Search
1000 results for “keepers”
-
Keeper Security Government Cloud is now GovRAMP Authorized at the High Impact Level. This authorization enables state, local and educational (SLED) organizations to secure high-impact, non-classified systems and data with Keeper’s zero-trust, zero-knowledge privileged access management platform.
-
Keeper Security Government Cloud is now GovRAMP Authorized at the High Impact Level. This authorization enables state, local and educational (SLED) organizations to secure high-impact, non-classified systems and data with Keeper’s zero-trust, zero-knowledge privileged access management platform.
-
Congratulations on the National Libray of Spain (BNE) becoming the latest Keeper in the Keepers Registry! This is fantastic news for all journals and books archiving a copy of their published work in the BNE
#Keepersregistry #digitalpreservation #scholcomm #scholarlypublishing #ISSN
-
Congratulations on the National Libray of Spain (BNE) becoming the latest Keeper in the Keepers Registry! This is fantastic news for all journals and books archiving a copy of their published work in the BNE
#Keepersregistry #digitalpreservation #scholcomm #scholarlypublishing #ISSN
-
Morning Folks. Things are about to get real busy... between #GuildWars2 expansion drop today, #PathOfExile league launch on Friday, and still trying to do daily content in #DestinyRising... combined with my big dumb garage project...
Trying to prep for the weekend and finish everything I need to finish before then.
https://aggronaut.com/2025/10/28/heys-for-days/
#ARPG #MMO #MMORPG #VideoGames #Games #Gaming #GW2 #Destiny #KeepersOfTheFlame
-
Certain librarians are guardians of Ancient Knowledge, and asking one of them for information - any information - will ensure you've stepped onto the right path in your quest.
-
Certain librarians are guardians of Ancient Knowledge, and asking one of them for information - any information - will ensure you've stepped onto the right path in your quest.
-
Certain librarians are guardians of Ancient Knowledge, and asking one of them for information - any information - will ensure you've stepped onto the right path in your quest.
-
-
-
-
-
You may not think about #Tim #Dunn.
Indeed, unless you’re a close observer of Texas politics, it’s likely you haven’t heard of him.
But Dunn thinks a lot about you.For two decades he has been quietly, methodically, and patiently building a political machine that has pushed Texas forcefully to the right, sending more and more members of the centrist wing of the Republican Party into exile.
A 68-year-old #oil #billionaire, Dunn seeks to transform Texas into something resembling a #theocracy.
👉If you ever wonder why state laws and policies are more radical than most Texans would prefer, the answer has a lot to do with Dunn and his #checkbook.If you question why Texas’s elected officials no longer represent the majority of Texans’ views, the reason can be traced to the tactics employed by Dunn and the many organizations and politicians he funds and influences.
He has built his own caucus within the Legislature that is financially beholden to him.
And despite his Sunday school pleas for comity, Dunn has deepened Texas’s political divisions:
there are the Democrats and what remains of the mainstream conservative Republican Party.
And then there are Dunn and his allies.For Dunn, politics, work, and religion all run together.
“I have very deliberately unsegmented my life,” he said in 2022 on a podcast hosted by Ken Harrison, the chair of #Promise #Keepers, a national evangelical group for men.
“I don’t have one approach in business and another approach in ministry and another approach in church . . . I work for God, and God has given me a bunch of jobs to do.”
Dunn directs that work from the center of a hive of his own creation, surrounded by politicians and pastors, fellow oil billionaires, and political consultants, all of whom are carrying out his vision.
He still has a bee on a string—except these days, that bee is the state of Texas.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/billionaire-tim-dunn-runs-texas/ -
One thing I love about #Coins is the range of things you can learn about the world. At times, they can be keepers of knowledge which might otherwise be lost. This week's E-Sylum has an article about the extinct plant silphium on coins: https://www.coinbooks.org/v29/esylum_v29n17.html#article20
Used for contraception and abortion, medicine, food seasoning, perfume and as a livestock improver, its special properties made this herb one of the most precious commodities in Graeco-Roman antiquity.
Then, one day, it went extinct.
