From the Edinburgh 900 Experts

With a history spanning 10 centuries, Edinburgh 900 brings the city’s stories to life through 10 themes. Each month, we shine a light on one of these themes through a Q&A session with an expert within that field, gaining valuable insight from their knowledge.

We kick things off with the City of David theme. Celebrating Edinburgh’s journey as a self-governing community, this theme focus on the historical burghs of Edinburgh, its royal connections, the evolution of municipal government, and its role as Scotland’s capital city. This theme highlights Edinburgh’s significance in local and national government and politics.

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Explore the City of David

What happened in 1124?

• “David I became King of Scots in 1124, so this year is the earliest possible date for his grant of the legal privilege of ‘burgh’ status to Edinburgh. The city became one of around 13 or 14 urban settlements to gain burgh status during David’s reign”. (EJW)

• “The introduction of European forms of landholding (feudalism), regional administration (sheriffdoms and episcopal dioceses) and town governance (burghs) revolutionised Scotland. This did not happen overnight and everywhere, but his long reign of 29 years meant he could start and sustain a trend that Scotland did not turn back from”. (HS)

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What did it mean to be a Royal Burgh?

• “Burghs were usually fortified settlements with markets, which meant that they were especially important for local, national and even international trade. In the case of royal burghs, it was the King of Scots himself who issued a series of rights and liberties which were intended to protect the status of the town and its residents. Royal burghs became crucial supporters of the king’s authority as well as instruments of political and economic expansion across medieval Scotland”. (EJW)

• “Burghs also answered only to the king (who could be swayed with offers of badly needed funds at critical times), held their own burgh courts, made their own bylaws  and, crucially, could hold feudal rights over others – including other lesser burghs. This was important to Edinburgh in the 16^th to 18^th centuries as it had to govern adjacent communities outside of its city walls as a feudal superior rather than expand its own boundaries. Canongate as a burgh of regality and Restalrig as a burgh of barony could not do this”. (HS)

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Who were the early Edinburghers?

• “It is hard to trace the early history of the burgesses, or townspeople, of Edinburgh, especially in the 12 and 13^th centuries. Freemen or burgesses would primarily have been merchants and craftsmen. They had specific privileges and responsibilities in the town, e.g. they had the right to hold a plot in the burgh and build a dwelling-place on it. They also had certain legal privileges such as the right to be tried in their own burgh’s court. A lot of people living in the early town were not entitled to the legal and social status of ‘burgess’. Women and children could not be burgesses. Male inhabitants would not have qualified for this status, especially if they were servants, hired workers or apprentices”. (EJW)

• “Many burgesses were foreign born themselves or of foreign descent, brought in for their specialist skills or connections to European cities. French and Dutch were as likely to be spoken as English in Edinburgh’s streets. Over time, burgesses specialised in either trading or crafting and these became the Royal Company of Merchants and Incorporations of Trade, who had monopolies over commerce and industry in the burgh”. (HS)

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What is the oldest building in the city?

• “Early in David I’s reign, probably around 1130, the royal family ordered a private chapel to be built in Edinburgh Castle. In royal documents, this is simply called ‘the castle church’, but it later became known as St Margaret’s Chapel. This was a site of personal devotion for the royal family. It is the oldest building still standing in the city”. (EJW)

• “English raids between the 14th and 16th centuries periodically burned much of medieval Edinburgh. Fires and collapse from the densely packed multi-storey tenements were also perennial issues. The restriction on the city’s boundaries also meant its citizens often had to tear down buildings to build new ones. A good example of this is the demolition of the city’s Old Tolbooth in 1817, which had been in use for 400 years”. (HS)

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Where did Parliament sit in the city?

• “During the 15^th and early 16^th centuries, parliaments were usually held in the burgh’s tolbooth (the Old Tolbooth). Parliament moved into St Giles’ Cathedral in 1563 due the tolbooth’s disrepair. By 1630 Parliament had outgrown the cathedral and a new purpose-built building, Parliament House, was commissioned. This was used by the Parliament until its dissolution in 1707. In 1999 the new devolved Scottish Parliament met for the first time in the General Assembly Hall and stayed there util 2004 when it moved into a brand new building in Holyrood”. (HS)

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How many burghs were there in Edinburgh?

