS Mss 1735 f. 28 William Nelson to Blanc, 6 March 1886.

25. Miles Glendinning, Ranald MacInnes and Aonghus MacKechnie, A History of Scottish Architecture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996, pp. 149–78; Andrew G. Fraser, The Building of Old College. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989, pp. 89–125; Iain Gordon Brown, Monumental Reputation: Robert Adam and the Emperor’s Palace. Edinburgh: National Library of Scotland, 1992.

26. J. Gifford et al., op. cit. [11], pp. 245–6, 437; S. McKinstry, op. cit. [23], pp. 68–75, 133–5.

27. Richard Handler, Authenticity. Anthropology To‐day 2, 1 (1986) 2–4; Gunila Jivén and Peter J. Larkham, Sense of Place, Authenticity and Character: A Commentary. Journal of Urban Design 8, 1 (2003) 67–81.

28. Kevin D. Murphy, Memory and Modernity: Viollet le Duc at Vézelay. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000.

29. Viollet le Duc, On Restoration from Dictionnaire Raisonné, vol. 8, quoted by H. F. Hearn (ed.), The Architectural Theory of Viollet le Duc: readings and commentary. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1990.

30. NLS Mss 1734 f.89. Gore‐Booth to Blanc, 11 November 1885.

31. NLS Mss 1734 f.74. Blanc to Wilson, 4 November 1885.

32. Janet A Null, Restorer, Villains and Vandals. Bulletin of the Association for Preservation Technology 17, 3/4 (1985) 26–41.

33. John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture. London: George Allen, 1895, p. 355. The first edition was 1849.

34. NLS Mss 1734 f.190, printed extracts from Ruskin and Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB).

35. NLS Mss 1735 f.44. Nelson to Blanc, 4 April 1886.

36. NLS Mss 1735 f.68 letter inviting Blanc to be local correspondent of the SPAB; f.73 Annual Report of the SPAB, June 1885.

37. Daniel Wilson to Hippolyte Blanc, Toronto, 5 December 1885, NLS Mss 1735 f.99.

38. Ingress Bell to Hippolyte Blanc, Horse Guards, 28 October 1885. NLS Mss 1734 f.65.

39. NLS Mss 1735 f.98‐104 quotes a variety of authorities in support. Although Baldwin Brown was an expert on Anglo‐Saxon architecture and artefacts, he became deeply involved in the restoration and preservation debates in Edinburgh. His The Care of Historical Cities (Edinburgh: the Darien Press, 1904) was printed for circulation amongst members of the Cockburn Association and the Antiquaries Club and subsequently extended for publication as The Care of Ancient Monuments (Cambridge: University Press, 1905).

40. Napier and Ettrick to Blanc. NLS Mss 1735 f.57.

41. NLS Mss 1735 f.152. A Paper on the Argyle Tower.

42. Letter of approval from the Cockburn Society, 3 June 1886. NLS Mss 1735 f.141.

43. NLS Mss 1735 f.198 Napier to Blanc, Thirlstane Castle, 29 December 1886.

44. NLS Mss 1735 f.161 Nelson to Blanc [August 1886].

45. NLS Mss 1734 f.84 Blanc to Wilson, 4 November 1884.

46. Miles Glendinning, The Conservation Movement: a cult of the modern age. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 13 (2003) 359–76.

47. David Harvey, The Condition of Post Modernity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989, pp. 83–5; Marshall Berman, All that is Solid Melts into Air. London: Verso, 1982.

48. Sir Daniel Wilson, op. cit. [16], pp. 44, 179.

49. Ibid., p. 45.

50. Ibid., p. 40.

51. NLS Mss 1736 f. 60.

52. Sir Daniel Wilson, op. cit. [16], pp. 184, 189.

53. Ibid., p. 191; on paternalism operating in industrial Scotland see R. J. Morris and Jim Smyth, Paternalism as an Employer Strategy, 1800–1960, in Jill Rubery and Frank Wilkinson (eds) Employer Strategy and the Labour Market. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994, pp. 195–225.

54. The work of Pierre Nora has demonstrated the variety of processes and places involved in such relationships with the past. Pierre Nora, Les Lieux de Mémoire. Paris: Gallimard, 1984–92; The English translation is slightly different in content and arrangement: Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory, translated by Arthur Goldhammer. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

55. D. Harvey, op. cit. [47], p. 12.

56. Ibid., pp. 21, 240–75.

57. Sir Daniel Wilson, op. cit. [16], p. 123.

58. NLS Mss 1735 f.194. The Queen was Margaret, second wife of the eleventh century Scottish king, Malcolm of Canmore, who established the Scottish kingdom in the face of the Norman regime in England. Margaret’s ‘saintly’ reputation was based upon her material and cultural contribution to the Scottish church. Thomas Owen Clancy and Barbara E. Crawford, The Formation of the Scottish Kingdom, in R. A. Houston and W. W. J. Knox (eds), op. cit. [8], pp. 28–95.

59. NLS Mss 1734, f 128, 12 Dec. 1885.

60. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1983; E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Programme, Myth and Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, second edition 1992; Graeme Morton, William Wallace: Man and Myth. Stroud: Sutton, 2001.

61. Graeme Morton, Unionist Nationalism. Governing Urban Scotland, 1830–1860. East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1999, esp. pp. 49–63, 189–200.

