1.
Calton Hill
–
Calton Hill, is a hill in central Edinburgh, Scotland, situated beyond the east end of Princes Street and included in the citys UNESCO World Heritage Site. Views of, and from, the hill are used in photographs. In 1456, James II granted land to Edinburgh by charter wherein Calton Hill is referred to as Cragingalt, the name may have derived from Old Welsh or Old English meaning the place of the groves. The name Caldtoun remained general until about 1700, the names Calton and this was part of his policy of military preparedness that saw the Act of 1457 banning golf and football and ordering archery practice every Sunday. This natural amphitheatre was used for open-air theatre and saw performances of the early Scots play Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis by Sir David Lyndsay. In May 1518 the Carmelite Friars, were granted lands by charter from the city at Greenside, monasteries were suppressed following the Scottish Reformation of 1560, and this stood empty before conversion in 1591 into a hospital for lepers, founded by John Robertson, a city merchant. The monastery would appear to have located at the north-east end of Greenside Row. Ten skeletons found in July 2009 during roadworks to create a new tramway in Leith Walk are believed to have connected with the hospital. The Calton area was owned by the Logan family of Restalrig, the lands of Restalrig and Calton, otherwise known as Easter and Wester Restalrig, passed to the Elphinstone family. Sir James Elphinstone was made Lord Balmerino in 1604 and in 1673 the lands of Restalrig, in 1725, Calton was disjoined and sold to the royal burgh of Edinburgh. Calton remained a burgh of barony until it was incorporated into Edinburgh by the Municipality Extension Act of 1856. In 1631, the then Lord Balmerino granted a charter to The Society of the Incorporated Trades of Calton forming a society or corporation and this also gave the Society the exclusive right to trade within Calton and the right to tax others who wished to do so. This lack of restrictive practices allowed a thriving trade to develop, in the village, the street was variously known as St. Ninians Row or Low Calton. Many of the old buildings here were demolished at the time of the Waterloo Place and Regent Bridge development, the remaining old village houses of the Low Calton were removed in the 1970s. Calton was in South Leith Parish and Calton people went to church in Leith. The churchyard there was situated for burials from Calton and, in 1718. This became known as Old Calton Burial Ground, permission was granted for an access road, originally known as High Calton and now the street called Calton Hill, up the steep hill from the village to the burial ground. The group of 1760s houses near the top of this street are all that remain of the old village, the Old Calton Burial Ground was the first substantial development on Calton Hill and lies on the south-western side of the hill
2.
David Octavius Hill
–
David Octavius Hill was a Scottish painter and arts activist. He formed Hill & Adamson studio with the engineer and photographer Robert Adamson between 1843 and 1847 to pioneer many aspects of photography in Scotland, David Octavius Hill was born in 1802 in Perth. His father, a bookseller and publisher, helped to re-establish Perth Academy, when his older brother Alexander joined the publishers Blackwoods in Edinburgh, David went there to study at the School of Design. He learned lithography and produced Sketches of Scenery in Perthshire which was published as an album of views, a year later Hill took on unpaid secretarial duties. In the 1830s he is listed as living at 24 Queen Street, charlotte married the author Walter Scott Dalgleish. Ann died on 5 October 1841, aged only 36 and she is buried with her family in Greyfriars Churchyard in Perth. Hill then spent some twenty years as a bachelor and he continued to produce illustrations and to paint landscapes on commission. During this perion he lived at 28 Inverleith Row in Edinburghs northern suburbs, Hill was present at the Disruption Assembly in 1843 when over 450 ministers walked out of the Church of Scotland assembly and down to another assembly hall to found the Free Church of Scotland. Brewster was himself experimenting with technology which only dated back to 1839. Hill and Adamson took a series of photographs of those who had been present, the 5 foot x 11 foot 4 inches painting was eventually completed in 1866. Hill moved to Calton Hill Stairs in 1850, adamsons studio, Rock House, on Calton Hill in Edinburgh became the centre of their photographic experiments. They photographed local and Fife landscapes and urban scenes, including images of the Scott Monument under construction in Edinburgh and they produced several groundbreaking action photographs of soldiers and - perhaps their most famous photograph - two priests walking side by side. Their partnership produced around 3,000 prints, but was cut short after four years due to the ill health and death of Adamson in 1848. He was badly affected by the death of his daughter and his work slowed, in 1866 he finished the Disruption picture which received wide acclaim, though many of the participants had died by then. The photographer F. C. Annan produced fine reduced facsimiles of the painting for sale throughout the Free Church, in 1869 illness forced him to give up his post as secretary to the R. S. A. and he died in May 1870. Hill is buried in Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh - one of the finest Victorian cemeteries in Scotland and he is portrayed in a bust sculpted by his second wife, Amelia, who is buried alongside him. Michaelson, Katherine, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, catalogue for Scottish Arts Council exhibitions,1970, works in the National Galleries of Scotland Metropolitan Museum of Art - David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson
3.
