page_title: History of Edinburgh
section_title: 18th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of Edinburgh / 18th century
caption_attribution_description: English: August, around what PUBLIC WORKS I see Lo! Stately streets, Lo! Squares that court the breeze See! Long canals and deepened rivers join Each part with each, and with the encircling Main The whole enlivened Isle. (lines from James Thomson's poem 'Liberty' engraved on Craig's original plan for Edinburgh's New Town) Craig's original, imaginative but impractical conception was for the street plan to resemble the Union Flag with diagonal streets radiating from the centre. This was subsequently modified in favour of three parallel main streets running in a straight line between terminating squares. In the painting he is seen with a further modification which envisaged a circus as the central focus, but this was not adopted. The plan for a canal skirted by promenades in place of the drained valley of the Nor Loch was abandoned.
context_page_description: The area around modern-day Edinburgh has been inhabited for thousands of years. Its origins as a settlement can be traced to the early Middle Ages when a hillfort was established in the area, most likely on the Castle Rock. From the seventh to the tenth centuries it was part of the Anglian Kingdom of Northumbria, becoming thereafter a royal residence of the Scottish kings. The town that developed next to the stronghold was established by royal charter in the early 12th century, and by the middle of the 14th century was being described as the capital of Scotland. The area known as the New Town was added from the second half of the 18th century onwards. Edinburgh was Scotland's largest city until Glasgow outgrew it in the first two decades of the 19th century. Following Scottish devolution in the very late 20th century, Scotland's Parliament was established in Edinburgh.
context_section_description: By the first half of the 18th century, rising prosperity was evidenced by the growth of the Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland and British Linen Bank, all based in the city. However Edinburgh was one of the most densely populated, overcrowded and insanitary towns in the whole of Europe. Daniel Defoe's remark was typical of many English visitors, "... though many cities have more people in them, yet, I believe, this may be said with truth, that in no city in the world [do] so many people live in so little room as at Edinburgh".
  A striking characteristic of Edinburgh society in the 18th century, often remarked upon by visitors, was the close proximity and social interaction of the various social classes. Tradesmen and professionals shared the same buildings.
  In the flats of the lofty houses in wynds or facing the High Street the populace dwelt, who reached their various lodgings by the steep and narrow 'scale' staircases [stair-towers] which were really upright streets. On the same building lived families of all grades and classes, each in its flat in the same stair—the sweep and caddie in the cellars, poor mechanics in the garrets, while in the intermediate stories might live a noble, a lord of session, a doctor or city minister, a dowager countess, or writer; higher up, over their heads, lived shopkeepers, dancing masters or clerks.
  One historian has ventured to suggest that Edinburgh's living arrangements may themselves have played a part in engendering the spirit of social inquiry associated with the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment: "Its tall lands (tenements) housed a cross-section of the entire society, nobles, judges and caddies rubbing shoulders with each other on the common stair. A man of inquiring mind could not live in old Edinburgh without becoming a sociologist of sorts."
  During the Jacobite rising of 1745, Edinburgh was briefly occupied by the Jacobite "Highland Army" before its march into England. After its eventual defeat at Culloden, there followed a period of reprisals and pacification, largely directed at the rebellious clans. In Edinburgh, the Town Council, keen to emulate Georgian London, stimulate prosperity and re-affirm its belief in the Union, initiated city improvements and expansion north and south of the castle.
  Although the idea of a northwards expansion had been first mooted around 1680, during the Duke of York's residence at Holyrood, the immediate catalyst for change was a decision by the Convention of Royal Burghs in 1752 to propose improvements to the capital for the benefit of commerce. The Convention issued a pamphlet entitled Proposals for carrying on certain Public Works in the City of Edinburgh, believed to have been authored by the classical scholar Sir Gilbert Elliot and heavily influenced by the ideas of Lord Provost George Drummond.  Elliot described the existing town as follows,
  Placed upon a ridge of a hill, it admits but of one good street, running from east to west, and even this is tolerably accessible only from one quarter. The narrow lanes leading to the north and south, by reason of their steepness, narrowness and dirtiness, can only be considered as so many unavoidable nuisances. Confined by the small compass of the walls, and the narrow limits of the royalty, which scarcely extends beyond the walls, the houses stand more crowded than in any other town in Europe, and are built to a height that is almost incredible.
  The proposals for improvement envisaged the building of a new Exchange for merchants (now the City Chambers), new law courts and an advocates' library, expansion north and southwards, and the draining of the Nor Loch. As the New Town to the north took shape, the Town Council expressed its loyalty to the Union and the Hanoverian monarch George III in its choice of street names, for example, Rose Street and Thistle Street, and for the royal family: George Street, Queen Street, Hanover Street, Frederick Street and Princes Street (in honour of George's two sons).
   The profession of architect flourished, as did the prestige of builders, engineers, and 
caption: James Craig, the young architect who won the competition to design a plan for the New Town. Portrait by David Allan
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