• “What we think of today as ‘Edinburgh’ is in fact two medieval burghs in very close proximity. The initial burgh of Edinburgh was founded by King David shortly after 1124. A few years later, in 1128, David established an abbey dedicated to the Holy Rood. It was the abbot and canons of this new foundation, Holyrood Abbey, who established the second burgh of Canongate sometime between 1128 and 1144”. (EJW)

• Burghs were established in Broughton, Calton, North Leith, South Leith / Restalrig and Portsburgh sometime in the 15^th and 16^th centuries. They had their own burgesses and trades, but no merchants (though Leith had the Masters and Mariners Guild of Trinity House), and their officials were appointed by Edinburgh Corporation. Canongate Burgh lost its feudal lord when Holyrood Abbey was stripped of its lands and rights during the Reformation. It was taken over by Edinburgh Corporation in 1636 when it purchased its feudal superiority from the Earl of Roxburgh. It continued legally as a separate burgh but controlled by Edinburgh for another 220 years. All of these burghs were merged into Edinburgh Corporation in the Edinburgh Municipality Extension Act 1856. However, due to reforming legislation in 1833, Portobello and Leith became wholly independent of Edinburgh and ran their own affairs. This continued from 1833 to 1896 for Portobello and 1920 for Leith when they were amalgamated into Edinburgh Corporation through Acts of Parliament”. (HS)

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Who ran the city and where did they run it from?

• “In the 12^th and 13th centuries, the King of Scots was ultimately in charge of the burgh of Edinburgh. Royal courts at the time were itinerant, travelling from place to place rather than locating themselves within any formal royal capital. However, over the period, the town became increasingly important as a centre for royal rule. David I conducted royal business in the city, issuing 14 documents at Edinburgh over his reign and holding royal assemblies in the burgh. The town was one of four main royal mints in the kingdom of Scotland until before the mid-13^th century. After David’s death in 1153, Edinburgh continued to be a significant administrative centre for the Kings of Scots. Edinburgh Castle, was a site of personal importance to the royal family but it also had a strategic military significance and was a political centre for the Kings. The burgh of Canongate was overseen by Holyrood Abbey. In 1128, David had granted a church in the location of Holyrood to the Augustinian canons of Edinburgh Castle and, several years later they founded their own burgh with royal permission. Since the Augustinian canons had a responsibility to minister to local communities, this implies the existence of a community of laypeople already living around location of Holyrood in the early decades of the 12^th century”. (EJW)

• “Burgh administration starts in the 12th and 13th centuries with a provost and bailies. In the 14th to 15th centuries the Town Council appears, being made up of elected burgesses. The administration now includes a dean of guild, a treasurer, guild sergeants and assessors. The Tolbooth next to St Giles’ becomes its base of operations. Collectively, these became known as Edinburgh Corporation. In the 15th to 18th centuries the Town Council becomes self-appointing by an act of the Scottish parliament. In the 19th century the Police Commission is established, which expands local government in the city with the recruitment of police, inspectors and public health officials. In 1845, Parochial Boards take over welfare from the Church of Scotland and School Boards were created in 1872 to setup a mandatory education system. In 1833, the Town Council is reformed and becomes elected with electoral wards and routine elections. However, parts of the medieval Corporation remain – with the Royal Company of Merchants Company and the Incorporations of Trade retaining their legal monopoly over commerce and industry within the city until 1846 and their seats on the Town Council until 1975. The Police Commission merges into the Corporation in 1856, greatly expanding the scope and reach of the latter. In 1930 the Parish Council (successor to the Parochial Board) and Education Authority (successor to the School Board) merge into the Edinburgh Corporation. Between 1975 and 1995, local government reform disbands the ancient Edinburgh Corporation and replaces it with a two tier system of Lothian Regional Council and Edinburgh District Council, both with their own councillors and officials. After only 20 years of operation, Lothian Regional Council and Edinburgh District Council were disbanded in 1995 along with other such councils across Scotland. In their place, the City of Edinburgh Council was born as a unitary authority. Its boundaries did not change from the district council’s but it inherited most of the functions of both the councils”. (HS)

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Why is there an Old Town and a New Town?

• “The Old Town was the medieval burgh of the city. Restricted to a small rectangle of land that was difficult to expand beyond, it was wedged between the Nor’loch (what would become Princess Street Gardens) and Calton Hill in the North, marshes to the East (which would become Holyrood Park), Arthur’s Seat to the south west, the Burgh Loch to the south (now the Meadows), and the Castle Rock to the west. Frequent raids by the English during the 14^th century, convinced both the King and the burgesses that defensive walls were needed. These provided protection and control but at the price of restricting natural urban growth. By the 18th century, Edinburgh was one of the most densely populated cities in Europe, with six storey (or higher) tenements being the most common form of housing. By the 1750’s, the city leaders were desperate to expand beyond the ancient boundaries and build a new town in the rational and radical spirit of the Scottish Enlightenment. In 1767 this was finally achieved through an Act of Parliament. Unlike the Old Town with its medieval streets and closes, the New Town was planned via a series of development proposals by different architects that the Town Council approved, which property owners and developers had to then follow. With the success of the New Town, wealthier citizens left the Old Town, accelerating its transformation as the city’s slum district as poorer immigrants from the Highlands and Ireland moved in. From 1867 onwards, however, a series of improvement projects demolished the worst of the housing and streets of the Old Town, replacing them with the buildings and streetscape that is there today. In the late 1960’s the poor conditions of many iconic buildings in both the Old and New Towns presented major challenges. A conference was held which led to new multi-partner conservation committees for the New Town in 1972 and the Old Town in 1986. They provided the focus for a campaign of building-by-building conservation, leading to the New and Old Towns being declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995”. (HS)

