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In the early hours of this morning in 1861, an entire tenement block on the Royal Mile collapsed, killing almost half of its residents. This event is recalled today as the Heave Awa' Disaster, after the words of one of the few survivors, twelve-year-old Joseph McIvor.
Over the course of this evening in 1824, Edinburgh’s most destructive accidental fire reached its climax. It had broken out at around 10pm the previous evening in the workshop of engraver James Kirkwood at the top of Assembly Close, where a pot of linseed oil had been overheated, spilled and set fire to a stack of paper. By morning, the fire had spread most of the way along the close it began in, and by its peak it had spread as far down the Royal Mile as Tron Square, reached uphill to Parliament Square, and extended down Fishmarket Close as far as the Cowgate.
On the evening of the 5th of November 1828, a woman by the name of Janet Brown read in the Edinburgh Courant of the arrest of William Burke and William Hare on suspicion of murder. She was shocked, both men being known to her, and with growing dread recalled that it was in their company that she had last seen her friend, Mary Paterson, six months previously.
In the first of an occasional series, we look back at events in Edinburgh's history that happened on this day.
On this day in 1687, the first sedan chairs became available for public hire in Edinburgh.
Although some the wealthier residents of the city had owned their own private sedan chairs for many decades, this was the first opportunity that the lower orders had to experience such luxury. The bearers of these "hackney chairs" were typically Highlanders who had migrated south in search of employment: men used to heavy labour and being outdoors in all seasons.