Robert Adamson (photographer)
–
Robert Adamson was a Scottish chemist and pioneer photographer at Hill & Adamson. Adamson was born in St Andrews, one of ten children, and grew up in Burnside, the son of Alexander Adamson and he was educated at Madras School in St Andrews where he showed exceptional talents in mathematics and mechanics, twice winning the prize for mathematics. He became employed at a shop from a young age. Adamson was keen on becoming an engineer, but spouts of ill health led to him pursuing photography and he was taught calotype by his brother, John, and by the physicist David Brewster of the University of St Andrews in the late 1830s. As early as April 1839, Adamsons talents were recognized, and Fox Talbot, Adamsons brother John, a general practitioner, lecturer, and curator of the University Museum, produced the first calotype in Scotland in 1841. The young chemist, Adamson, established his studio at Rock House, Calton Hill Stairs in Edinburgh. Hill had desired to make portraits of the founders purely as reference material. This painting, however, would not be completed until 1866, the first studio specialising in calotypes in Edinburgh, Adamsons studio practice was said to have been confidential to the point of secrecy. Hill required calotypes from which he would paint, distinguished persons from many fields came to be photographed by the partners and within a few years they had taken the art scene by storm in Scotland. Together they made around 2500 portraits, some say 3000 or more and their prints were sold at the Princes Street gallery of Alexander Hill. After Hill and Adamson decided to publish their work, they purchased a camera in 1844. Their depictions, in soft reddish-brown or sepia, included local and Fife landscapes and urban scenes, including images of the Scott Monument and they produced several groundbreaking action photographs of soldiers and – perhaps their most famous photograph – two priests walking side by side. Their depictions of groups and children were unrivaled, as well as the great and the good, they photographed ordinary working folk, particularly the fishermen of Newhaven and their wives. Their social documentary series on Newhaven fishing families, which depicted living conditions, by mid-1847, the studio stopped production due to the failing health of Adamson. Thinking to recuperate amidst his family, Adamson returned to St. Andrews and he died unmarried on 14 January 1848, at the age of 26. In 1851, the works of Hill & Adamsons appeared at The Great Exhibition, Hill returned to painting, but it wasnt until 1872 that their work was rediscovered. In 1905,1912, and 1914, some of their works appeared in Camera Work, there were also several New York City exhibits at Alfred Stieglitzs 291 Art Gallery and at the National Arts Club
4.