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How much has Edinburgh grown since its founding as a burgh?

• “Since its foundation, Edinburgh has grown dramatically, both in the expansion of the town’s geographical footprint and also in the number of people who live here. But the lasting legacy of the medieval burgh is still visible today. Some of the street names still invoke Edinburgh’s medieval past, especially ‘Canongate’ which refers to the canons of Holyrood Abbey, literally meaning the ‘gait’ or ‘walk’ of the canons.” (EJW)

• “The King’s Walls, built in the early 15^th century, became the city’s first recorded boundary in 1450 when James II granted the Corporation the right to fortify its boundaries. The Flodden Walls expanded the boundaries of the burgh south and east. In 1755 Edinburgh had one of the most densely populated cities in Europe. In 1767 the city finally expanded to cover the lower New Town to the north across from the Nor’Loch. In 1856 the Corporation had its single biggest expansion by percentage when it merged with the Police Commission whose boundaries had expanded in all directions from the old burgh boundaries through a series of Acts. When the city amalgamated with Portobello in 1896 it also included extensions in the south and west of the city. In 1920, the city expanded by extending over four whole Midlothian parishes (Cramond, Corstorphine, Colinton, and Liberton) and the burgh of Leith. The last and biggest expansion was in 1975 when South Queensferry and the communities of Kirkliston, Ratho, Currie and Balerno were added to Edinburgh District Council, nearly doubling the size of the city. Since 1975 the boundary has not changed”. (HS)

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What is the oldest record/object in the city?

• “The oldest record in the city’s municipal archives is the 1128 founding charter of Holyrood Abbey in which David I granted it the right to set up Canongate Burgh”. (HS)

• “The charter reveals some fascinating hints of early life in the burgh of Edinburgh, such as the existence of a hospital and a mill that had recently been built in the town. It is now held by the City Archives”. (EJW)

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What services did the Council used to run?

• “At its creation, Edinburgh Corporation was focussed on regulating and promoting trade and industry within its boundaries. Between the 12th and 17th centuries sanitation/street cleaning, policing, firefighting were all communal obligations that were enforced by bailies and guild officials. Housing was the private business of individual burgage plot holders. Welfare was strictly limited to the ‘deserving’ poor (i.e. the young, the old, the widowed, and the sick). The able-bodied unemployed were sent to a correction house in Calton to work. By the 17th century the Corporation’s Dean of Guild is dealing with planning and building control in the city. Unlicensed property subdivision, fire and building collapse were their major concerns. In 1805 a new Police Commission for the city was set up. It was not just law and order that the commission enforced but also public health, licensing and street lighting. The Edinburgh Fire Brigade was established in 1824 to give the fire-prone city the first professional municipal fire-fighting force in the world. Edinburgh appointed the first Scottish municipal Medical Officer of Health in 1862. This led to the setup of an improvement trust in 1867 to replace slums with better quality, if lower capacity, housing. These were still private housing, however. As part of this drive, public baths were built in the city – starting with the Infirmary Street Baths in 1885 – as a way of improving public health and providing citizens with leisure venues. Improving the city’s utilities was also needed. In 1870 the Edinburgh, Leith and Portobello corporations set up a statutory trust to jointly take over the local water company. The success of this joint trust encouraged the burghs to create similar joint trusts for the gas supply and sewers but not the electricity supply, which they ran separately from 1891. Edinburgh was the last Scottish city to adopt the 1850 Public Libraries Act, doing so in 1886 with a Carnegie donation to build a free library, which became Central Library in 1890. The next big change for the Corporation was in 1919 when it created its Housing and Transport departments to build social housing for the first time and expand its tram and bus network. In 1930 the Corporation merged with Edinburgh’s Education Authority and Parish Council, running children’s homes, hospitals, libraries, parks, police and fire services, poorhouses, public transport, schools, swimming pools, and utilities (i.e. electric, gas and water supply). It lost electricity to the National Grid in 1947 and health to the NHS in 1948. Trams closed in 1956 and buses were privatised in 1985. Water, police and fire were kept as regional bodies in the 1995 local government reforms and then centralised in 2002 and 2013 respectively”. (HS)

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Who was David I?

