Notes on Old Edinburgh

by Isabella Lucy Bird

Isabella Lucy Bird (1831 - 1904) was a nineteenth-century English explorer, writer, photographer and naturalist. With Fanny Jane Butler she founded the John Bishop Memorial hospital in Srinagar. She was the first woman to be elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. In 1854 her life of travelling began when the opportunity arose for Isabella to sail to the United States accompanying her second cousins to their family home. Her father "gave her 100 and leave to stay away as long as it lasted.." Her "bright descriptive letters" written home to her relations formed the basis for her first book "An Englishwoman in America" published by Murray in 1856. John Murray, "as well as being Isabella's lifelong publisher, ... one of her closest friends. " In 1872, going first to Australia, which she disliked, and then to Hawaii (known in Europe as the Sandwich Islands), her love for which prompted her second book (published three years later). While there she climbed Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. She then moved on to Colorado, then the newest member of the United States, where she had heard the air was excellent for the infirm. Dressed practically and riding not sidesaddle but frontwards like a man (though she threatened to sue the Times for saying she dressed like one), she covered over 800 miles in the Rocky Mountains in 1873. Her letters to her sister, first printed in the magazine Leisure Hour, comprised her fourth and perhaps most famous book, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains.

Genres: History, Travel

34 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1869

About the author

Isabella Lucy Bird Bishop (October 15, 1831 – October 7, 1904) was a nineteenth-century English traveller, writer, and a natural historian.

Works:
* The Englishwoman in America (1856)
* Pen and Pencil Sketches Among The Outer Hebrides (published in The Leisure Hour) (1866)
* The Hawaiian Archipelago (1875)
* The Two Atlantics (published in The Leisure Hour) (1876)
* Australia Felix: Impressions of Victoria and Melbourne (published in The Leisure Hour) (1877)
* A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879)
* Unbeaten Tracks in Japan (1880)
* Sketches In The Malay Peninsula (published in The Leisure Hour) (1883)
* The Golden Chersonese and the way Thither (1883)
* A Pilgrimage To Sinai (published in The Leisure Hour) (1886)
* Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan (1891)
* Among the Tibetans (1894)
* Korea and her Neighbours (1898)
* The Yangtze Valley and Beyond (1899)
* Chinese Pictures (1900)
* Notes on Morocco (published in the Monthly Review) (1901)

Reviews

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edinburgh is one of my favourite cities, but this report published in 1868 shows a very different face. While nobody could suggest that poverty has been eradicated today, the abject poverty displayed here is heartbreaking.

The squalor, the overcrowding in mean decayed buildings, many of the rooms without natural light, contributed to many diseases. There was no sanitation, no fresh water to hand. Waiting for hours in queues to pump water and then carry this heavy load up many stairs for the inhabitants of the tenements, meant that people would buy whisky for a few pence as it was more readily available. This only contributed further to the downfall of these poor people, many of whom descended into alcoholism. A sad but enlightening look at how far this city has come.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Knox House

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36014

Opening: It has been my fortune to see the worst slums of the Thames district of London, of Birmingham, and other English and foreign cities, the “water-side” of Quebec, and the Five Points and mud huts of New York, and a short time ago a motive stronger than curiosity induced me to explore some of the worst parts of Edinburgh—not the very worst, however. Honest men can have no desire to blink facts, and no apology is necessary for stating the plain truth, as it appears to me, that there are strata of misery and moral degradation under the shadow of St. Giles’s crown and within sight of Knox’s house, more concentrated and unbroken than are to be met with elsewhere, even in a huge city which, by reason of a district often supposed to have no match for vice and abjectness, is continually held up to public reprobation. The Rev. R. Maguire, rector of St. James’s, Clerkenwell, accompanied me through a portion only of the district visited, and he expressed his opinion then, and since more formally in print, that more dirt, degradation, overcrowding, and consequent shamelessness and unutterable wretchedness, exist in Edinburgh than in any town of twice its size, or in any area of similar extent to the one explored, taken from the worst part of London. With this opinion my own convictions cordially concur. We have plenty of awful guilt-centres in London—as, for instance, the alleys leading out of Liquorpond Street and the New Cut, but even the worst are broken in upon by healthy neighbourhoods. Here there is a loathsome infectious sore, occupying a larger area than anywhere else—a district given up in great measure to moral degradation, which extends from the Lawnmarket to Holyrood, from Holyrood along the parallel streets of the Cowgate, the Grassmarket, and the West Port, including most of the adjacent wynds and closes, and only terminating with Cowfeeder Row.

Compare and contrast this with Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes, which was published eleven years later than this essay.

St Giles 1884

Holyrood House, Victorian era

Grassmarket

Cowgate

Street Life in Victorian Edinburgh: The colourful world of Ned Holt

3* Notes on Old Edinburgh
3* Among the Tibetans

[Alison Lyles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew Edinburgh was grimy in the 1800s but I don't think I was aware of how hideous it actually was to live in the Old town. We don't know how lucky we are today.

[Opalgem · Rating 4 out of 5]

A heartbreakingly frank commentary on the poverty and deprivation that existed in the heart of Edinburgh once upon a time. For someone from Edinburgh, and who has walked through the streets mentioned here, it is an uncomfortable read. Comparing Edinburgh now to as it was then is to see just how far the city has come since, and a confirmation of what the people of this city have gone through over the centuries. (Which is not to say Edinburgh is now perfect or "cured" of poverty but still...)

[Justina 🏺 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew that Old Town vs. New Town translated to the poor vs. The rich but I never would’ve imagined the absolute poverty of Cowgate. Makes me happy I occupied it in the 21st century vs the 19th century.

[Janine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book

Interesting insight into the squalor of Edinburgh during the Victorian era. I have read many books about Edinburgh during this time, and this just confirms things.

[Mark McVay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wretched poverty in Edinburgh

A stark description of society in 1868 Edinburgh that illustrates the inability or unwillingness of institutions to successfully address the needs and problems of its destitute citizens - issues with which we still grapple today this day.

[Kjersti · Rating 4 out of 5]

A shocking read about the tragic conditions of 19th century Edinburgh. As someone with no pre-existing knowledge on this topic, I was shocked to discover the harsh reality of the widespread poverty that existed during this time.

[Avis Black · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a travel book like her others, but a Dickensian look at poverty. Not enjoyable, but someone had to write it.

[Coeli Lawhead · Rating 1 out of 5]

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