David Brewster
–
Sir David Brewster KH PRSE FRS FSA FSSA MICE was a Scottish physicist, mathematician, astronomer, inventor, writer, historian of science and university principal. Most noted for his contributions to the field of optics, he studied the double refraction by compression and discovered the photoelastic effect, for his work, William Whewell dubbed him the Father of modern experimental optics and the Johannes Kepler of Optics. He is well-recognized for being the inventor of the kaleidoscope and a version of the stereoscope applied to photography. He called it the lenticular stereoscope, which was the first portable and he also invented the binocular camera, two types of polarimeters, the polyzonal lens and the lighthouse illuminator. A prominent figure in the popularization of science, he is considered one of the founders of the British Association, in addition, he became the public face of higher education in Scotland, acting as Principal of the University of St Andrews and then Edinburgh between 1837 and 1868. Brewster also edited the 18-volume Edinburgh Encyclopædia, David Brewster was born at the Canongate in Jedburgh, Roxburghshire, to Margaret Key and James Brewster, the rector of Jedburgh Grammar School and a teacher of high reputation. David was the third of six children, two daughters and four sons, James, minister at Craig, Ferryden, David, George, minister at Scoonie, Fife, and Patrick, minister at the abbey church, Paisley. At the age of 12, David was sent to the University of Edinburgh and he was licensed a minister of the Church of Scotland, but only preached from the pulpit on one occasion. Though Brewster duly finished his studies and was licensed to preach. In 1799 fellow-student Henry Brougham persuaded him to study the diffraction of light, the results of his investigations were communicated from time to time in papers to the Philosophical Transactions of London and other scientific journals. A lesser-known classmate of his, Thomas Dick, also went on to become a popular astronomical writer, as early as 1807 the degree of LL. D. In 1821, he was made a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. As a reflection of this fame, Brewster portrait was printed in some cigar boxes. Brewster chose renowned achromatic lens developer Philip Carpenter as the manufacturer of the kaleidoscope in 1817. Although Brewster patented the kaleidoscope in 1817, a copy of the prototype was shown to London opticians, as a consequence, the kaleidoscope became produced in large numbers, but yielded no direct financial benefits to Brewster. It proved to be a success with two hundred thousand kaleidoscopes sold in London and Paris in just three months. A much more valuable and practical result of Brewsters optical researches was the improvement of the British lighthouse system, although Brewsters own discoveries were important, they were not his only service to science. He began writing in 1799 as a contributor to the Edinburgh Magazine
5.
Rembrandt
–
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a Dutch draughtsman, painter, and printmaker. A prolific and versatile master across three media, he is considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art. Having achieved youthful success as a painter, Rembrandts later years were marked by personal tragedy. Yet his etchings and paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist remained high, Rembrandts portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible are regarded as his greatest creative triumphs. His self-portraits form a unique and intimate biography, in which the artist surveyed himself without vanity and his reputation as the greatest etcher in the history of the medium was established in his lifetime, and never questioned since. Few of his paintings left the Dutch Republic whilst he lived, but his prints were circulated throughout Europe, because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called one of the great prophets of civilization. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on 15 July 1606 in Leiden, in the Dutch Republic and he was the ninth child born to Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn and Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuijtbrouck. His family was quite well-to-do, his father was a miller, religion is a central theme in Rembrandts paintings and the religiously fraught period in which he lived makes his faith a matter of interest. His mother was Roman Catholic, and his father belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church, unlike many of his contemporaries who traveled to Italy as part of their artistic training, Rembrandt never left the Dutch Republic during his lifetime. He opened a studio in Leiden in 1624 or 1625, which he shared with friend, in 1627, Rembrandt began to accept students, among them Gerrit Dou in 1628. In 1629, Rembrandt was discovered by the statesman Constantijn Huygens, as a result of this connection, Prince Frederik Hendrik continued to purchase paintings from Rembrandt until 1646. He initially stayed with an art dealer, Hendrick van Uylenburgh, Saskia came from a good family, her father had been a lawyer and the burgemeester of Leeuwarden. When Saskia, as the youngest daughter, became an orphan, Rembrandt and Saskia were married in the local church of St. Annaparochie without the presence of Rembrandts relatives. In the same year, Rembrandt became a burgess of Amsterdam and he also acquired a number of students, among them Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck. In 1635 Rembrandt and Saskia moved into their own house, renting in fashionable Nieuwe Doelenstraat, in 1639 they moved to a prominent newly built house in the upscale Breestraat, today known as Jodenbreestraat in what was becoming the Jewish quarter, then a young upcoming neighborhood. The mortgage to finance the 13,000 guilder purchase would be a cause for later financial difficulties. Rembrandt should easily have been able to pay the house off with his income, but it appears his spending always kept pace with his income. It was there that Rembrandt frequently sought his Jewish neighbors to model for his Old Testament scenes, in 1640, they had a second daughter, also named Cornelia, who died after living barely over a month
6.