• “David I was a very unlikely king! Born around 1085, he was the sixth and youngest son of King Malcolm III and Queen Margaret. David had to flee to England as a young boy after his father’s death in 1093 and spent several years at the court of King Henry I. David’s elder sister, Edith-Matilda, married Henry in 1100. David’s elder brother, Alexander, became king of Scots in 1107. His prestige further increased in 1113, when he married Maud de Senlis, the daughter of the Earl of Northumbria. Maud was a wealthy widow with extensive lands across England. The couple had one son, Henry, who was born around 1115. David became king of Scots in 1124 when he was almost 40 and reigned until his death in 1153. His reign is associated with important developments in royal government, justice, commerce and urban life in Scotland”. (EJW)

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What were the biggest dangers to Edinburghers in their daily lives?

• “Like most medieval urban centres, Edinburgh struggled with disease, fire and building collapse. Edinburgh’s water supply was particularly prone to spreading disease as it did not have access to a major river to flush the human and animal waste away. It was not until 1676 that the Corporation constructed its first water supply scheme drawing from springs in the nearby Pentland Hills, which became the main source for the city for the next 200 years. While mortality rates for medieval Edinburgh are not known, epidemics swept through the city on a regular basis including the bubonic plague, cholera, dysentery, typhus and typhoid. Fires were also a constant hazard, with 28 known large fires occurring in the city between 1660 and 1760. The Great Fire of 1824 dwarfed them all, burning for five days, driving 400 to 500 families homeless and killing 13. With limited space to build, property developers built high with 6 storied tenements being common and some references to 15 stories. Building collapse therefore was a common concern. In November 1861 the tenement collapse at Baillie Fyfe’s Close on the High Street killed 35 residents and caught the public’s attention with the extent and suddenness of the disaster, making newspaper headlines as far away as London”. (HS)

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When did Edinburgh become Scotland’s capital?

“At its founding as a royal burgh, Edinburgh was not seen as the capital of David’s kingdom. Perth had a stronger claim with more frequent royal visits, but the castle saw it gain one of his royal mints, and eventually the treasury and the archives of the royal household by the start of the 13^th century. Parliaments were held across country, with Perth being the early favoured site and Edinburgh slowly becoming the second by the early 15^th century. However, this changed in 1437 with the murder of James I in Perth. Edinburgh, with its caste and town walls offered the court more security. By the end of the 15th century Edinburgh is referred to as the principal burgh of Scotland in charters and chronicles”. (HS)

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What are the most interesting and fascinating objects or places in Edinburgh that celebrate the City of David theme and are accessible to both residents and visitors?

• “Saint Margaret’s Chapel is the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh and well worth a visit, especially to see its beautifully ornate 12^th arches. The remains of Holyrood Abbey are also a stunning reminder of Edinburgh’s medieval history” .(EJW)

• “Given the City of David theme is about how Edinburgh has governed itself, I have to mention Edinburgh City Archives. The city charters and archives can be viewed by anyone with an appointment during opening hours. Details can be found on the Council’s website. In terms of buildings, there are plenty you can visit – in particular the city’s surviving tolbooths and town halls: Canongate Tolbooth was the headquarters of the Canongate Burgh. It currently houses the People’s Story Museum. South Queensferry Tolbooth was built in 1720 for the royal burgh and was in use until 1945. Leith Old Town Hall was built in 1828 and was home of the Leith Town Council until 1920. It is now a police station. The biggest and grandest is the City Chambers, which was built in 1760 as a trading exchange. You can see the gravestone of arguably Edinburgh’s greatest Lord Provost, George Drummond, in Canongate Kirkyard. Six times Lord Provost between 1746 and 1762, he built the City Chambers, reformed the University of Edinburgh and set in motion the plans for the New Town, dying before he could see it happen. You can find a statue to another great Lord Provost, William Chambers, on the same named Chambers Street. Serving only for 4 years (1865 to 1869), he inspired the great and the good of the city to rally behind a movement to demolish slum housing in the Old Town and replace them with the elegant tenements and street layouts that you see today. Holyrood Palace, royal residence of Scottish Kings and their court for centuries as well as the occasional parliament. Parliament House was the first purpose-built parliamentary building in the world (constructed in 1640). It is used currently as the seat of the Court of Session. General Assembly Hall was built in 1859 for the Free Church of Scotland and continues to this day to be used as its national meeting place. However, it was also the site of the new devolved Scottish Parliament between its opening in 1999 and 2004 when it moved to Holyrood”. (HS)

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