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Andy Arthur 🐣 Threadinburgh 🧵 Profile picture
@cocteautriplets
Sep 23, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
Today's auction house artefact is this print of the launch of the Royal Mail Steamship "Forth" in Leith in 1841 Image
RMS Forth was launched on May 22 1841 "in the presence of 60,000 Spectators". At 1,940 tons burthen (that's an estimate of her carrying capacity or "tonnage"), she was probably the largest thing ever built at Leith at the time.
The newly established Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. was funded by a government subsidy and had a contract to provide a fleet of not fewer than 14 ships for carrying all Her Majesty's mails, "to sail twice every month to Barbados in the West Indies from Southampton or Falmouth"
They ordered 14 new mail steamers named after British rivers, with Thames, Medway, Trent, and Isis (built at Northfleet); Severn and Avon (Bristol); Tweed, Clyde, Teviot, Dee, and Solway (Greenock); Tay (Dumbarton); Medina (Cowes) and Forth at Leith
"Forth" did not have a long life however and was wrecked in January 1849, she ran aground on Scorpion Reef off the north coast of Yucatán, Mexico. All her passengers and crew were fortuitously landed on the reef and were saved Image

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More from @cocteautriplets

Andy Arthur 🐣 Threadinburgh 🧵 Profile picture
May 11
The derailment by strikers of the Flying Scotsman on May 10th 1926 has meant a much more serious and fatal rail accident in Edinburgh later that same day which claimed 3 lives and injured many has been somewhat overlooked 🧵👇🚂
The 1:06PM train from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Edinburgh hit a goods train being shunted across its path at St. Margaret's Depot just west of the tunnel under London Road. Due to the General Strike, most signal boxes were unmanned and only a rudimentary signalling system was running
The busy but confined St. Margaret's depot was on both sides of the LNER East Coast Mainline as it approached Edinburgh, with Piershill Junction for Leith and north Edinburgh to its east and the 60 yard tunnel under London Road constraining it to the west. OS 1944/5 Town Survey of Edinburgh showing the mainline running through St. Margaret's Depot. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
Read 26 tweets
Andy Arthur 🐣 Threadinburgh 🧵 Profile picture
Apr 30
It's been hard to find time recently for any in-depth threading, but I think tonight we can sneak in the story of the lesser-known Leith shipyard of Ramage & Ferguson, builders of luxury steam mega-yachts to the Victorian and Edwardian elites. ⛵️🧵👇 The modelmakers loft at Ramage & Ferguson, 1906. © Edinburgh City Libraries
In its working life from 1877 to 1934, the Ramage & Ferguson yard built 269 ships: 80, almost 1/3 of the total, were luxury steam yachts, built mainly to the designs of the 3 most prominent yacht designers in the world. It became the go-to shipyard for the rich and famous Image
When I say yachts, don't think about those little plastic things bobbing around in marinas these days. We're talking about multi-hundred (up to two thousand!) ton wooden and steel palaces, fitted out to the standards of ocean liners Launch of a yacht for an American customer at Ramage & Ferguson, late 1890s or early 20th century.
Read 56 tweets
Andy Arthur 🐣 Threadinburgh 🧵 Profile picture
Apr 7
As promised / threatened, there now follows a thread about the origins and abolition of the Tawse as the instrument of discipline in Scottish teaching. So lets start off with the Tawse - what is it and how did it evolve? 🧵👇
"Tawis" or "tawes" is a Scots word going back to c. 16th c., a plural of a leather belt or strap. In turn this came from the Middle English "tawe", leather tanned so as to keep it supple. Such devices were long the favoured instrument of corporal punishment in Scottish education "The Dominie Functions", George Harvey (1806–1876). © The Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum via ArtUK
In 1848, George Mckarsie sued Archibald Dickson, schoolmaster of Auchtermuchty, for assaulting his son without provocation with a tawse "severely on the head, face and arms to the effusion of his blood". He was awarded a shilling but had to pay all expenses!
Read 67 tweets
Andy Arthur 🐣 Threadinburgh 🧵 Profile picture
Jan 24
This pub has been in the news for the wrong reasons recently, but despite appearances it's a very important pub; a surviving example of only a handful of such interwar hostelries built in #Edinburgh - the Roadhouse. And these 9 pubs have a story to tell. Shall we unravel it?🧵👇 The Anchor Inn, West Granton Road.
The short version of the Roadhouse story is thus: a blend of 1930s architecture and glamour used by the licensed trade to attract a new generation of sophisticated, Holywood-inspired, car-driving drinkers. That's partly true, but not the full story here 1934 Dunlop Tyres advert showing cars arriving at an Art Deco Roadhouse. © Illustrated London News
To understand how Edinburgh got its roadhouses we have to go back to 1913 when the Temperance movement was at the peak of its power and the Temperance (Scotland) Act was passed. This was also known as the Local Veto Act as it allowed localities to force referendums on going "dry" British Women's Temperance Association banner of the, Scottish Christian Union. 1900. © Edinburgh City Libraries
Read 64 tweets
Andy Arthur 🐣 Threadinburgh 🧵 Profile picture
Jan 18
In 1839, Dr. Thomas Smith of 21 Duke (now Dublin) Street in #Edinburgh tried on himself a purified extract of "Indian Hemp" - Cannabis sativa. He "gave an interesting account of its physiological action!". He was most probably the first person in Scotland to get high. Dr Thomas Smith of T. & H. Smith. 1807-1893
The medicinal and psychoactive properties of "Indian Hemp" had only just been introduced to Western medicine that year by Irish doctor William Brooke O'Shaughnessy, so it's unlikely anyone had done so before.
Cannabis seeds were advertised for sale in Edinburgh in the Caledonian Mercury as far back as 1761 (apply to the Gardener at Hermitage House in Leith), but these probably refer to Hemp: Cannabis sativa. 🌱
Read 30 tweets
Andy Arthur 🐣 Threadinburgh 🧵 Profile picture
Dec 29, 2023
Between 1950 and 1973, #Edinburgh built 77 municipal, multi-storey housing blocks (of 7 storeys or more), containing 6,084 flats across 968 storeys. So as promised, I've gone and made a spreadsheet inventory of them all. Let's have a look at them chronologically 🧵👇 Screenshot - spreadsheet of Edinburgh's multi-storey municipal housing blocks.
1950-51 saw the first such building - the 8 storey Westfield Court with 88 flats (and a nursery on the roof!) Built by local builders Hepburn Bros, it was heavily inspired by London's Kensal House by Maxwell Fry. It was a bit of a 1-off though and is rather unique in the city. Westfield Court
There then followed a series of experimental mid-rise blocks, variations on a theme, as a rather conservative local administration (headed by the Progressive Party) tried to work out what it wanted to do regards high-rise housing post-war.
Read 45 tweets

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