Henry Cockburn, Lord Cockburn
–
Henry Thomas Cockburn of Bonaly, Lord Cockburn was a Scottish lawyer, judge and literary figure. He served as Solicitor General for Scotland between 1830 and 1834 and he was educated at the Royal High School and the University of Edinburgh. His brother was John Cockburn FRSE was a merchant and founder of Cockburns of Leith. Cockburn contributed regularly to the Edinburgh Review and he was the model of a high-bred Scotch gentleman. He spoke with a Doric breadth of accent, Cockburn was one of the most popular men north of the Tweed. He was a member of the famous Speculative Society, to which Sir Walter Scott, Henry Brougham and his published work continued with his Journal, published in 1874. These constitute an autobiography of the writer interspersed with notices of manners, public events and he became a distinguished advocate, and ultimately a judge. He was one of the leaders of the Whig party in Scotland in its days of darkness prior to the Reform Act of 1832, on the accession of Earl Greys ministry in 1830 he became Solicitor General for Scotland. During his time here he drafted the First Scottish Reform Bill, in 1834 he was raised to the bench, and on taking his seat as a Judge in the Court of Session he adopted the title of Lord Cockburn as a Scottish Lord of Session. Cockburn married Elizabeth Macdowall, daughter of James Macdowall and second wife Margaret Jamieson, in Edinburgh, Midlothian, as was common in the period he had both a town house and country house. The country house was at Bonaly, on the south-west edge of Edinburgh and his town house was a hugely impressive house at 14 Charlotte Square, designed by Robert Adam and lying at the heart of the fashionable west end of the city. Cockburn died on 26 April 1854, at his mansion of Bonaly, a statue of Cockburn by local sculptor William Brodie stands in the north-east corner of Parliament Hall. The Cockburn Association, founded in 1875, was named in his honour, Cockburn was played by Russell Hunter in Cocky, a one-man play which was effectively a dramatisation of his memoirs, broadcast on BBC Scotland. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Cockburn. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Cousin. A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, london, J. M. Dent & Sons. Wikisource Scotlands greatest Whig Romantic, Times Literary Supplement,18 January 2006 Archival material relating to Henry Cockburn, Lord Cockburn
7.
Hugh Miller
–
Hugh Miller was a self-taught Scottish geologist and writer, folklorist and an evangelical Christian. Born in Cromarty, he was educated in a school where he reportedly showed a love of reading. At 17 he was apprenticed to a stonemason, and his work in quarries, together with walks along the local shoreline, in 1834 he became accountant in one of the local banks, and in the next year brought out his Scenes and Legends in the North of Scotland. In 1837 he married Lydia Mackenzie Falconer, among his geological works are The Old Red Sandstone, Footprints of the Creator, The Testimony of the Rocks, Sketch-book of Popular Geology. Of these books, perhaps The Old Red Sandstone was the best-known and he denied the Epicurean theory that new species occasionally budded from the soil, and the Lamarckian theory of development of species, as lacking evidence. In a biographical review about him, he was recognized as a person by Sir David Brewster. For most of 1856, Miller suffered severe headaches and mental distress, and he feared that he might harm his wife or children because of persecutory delusions. Miller committed suicide, shooting himself in the chest with a revolver in his house on Tower Street, Portobello and that night he had finished checking printers proofs for his book on Scottish fossil plants and vertebrates, The Testimony of the Rocks. Before his death, he wrote a poem called Strange but True and his funeral