There was for many years a Steptoe-like institution in Fountainbridge known by the name Asa Wass & Son.
Asa is a biblical Hebrew name, Wass an ancient Anglo-Norman name.
The Asa Wass that registered the company died in 1898 and is buried in Dean cemetery. Although rather like the gag in Steptoe & Son, he was of a long line of Asa Wasses, so might have actually been the "& Son" painted on the gate.
*His* son was Thomas H. Wass
The 1881 census shows only 12 Wasses in Scotland, all in Midlothian. A northern outpost of a name most common in the East Midlands
The latest census that's online shows little change, except the Scottish Wasses are up to 16 and have all moved north into the Grampians!
The "Mapping Jewish life in Edinburgh" publication by the The Research Network in
Jewish Studies at Edinburgh University lists the Wasses as Jewish. Asa Wass and his family are buried under a Celtic cross but I suppose that might just be fashion!
Unlike the Steptoes though, the Wasses didn't live in their own filth in the yard, they lived a few streets away in quite some style
The big flats at 17 Leamington Terrace commands £4-500k these days, and even the generously sized 1 beds at 22 Viewforth and will set you back about £300k!
Asa Wass left an estate worth about £160k i ln today's money when he died (thanks @missyclaren ). Clearly good money to be made then in rags, skins, bones and metal scrap
Edinburgh had a big glue & gelatine industry nearby at Cox's in Gorgie, and both the Esk and Water of Leith supported a big paper industry who made use of linen rags in their process
The Wass yard was down a pend at 161 Fountainbridge. The box marked W.M. is their weighing machine
The Wass yard ceased trading and was abandoned in the early 1960s, and was a haunt for local children to play in. The whole area was quite run down and was swept away in the early 1970s when Scottish & Newcastle relocated the Fountain Brewery there (from over the road)
And here is the Wass nag and cart in 1925. I wonder if that's Thomas Wass? (pic from Edinburgh Collected)
And here is how an old Edinburgh tongue-twister goes;
"Is he as he always is?
Or is he as he was?"
(Source = edinphoto.org.uk/1_edin/1_edinb…)
Been flicking through the Edinburgh & Leith Post Office directories.
1861 - No Wasses recorded*
* = bare in mind you had to add yourself to the directory in them days, so all it might mean is that a business is not well established, or not notable enough to need listing.
1863 - Asa Wass, woolen rag merchant, 4 St. Leonard Street (block demolised in the 1960s)
1871 - Asa Wass, woollen rag merchant, 63 Fountainbridge. A tenement was later built here, ground floor now part of a Costa Coffee
Asa Wass himself died in 1898.
1901 - Asa Wass & Son, rag, skin & metal merchant, 161 Fountainbridge. Metal yard, Gilmore Park.
Thomas H. Wass, 6 Merchiston Grove.
Mrs. Asa Wass (Hannah Hirst), 11 Morningside Park (she moved here I think on the death of Asa and died in 1911)
By 1941, Asa Wass & Son now occupies 161, 169 and 177 Fountainbridge, tel. 21544.
Thomas H. Wass is resident at 35 Dovecot Road, Corstorphine, tel. 66048
By this time, Asa Wass & Son. are the only bone merchants "in the book" in Edinburgh. The are also listed under rag merchants and metal merchants and have taken out a not insubstantial advert in the directory.
Asa, Hannah and Thomas Wass all clearly lived long and relatively prosperous lives. That's tinged with sadness though as the family gravestone records daughters (sisters to Thomas); Clara Wass who died age 9 in 1876 and Judith Ann Ferguson (nee Wass) who died aged 29 in 1891
This just in. I asked my Dad (who grew up in Gorgie/Dalry/Fountainbridge in the 1950s/60s), and the local pronunciation of the name was "Azzy Wozz" cc @LilyMWrites
Thanks to @oldscotbooks for amazing digging on John Arthur Wass.
✅admitted to Crichton 17/6/90, discharged recovered on 30/4/92 (NRS MC7/7)
✅admitted to Abderdeen Royal Asylum 31/7/95 (NRS MC7/8)
✅transferred to Dundee on 10/1/99 (NRS MC7/9), escaping 10 months later.
John Arthur Wass was a private patient (i.e. he or his family were wealthy enough to pay), and was suffering from "moral insanity" according to his Notice of Admission to Dundee in 1899. (NRS MC2/478)
And in 1901, John Arthur Wass emigrates to the US, where he settles down, marries and becomes a poultryman, in Monmouth, New Jersey
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.
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. ⛵️🧵👇
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
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
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
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!
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 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
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"
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.
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. 🌱
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 🧵👇
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.
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.