I'm not 100% sure on the exact coin, but there are a few picturing the plant: https://en.numista.com/catalogue/index.php?r=silphium
#Numismatics #CoinCollecting #AncientCoins #History #Histodons @numismatics @histodons
-
One thing I love about #Coins is the range of things you can learn about the world. At times, they can be keepers of knowledge which might otherwise be lost. This week's E-Sylum has an article about the extinct plant silphium on coins: https://www.coinbooks.org/v29/esylum_v29n17.html#article20
Used for contraception and abortion, medicine, food seasoning, perfume and as a livestock improver, its special properties made this herb one of the most precious commodities in Graeco-Roman antiquity.
Then, one day, it went extinct.
I'm not 100% sure on the exact coin, but there are a few picturing the plant: https://en.numista.com/catalogue/index.php?r=silphium
#Numismatics #CoinCollecting #AncientCoins #History #Histodons @numismatics @histodons
-
One thing I love about #Coins is the range of things you can learn about the world. At times, they can be keepers of knowledge which might otherwise be lost. This week's E-Sylum has an article about the extinct plant silphium on coins: https://www.coinbooks.org/v29/esylum_v29n17.html#article20
Used for contraception and abortion, medicine, food seasoning, perfume and as a livestock improver, its special properties made this herb one of the most precious commodities in Graeco-Roman antiquity.
Then, one day, it went extinct.
I'm not 100% sure on the exact coin, but there are a few picturing the plant: https://en.numista.com/catalogue/index.php?r=silphium
#Numismatics #CoinCollecting #AncientCoins #History #Histodons @numismatics @histodons
-
One thing I love about #Coins is the range of things you can learn about the world. At times, they can be keepers of knowledge which might otherwise be lost. This week's E-Sylum has an article about the extinct plant silphium on coins: https://www.coinbooks.org/v29/esylum_v29n17.html#article20
Used for contraception and abortion, medicine, food seasoning, perfume and as a livestock improver, its special properties made this herb one of the most precious commodities in Graeco-Roman antiquity.
Then, one day, it went extinct.
I'm not 100% sure on the exact coin, but there are a few picturing the plant: https://en.numista.com/catalogue/index.php?r=silphium
#Numismatics #CoinCollecting #AncientCoins #History #Histodons @numismatics @histodons
-
One thing I love about #Coins is the range of things you can learn about the world. At times, they can be keepers of knowledge which might otherwise be lost. This week's E-Sylum has an article about the extinct plant silphium on coins: https://www.coinbooks.org/v29/esylum_v29n17.html#article20
Used for contraception and abortion, medicine, food seasoning, perfume and as a livestock improver, its special properties made this herb one of the most precious commodities in Graeco-Roman antiquity.
Then, one day, it went extinct.
I'm not 100% sure on the exact coin, but there are a few picturing the plant: https://en.numista.com/catalogue/index.php?r=silphium
#Numismatics #CoinCollecting #AncientCoins #History #Histodons @numismatics @histodons
-
For Supraman: in the new James Gunn transition of Marvel comics Superman movie.
#Tollkeeperslegend: $100,000 + 100,000
#abctollstotalbalance: $200,000 one time payment clears account for 12 months.
Vig: $20,000 per Friday
Thank you very much,
THE Toll Keepers Legend -Board of Directors
https://open.spotify.com/track/4vxsUf8yzYEIHeY45TUHfm?si=1uZz04a-R-2uYtVqGYappg
-
Shrinking to its marrow, the Okefenokee is a dust-choked cage. 15,000 gators swarm the deep veins or burrow into the peat to survive this "Exceptional Drought". They’re 16" late on rain and waiting in the dark. The Keepers are growling for the sky to break. #SwampSunday #Okefenokee #Georgia #Nature
-
The thread about Leith shipping owners; industrial whaling, the penguins of Edinburgh Zoo and “Homes for Heroes”
Today’s auction house artefact is a painting of the handsome steam & sail ship SS Windsor of Leith off of Flushing in 1874 by Carl Ludovig Weyts (1828-1875), a Dutch artist. She carries the house flag of George Gibson & Co., a big name in Leith shipping that principally served the Low Countries trade. The Windsor was initially employed on the Leith to Antwerp run and was last noted in newspapers in 1899 when she landed the crew of a French hospital ship, St. Paul, who had been rescued off of Iceland after their ship ran aground and had worked their passage back to Leith.