procession, attended by thousands, was amongst the largest in the memory of Edinburgh residents. He is buried in the Grange Cemetery in Edinburgh and his is a very simple red granite monument on the north boundary wall, close to the NW corner. His son Hugh Miller FRSE, only six years old when his father killed himself, though he had no academic credentials, he is today considered one of Scotlands premier palaeontologists. Millers second daughter, Harriet Miller Davidson was a poet who married a clergyman after her fathers suicide. She moved to Adelaide where her husband was a minister and she published poems, there is a bust of Hugh Miller in the Hall of Heroes at the Wallace Monument in Stirling. It was here that he found his first fossil ammonite, in Jurassic rocks, the haven was originally a salmon fishing station, and a former fishermens bothy, open to the public, has a display board about the geology of the area and Millers fossil discoveries. The BP-operated Miller oilfield in the North Sea was named after Hugh Miller, Hugh Miller Place, a street in the Stockbridge Colonies area of Edinburgh, is named in his honour. Hugh Miller, introducing palaeobotany to a wider audience, in, Bowden, A. J. Burek, C. V. & Wilding, R. Geological Society, London, Special Publications,241,63 –90 and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Cousin, John William. A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, London, J. M. Dent & Sons
8.
Fife
–
Fife is a council area and historic county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with boundaries to Perth and Kinross. By custom it is held to have been one of the major Pictish kingdoms, known as Fib. It is an area, and was a county of Scotland until 1975. It was very occasionally known by the anglicisation Fifeshire in old documents, a person from Fife is known as a Fifer. Fife was a government region divided into three districts, Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and North-East Fife. Since 1996 the functions of the councils have been exercised by the unitary Fife Council. Fife is Scotlands third largest local authority area by population and it has a resident population of just under 367,000, over a third of whom live in the three principal towns of Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and Glenrothes. The historic town of St Andrews is located on the northeast coast of Fife and it is well known for the University of St Andrews, one of the most ancient universities in the world and is renowned as the home of golf. Fife, bounded to the north by the Firth of Tay, the earliest known reference to the common epithet The Kingdom of Fife dates from only 1678, in a proposition that the term derives from the quasi-regal privileges of the Earl of Fife. The notion of a kingdom may derive from a misintrepretation of an extract from Wyntoun, the name is recorded as Fib in A. D.1150 and Fif in 1165. It was often associated with Fothriff, the hill-fort of Clatchard Craig, near Newburgh, was occupied as an important Pictish stronghold between the sixth and eighth centuries AD. Fife was an important royal and political centre from the reign of King Malcolm III onwards, Malcolm had his principal home in Dunfermline and his wife Margaret was the main benefactor of Dunfermline Abbey. The Abbey replaced Iona as the resting place of Scotlands royal elite. The Earl of Fife was until the 15th century considered the principal peer of the Scottish realm, wool, linen, coal and salt were all traded. Salt pans heated by local coal were a feature of the Fife coast in the past, the distinctive red clay pan tiles seen on many old buildings in Fife arrived as ballast on trading boats and replaced the previously thatched roofs. This endeavour lasted until 1609 when the colonists, having been opposed by the population, were bought out by Kenneth Mackenzie. Fife became a centre of industry in the 19th century
9.