62. NLS Mss 1734, f.2.

63. NLS Mss 1735, f.22.

64. NLS Mss 1735 f.141 3 June 1886, Letter of approval from the Cockburn Society.

65. Robert Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland from the Reformation to the rebellion of 1745. Edinburgh: W&R Chambers, 1885. This was a cheap abridged edition. The first edition was published in three volumes in 1858. Robert Chambers and his brother William owned the other major printing and publishing business in Edinburgh. William Chambers, Memoir of William and Robert Chambers. Edinburgh: W&R Chambers, 1872; C. H. Layman (ed.), Man of Letters. The Early Life and Love‐Letters of Robert Chambers. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990.

66. Robert Chambers, Annals 1858, Vol. One, pp. 2–5.

67. Scotsman, obituary of William Nelson, NLS MS 1736 f.50.

68. R. Chambers, op. cit. [66], Vol. Two, pp. 274–5, 354.

69. John Charles Dunlop and Alison Hay Dunlop, The Book of Old Edinburgh and Hand‐book to the Old Edinburgh Street, designed by Sidney Mitchell, Architect for the International Exhibition of Industry, Science and Art, Edinburgh 1886. Edinburgh: T&A Constable, 1886; Cameron’s Guide through the International Exhibition of Industry, Science and Art opened 6 May 1886. Edinburgh: J.A. Cameron and Co, 1886.

70. Helen Meller, Patrick Geddes. Social Evolutionist and City Planner. London: Routledge, 1990.

71. Patrick Geddes, Industrial Exhibitions and Modern Progress. Edinburgh: 6 James Court, Lawnmarket, 1886 [NLS 33.67]; Patrick Geddes, Beginnings of a survey of Edinburgh. Scottish Geographical Magazine 35 (Aug–Oct. 1919) 281–98.

72. Volker M. Welter, History, Biology and City Design – Patrick Geddes in Edinburgh. Architectural Heritage 6 (1996) 60–82.

73. Patrick Geddes, Cities in Evolution. An Introduction to the Town Planning Movement and the Study of Civics. London: Williams and Norgate, 1915, p. 12; Patrick Geddes, The Civic Survey of Edinburgh. Edinburgh, 1911, taken from the Transactions of the Town Planning Conference, October 1911.

74. Lord Cockburn, op. cit. [2].

75. Rev James Begg, D.D., How to Promote and Preserve the True Beauty of Edinburgh being a Few Hints to the Hon Lord Cockburn. Edinburgh: Johnson and Hunter, 1849.

76. J. Gifford et al., op. cit. [11], p. 171.

77. Sir Daniel Wilson, Private letter of Sir Daniel Wilson respecting James Mosman’s House at the Netherbow, Edinburgh, Edinburgh: for private circulation, 1897. The copy quoted is in the National Library of Scotland.

78. Lionel Esher, A Broken Wave. The re‐building of England, 1940–1980, London: Harmondsworth Penguin, 1981; John R. Gold, The Experience of Modernism. Modern Architects and the Future City, 1928–1953. London: E & F N Spon, 1997, pp. 164–223; Peter J. Larkham, The Place of Urban Conservation in the UK Reconstruction Plans of 1942–1952. Planning Perspectives 18 (2003) 295–324, indicates the very limited place which ideas of conservation had in this period.

79. Patrick Abercrombie and Derek Plumstead, A Civic Survey and Plan for the City and Royal Burgh of Edinburgh. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1949, pp. vii, 1–2.

80. Ibid., p. 64.

81. Ibid., p. 53.

82. The reference here is to William Playfair’s New College (1845–50) built for the Free Church in the years after the disruption (split) of the Church of Scotland and still a dominant aspect of the Old Town skyline as seen from Princes Street.

83. P. Abercrombie and D. Plumstead, op. cit. [79], p. 61.

84. Ibid., pp. 62–3.

85. Ephrem and Francis Jacoby, Bruxelles Retrouvé. Tome one, Brussels: Alice Éditions, 2004, pp. 12–19.

86. Margaret Plant, Venice. Fragile City, 1797–1997. London: Yale University Press, 2002, pp. 126, 132–4, 213, 215; Sarah Quill, Ruskin’s Venice. The Stones Revisited. Aldershot: Lund Humphries, 2000, pp. 108.

87. John Reid, The New Illustrated Guide to Edinburgh. Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot, 17 Princes St, no date (c. 1905), p. 1.

88. G. Baldwin Brown, Was the Anglo Saxon an artist. Archaeolgical Journal 73 (1916) 171–94.

89. G. Baldwin Brown, The Repair of Ancient Buildings. Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects (17 January 1914).

90. G. Baldwin Brown, Urban Legislation in the Interests of Amenity at Home and Abroad. Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects 12, 2 (1904) 69–78.

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Notes on contributors

Robert J. Morris

Bob Morris has worked at the University of Edinburgh since 1968 and currently has a Personal Chair in Economic and Social History. He was active in the founding of the Scottish Economic and Social History Society and the Association for History and Computing, as well as the revival of the Urban History Group. He was President of the European Urban History Association, 2000–2. His research has focused on the history of social class formation and all aspects of social structure in urban settings, civil society and urban governance, the distinctive nature of urban Scotland and the creation and nature of the urban built environment. Recent publications include Men, Women and Property in England, 1780–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) and Urban Governance: Britain and Beyond since 1750 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), co‐edited with Richard H. Trainor.