Windsor of Leith, Capt T. Fulton, Passing Flushing, 1874George Gibson & Co. was set up by the man of that name in 1820, he had previously been the general manager of the Leith, Hamburg & Rotterdam Shipping Co. His company acquired its first steamer, the Balmoral, in 1850.
An 1886 advert for Gibsons lists nine steam ships in service. Alongside Windsor there was the Abbotsford, Amulet, Anglia, Kinghorn, Mascotte, Osborne, Talisman and Woodstock all serving Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Ghent and Dunkirk from Leith. The naming of their vessels borrowed from the lore of Sit Walter Scott (this was a common fad at the time in Scotland) and their advertising played heavily on links to their principal destinations in the Low Countries, the illustration below shoing the flags of Belgium and Holland and people in national costume. .As late as 1964 the company was still advertising weekly sailings to Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Antwerp and Dunkirk from Leith.
George Gibson & Co. advertThere is an example of the George Gibson house flag in the collection of the National Maritime Museum, the colours below have darkened and the lower bar of the flag was blue as it was based on the national flag of the Netherlands.
House Flag of George Gibson & Co., 1950s, © National Maritime MuseumGibsons were formed into a limited company in 1916 and on the death in 1920 of the last family owner of Gibsons, a joint parent company was formed, Gibson Rankine Line, with the interests of a number of other Scottish commercial shipping companies; J. T. Salvesen & Co. of Grangemouth, James Rankine & Sons of Glasgow and P. S. Nicoll of Dundee. This formalised a cooperation agreement for advertisement of services and sharing of traffic between these companies that had been in place since 1895. In turn, Gibson Rankine was acquired by the Anchor Line conglomerate in 1972 and had ceased to exist as a distinct subsidiary by 1976.
J. T. Salvesen of Grangemouth was founded in that port in 1843 by Johan Theodor Salvesen, the third son of the Norwegian shipmaster Thomas Salvesen (1787-1853) of Kristiansand. Johan Theodor first founded a business in Leith with a local partner, George Vair Turnbull, in 1846 as Salvesen & Turnbull. The business imported timber for pit props and railway sleepers and grain for distilling from Norway, sending coal and iron back from Scotland in return. They also dealt in Norwegian salted herring, a trade that returned healthy profits.
J. T. Salvesen house flagJohan Theodor’s younger brother, Salve Christian (known as Christian), was brought over from Norway to help in this business and would take over in Leith, his elder brother running the Grangemouth business. The house flag was a red field with a white-bordered blue diamond in its centre and a white “S” centred within that. Johan Theodore died in 1865, the Grangemoth company passing on to his sons. Christian left the partnership with Turnbull in 1872 and set up on his own in Leith as Christian Salvesen & Co., focussing on trade between mines he owned in Norway and Leith, via Stavanger. His house flag was a Norwegian cross set in a diamond in the middle of a white field.
Christian Salvesen house flagIn 1883, Christian delegated control of the company to his eldest sons Edward T. and Theodore. By the turn of the 20th century the company was sailing between Leith and many Baltic and Scandinavian ports, to as far east as Malta and Egypt. They had also become heavily involved in supplying the North Atlantic and Arctic whaling stations in Greenland, Iceland and the Faroes. In 1904 they moved directly into whaling, setting up a shore base at Olnafirth in the Shetland Islands. The company’s whalers would travel up to 200 miles into the Atlantic in the hunt for whales, which they continued to do until 1929.
Processing a whale carcass at Olnafirth. © Shetland Museum & ArchivesA depression in the global shipping industry early in the 20th century saw whaling become an increasingly important part of the business, and its profits kept the company as a whole going. In 1907 they ventured into the South Atlantic whaling by setting up a station in the Falkland Islands, In 1909 a subsidiary of the company, the South Georgia Company, founded the port of Leith Harbour in South Georgia as a station closer to the whaling waters. It would become the largest of the seven such stations in South Georgia and Salvesens would eventually go on to become the single largest whaling company in the world.