Newhaven, Edinburgh
–
Newhaven is a district in the City of Edinburgh, Scotland, between Leith and Granton and about 2 miles north of the city centre. Formerly a village and harbour on the Firth of Forth, it had a population of approximately 5,000 inhabitants at the 1991 census, Newhaven was designated a conservation area, one of 40 such areas in Edinburgh, in 1977. It has a distinctive building form, typical of many Scottish fishing villages. The lower ground floor was used for storing nets, more modern housing dating from the 1960s has replicated the style of these older buildings. Victoria Primary School, established in the 1840s, is a building in Newhaven Main Street. It has a roll of around 145 children. The new Western Harbour development extends north into the Firth of Forth from Newhaven and it is also the home of Next Generation Sports Centre, where the tennis player Sir Andy Murray regularly played as a youngster. The village lies on the line of a raised beach. It was part of North Leith Parish, being situated north of the Water of Leith which divided Leith into north and south parishes and it was once a thriving fishing village and a centre for shipbuilding. King James IV wanted to build a Scottish navy, but the port of Leith proved unsuitable for large warships. In 1504 he created Newhavin as a port, specifically for the construction of the warship Michael. The ship was built between 1507 and 1511, the site of the original harbour is the current open space at Fishmarket Square. Surviving walls of the Chapel of St. Mary and St. James, believed to have built for the dockyard workers and mariners, can still be seen in Lambs Court. Although close to Edinburgh, the people of Newhaven remained distinctive in dress, the Society of Free Fishermen of Newhaven, dating from at least 1572, was one of the oldest friendly societies in Scotland. Up to the end of the 20th century, pilots of ships on the Firth of Forth traditionally came from a group of Newhaven families. The early pilots provided their own crews and sailing cutters which were regarded as the fastest and most seaworthy available, the village was once connected by the Edinburgh, Leith and Newhaven Railway to Edinburgh and Leith, but the line closed in 1956. It was also connected to Stirling by steamboat managing the 42 miles in just over 3 hours, between 1572 and 1890, Newhaven was a major port for landing oysters. It also played a role in the industry, recalled in the name Whale Brae at the northmost end of Newhaven Road
10.
Creel (basket)
–
Creel is a type of small wicker basket mainly used by anglers to hold fish or other prey. A creel is designed to function as an evaporative cooler when lined with moss, caught fish are inserted through a slot in the top which is held in place by a small leather strap. Another type of creel is the turf creel, traditionally used in the west of Ireland there are a variety of styles and sizes. These creels were commonly used for carrying peat fuel by hand, in modern day usage, creels also refer to high sides added to a towed trailer. This makes the trailer more suitable for carrying loose material, such as turf etc, the word creel is also used in Scotland to refer to a device used to catch lobsters and other crustaceans. Made of woven netting over a frame of plastic tubing and a wooden base. Several creels shot on one line can be referred to as a leader, fly fishing Weaving Basket weaving Lobster pot Granger, CS Fishing Kits and Equipment Page 94–95
11.
Herring
–
Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family Clupeidae. Herring often move in schools around fishing banks and near the coast. Three species of Clupea are recognised, and provide about 90% of all captured in fisheries. Most abundant of all is the Atlantic herring, providing half of all herring capture. Fishes called herring are found in India, in the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean. Herring played a role in the history of marine fisheries in Europe. These oily fish also have a history as an important food fish. A number of different species, most belonging to the family Clupeidae, are referred to as herrings. The origins of the herring is somewhat unclear, though it may derive from the Old High German heri meaning a host, multitude. The type genus of the herring family Clupeidae is Clupea, Clupea contains three species, the Atlantic herring found in the north Atlantic, the Pacific herring found in the north Pacific, and the Araucanian herring found off the coast of Chile. Subspecific divisions have been suggested for both the Atlantic and Pacific herrings, but their biological basis remain unclear, in addition, a number of related species, all in the family Clupeidae, are commonly referred to as herrings. The table immediately below includes those members of the Clupeidae family referred to by FishBase as herrings which have been assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. There are also a number of other species called herrings, which may be related to clupeids or just share some characteristics of herrings. Just which of these species are called herrings can vary with locality, some examples, The species of Clupea belong to the larger family Clupeidae, which comprises some 200 species that share similar features. These silvery-coloured fish have a dorsal fin, which is soft. They have no lateral line and have a lower jaw. At least one stock of Atlantic herring spawns in every month of the year, each spawns at a different time and place. Greenland populations spawn in 0–5 metres of water while North Sea herrings spawn at up to 200 metres in autumn
_the_line%27;_Newhaven_fisherman_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
.jpg)