Some of the Salvesen fleet at Leith Harbour, South Georgia. The factory ship Southern Opal is closest, with at least 8 whale catchers behind. © Edinburgh City LibrariesStripping whale carcasses at Leith Harbour, with the hut encampment of the “town” behind. CC-by-NC-SA 2.0, Edinburgh University Centre for Research CollectionsSalve Christian Salvesen died in 1911. Up until 1914 the company’s funnels had been painted red, white and black stripes, but this proved to be too close to the colours of the Imperial German flag. When Salvesen’s steamer Glitra was sunk 14 miles off of Stavanger in October of that year by a U-boat they switched to the red, white and blue of the Norwegian flag. These new colours can be seen below on the preserved whale catcher Southern Actor, now a museum ship in Sandefjord, Norway.
Southern Actor in 2014, the worlds last surviving, functional steam whaler. CC Tore Sætre, @toresetrephotoAfter WW1, Salvesens purchased the former Royal Mail steamer Carmarthenshire and had her converted into a whaling factory ship – the Sourabaya – with a stern ramp up which carcasses could be hauled, to be disassembled and processed on board. The factory ships could accompany the whale catchers directly to the hunting grounds and made the whole process more efficient; the whalers had shorter journeys back and forth to the factory ship rather than always back to the shore base, and the partially processed whales could be transshipped to the shore base for final processing and packing. The Sourabaya was used as a cargo ship during WW2 and was sunk by a German U-boat in the middle of the Atlantic in 1942.
The Sourabaya, Salvesen’s first stern ramp factory ship. PD, source Vestfold Fylkesmuseum Digitalt bildearkivSalvesens shipping losses during WW2 were particularly heavy for the size of the company. Seven of their ten tramp steamers were sunk; they lost sixteen from their fleet in total, from the 876 ton Glenfarg up to the 12,000 ton factory ship Salvestria. The Salvestria was lost within sight of Leith, bringing a cargo of processed whale blubber all the way from the South Atlantic; she hit a German mine off of Inchkeith in July 1940 and went down with ten of her crew; 5 British and 5 Norwegian. Nine of the company’s whale catchers that had been requisitioned for naval service would also be sunk. After the war, Salvesens began to made good their war losses and return to the South Atlantic whaling. They started by buying up war surplus naval corvettes – a type of vessel built on the hull of a commercial whale catcher and which was easily converted into one.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/scottishmaritimemuseum/48126941931/
Whale catchers were small vessels and did exactly what it said on their tin; they caught up with the whales and caught them by harpoon. They had no facilities for processing the carcasses, which were towed to the factory ships or places onshore like Leith Harbour. The company’s post-war factory ships were enormous, the Southern Venturer was one of two 15,000-ton monsters complete with helicopter, landing pad and hangar. These were built in 1945. We can now look back on this industrial whaling with the horror it deserves, but this was a big and profitable business in depressed economics of post-war Britain.
Southern Venturer, from the Salvesen Archive and Edinburgh University. Note the whale catchers, one alongside and the other in the distance, and the whale carcass being towed into the ship through the stern hatch.But the company faced a problem of its own making; the extreme post-war modernisation of its whaling fleet was producing ever-diminishing returns; as they had become more efficient, the whale populations were ever more reduced. In turn, the whalers had to hunt further and further for longer and longer to try and find whales and it was ceasing to be a profitable venture. Salvesens now had an about turn in attitude and became a proponent of whale conservation; their whaling assets were sold in 1963 and the company’s “southern capital” at Leith Harbour was abandoned by 1965.
The rusty remains of Leith Harbour, South Georgia in 2007. PD – MarkabqThe company was not without a replacement income stream for whaling however, they had been hedging their bets and had also dipped their toes into the Atlantic whitefish business. Again they turned to industrialisation and would revolutionise the industry in the early 1950s when they developed the first stern trawler freezer factory ships. These both trawled for the fish and also processed and packaged it for sale and kept it frozen so that they could be at sea for much longer periods. The first of these vessels was Fairtry I of 1952 and was the brainchild of Sir Dennis Burney who had approached Salvesens in 1948 with the idea. He had been experimenting with the concept and Salvesens quickly saw the potential, buying both his prototype trawler Fairfree and his business. Their experience in factory whaling ships and knowledge of the Nordic demand for fresh white fish made this a common sense business decision.
The revolutionary Fairtry I, built in Aberdeen for Salvesens in 1952But once again, the company’s heavy technological investment started to produce diminishing returns. As the whales had disappeared so too did the once seemingly infinite shoals of Atlantic cod and haddock. With trawling now waning too, the company survived once again through reinvention and diversification. They moved away from traditional coastal shipping and focussed themselves in specific sectors such as bulk carriers, managing colliers for the Central Electricity Generation Board and in the North Sea oil offshore service industry. On land they moved into containerised distribution, frozen food and storage – all head-quartered in Leith and Edinburgh. I can clearly recall their lorries around town when I was young, carrying the house flag once sported by the company’s ships.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/88738529@N02/16044987670/
In 1986 the company listed itself as Christian Salvesen PLC on the London Stock Exchange and by 1989 took the decision to exit the shipping business entirely to concentrate on logistics and distribution. In 1997 it left its spiritual home Bernard Street in Leith behind for the East Midlands and Northampton. They did at least leave their flagpoles behind! This building at one time also co-housed the Norwegian Consulate.
Christian Salvesen’s former HQ on Bernard Street in LeithSalvesens are now long gone from Edinburgh and Leith but they have left us behind a few reminders of their presence. The famous penguins of Edinburgh Zoo for instance were first brought back from South Georgia by Salvesen’s ships alongside 4 seals. They were captured by the Coronda in 1913 and arrived in Edinburgh on Sunday 25th January 1914.
Edinburgh Zoo King Penguins, CC-by-SA 3.0 SeanMackOn the banks of the sterile river basin of the Water of Leith, now cut off from the sea and shipping, a Salvesen’s harpoon gun is a bit of a curiosity and a reminder of Leith’s dubious role at the forefront of the 20th century whaling industry.
A whaling harpoon gun from a Salvesen’s ship, now a curious heritage objet on the banks of the sterile river basin of Leith CC-by-SA 3.0 Kim TraynorThe Salvesen family lost a number of sons and nephews in WW1 and after the war Edward T. Salvesen – by now Lord Salvesen – became involved in the Scottish Veterans Garden City movement; a scheme to build “Homes for Heroes“. In Trinity in Leith the SVGCA built a small housing scheme for injured ex-servicemen named Earl Haig Gardens (no comment on the appropriateness of that name.) on land that had been gifted by the Salvesen family, formerly part of the gardens of Salve Christian’s house of Mayfield . Plaques over the doors of some of the cottages commemorate the lost Salvesen men and relatives of some of the other benefactors.
Earl Haig Gardens2nd Lt. Eric Thomas Smervell Salvesen, died 23 April 19172nd Lt. James Harvey Bryson, died 20th October 1918Major James Norman Henderson, died 28th June 1915Earl Haig Gardens and memorial tabletsAt Kaimes Crossroads the Edinburgh Ladies Committee of the SVGCA, led by Lady Salvesen, built a row of neat modern cottage houses for disabled ex-servicemen, with ELC plaques on the pediments.
SVGCA cottages at Kaimes CrossroadsLord Salvesen died in 1942 but his family remained involved in the SVGCA. After WW2 they again helped finance the construction of SVGCA ex-servicemen’s housing, this time in Muirhouse. Salvesen Gardens is a pleasant little cottage housing scheme again laid out along Garden City sorts of lines. If you stroll around you will find commemorative or benefactory plaques by most doors.
Salvesen Gardens at Muirhouse, note the commemorative plaques.And next to Salvesen Crescent are the former Lighthouse keepers cottages for the Forth shore station, built in 1951 for the Northern Lighthouse Board. These housed the keepers and their families who served the lights of Bass Rock, Bell Rock, Inchkeith, Fidra and the Isle of May. As the lights became automated these were later used as retirement housing for ex-Lighthouse keepers before being gradually sold into private ownership. This is really one of the most charming little bits of social housing Edinburgh has to offer. Small but perfectly formed and with a style that evokes the NLB‘s lighthouse keepers cottage style.
Salvesen Crescent, former Lighthouse keeper’s family housingNote to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.Explore Threadinburgh by map:
Travelers' Map is loading...
If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.
NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret -
Leith’s first streetlamps: the thread about that time the Russian Navy made the town dark for a week
This thread was originally written and published in August 2019
I spent the evening trawling through old engravings of Leith, and think I’ve found what I was looking for. The oldest picture (that I can find) showing street lamps in Leith! These five oil lamps are shown in the vicinity of the King’s Wark on the Shore, in a 1790 print by Dominic Serres.
Leith Pier and Harbour, Dominic Serres, 1790 © Edinburgh City LibrariesThis search was stimulated by a conversation which enlightened me with a curious tale that involved the Leith streetlamps in days of yore. It got me thinking, what were the earliest streetlamps? According to “Leith Through Time” by Jack Gillon and Fraser Parkinson, there is a description of Leith Walk having 40 lamps in 1799 after its upgrade to a road for carriages following the North Bridge being opened and the primary horse and carriage route moving from the Easter Road to Leith Walk.
The Edinburgh World Heritage foundation commissioned an excellent report on the old Edinburgh streetlamps. Although it is principally concerned with the World Heritage area of the Old and New Towns, we can at least get the an idea of the particulars of what early lamps in Leith would have been like from it. A contemporary colour image of a London lamp lighter is shown with his assistant in 1808. The lamp is a glass globe, with a ventilated, wind-proofed cowl. Suspended in the globe is the lamp itself, a small glass dish of oil with a floating disc, with basic lenses from crown glass “bullseyes”. The lamplighter is passing the assistant the oil dish to refill from his jug.
Lamplighter and assistant, 1808, from “Costume of Great Britain” by W. H. Pyne. © The Board of Trustees of the Science MuseumHere’s a similar Georgian lamp frame on Leith Walk today, the crosspiece under the holder for the globe was for the leerie (lamplighter) to prop his ladder up on. When you see these old lamp frames with a ring to hold a glass lamp globe and no source up the centre for gas or electricity, you can be sure these are for old oil lamps. These lamps burned oil, specifically what was known as “train oil”. Which is odd as trains as we think of them now weren’t a thing in the late 18th century; that’s because it’s a corruption of the Dutch traan, a word for fish oil (levertraan in Dutch is cod liver oil, in German it is lebertran). However this is no oil from a fish, specifically it’s oil from a whale!
Leith walk oil lamp frameLeerie, leerie, light the lamps, Lang legs and short shanks. Tak’ a stick and break his back, And send him through the Nor’gate!
An old Scottish childrens’ rhyme, recorded by Robert Chambers in 1826An 1820 minute of Edinburgh’s lighting committee explains; “…the Contractor shall furnish the lamps with a sufficient quantity of the best Greenland whale oil and two wicks of sixteen threads of the best Oxford cotton“. The best oil was Grade 1, from the top of the cask. Edinburgh and Leith had a ready local source of such oil from the Leith whale fleet, which was active around the late 18th and early 19th century, but apparently the city sourced it’s municipal lighting oil from Hull.
The city’s lamp contractor was Smith & Company on George Street. The lamps were to be “trimmed daily and the globes to be cleaned at least three times in the week.” Even the finest train oil gave off soot; one of the early lighthouse keepers’ tasks was to polish the soot off of the reflector of the oil lamp (see below). The lamps were to be filled to burn until 3AM, at which point they would burn out and extinguish themselves, although the commission recognised “let the same quantity of oil be put into 2 two lamps and both equally trimmed by the most expert and experienced lamplighters, the one will continue burning from half an hour to an hour longer than the other“
If the name Smith and the association with Georgian lamps is ringing a little bell, that is because Smith was Thomas Smith, the adoptive father of Robert Stevenson – the patriarch of that great Lighthouse-building and lamp and lens-making dynasty. Smith himself was also a builder of some of the first Scottish lighthouses as the chief engineer to the Northern Lighthouse Board and was an early pioneer of lighthouse lamp and lens improvements.
Coincidentally, the Smiths and Stevensons lived at 15 Baxter’s Place, which is the top of the route of Leith Walk, with their works a short walk away at Greenside. So it is perhaps no coincidence this fashionable new stretch of the city got some of his finest street lamps so early. But the reason for this entire thread is less about the lamps themselves, but more because of the curious tale of the week in the winter of 1799 when the Leith street lamps kept going out and leaving the Walk “ever and anon into a more or less eclipsed condition“.
In 1799, Russian warships anchored in Leith Roads off of Inchkeith, part of a squadron from the Baltic Fleet under Vice Admiral Pyotr Khanykov. Britain and Russia were at this time allies in the War of the Second Coalition against revolutionary France and Spain, and the Royal Navy’s North Sea Squadron under Admiral Duncan was co-operating with the Russians on escorting convoys in the North Sea.
The Russian fleet was in a poor state compared to the Royal Navy, and frequently put in to port to repair and seek medical attention; there was an agreement at the time that sick sailors could be brought into Edinburgh for treatment by the Royal Infirmary. The Russian 66 gun man-of-war Iona* under Captain Piavzov arrived in Leith Roads on 19th November from Texel following the failed Anglo-Russian invasion of the Frissian Islands. The newspapers noted she was not fit for sea and she proceeded to put a significant part of her crew ashore with fever and other ailments and buried her dead on Inchkeith.
(* = the contemporary newspaper reference says Jonas, but I am going to assume this was a typo or translation error, as no such ship existed in Russian service, and in Russian I am told that Iona and Jonah are one and the same)
Anglo-Russian naval cooperation, 1799-1807, a painting by Thomas Buttersworth, 1799. © National Maritime MuseumThere appears to have been little in the way of contact or hospitality between the Russians and locals; a contemporary account describes a party rowing out from Leith to the Iona only to be completely ignored by the officers and men of the ship and coming away with a very negative opinion about Russian naval efficiency, decorum and cleanliness. The Anglo-Russian naval cooperation agreement was faltering at this time and Russia would shortly quit the alliance, but before leaving, the Iona allowed parties of men ashore into Edinburgh on the pretext of sight-seeing. Possibly they had more carnal reasons for wanting to be on land…
For the better part of a week that December, the street lamps of Leith Walk would mysteriously go out each night, even though they were cleaned, checked and the oil levels trimmed daily sufficient that they should burn until dawn. It was finally discovered by a night watchman that the Russian sailors staggering home down the Walk from the drinking dens of Edinburgh were climbing the lamp posts, removing and extinguishing lamps and drinking the contents of train oil. Why they should go to this effort is potentially revealed by the reference of a late-Georgian cookbook which tells us that the sailors in question were Kamtschadales. What we would now refer to as Kamchadals; these are the inhabitants of Kamchatka in the far east of Russia, descendants of the indigenous peoples of those parts. To them the train oil was a home comfort; just imagine these sailors, some 10,000 miles sailing from home, utterly homesick, in poor health and morale coming ashore and finding that the street lamps of Leith Walk were full of what they considered to be a fine delicacy. Of course they couldn’t but help themselves!
The thing about unpressurised oil lamps though is that they are a rubbish source of light. The Commissioners, on inspecting their lights, found “the great proportion giving light so very feebly“, so it was hardly surprising that when gas lamps came along there was a rapid switch. Gas (town gas, from coal) arrived in Edinburgh in 1818 when the New Street gas works was opened by the Edinburgh Gas Light Company. You can still find some of their covers embedded in Edinburgh pavements. Leith got its gasworks in 1837, on the corner of Baltic and Constitution Streets. Like New Street, it was the arrival of the railway bringing in coal straight from the Lothian coalfield that had made this possible and not just economical but profitable
Edinburgh Gas Light Co. road cover. A version exists with the letters re-arranged for the later Edinburgh & Leith Gas Commissioners.So next time you’re strolling along some of the Georgian bits of Leith, like Ferry Road, you might look up and think of the time the Russian sailors drank all the lamp oil and left the place in darkness.
Ferry Road oil lamp holderAnd if you’re wanting to go and find even more Georgian oil lamp holders in Leith (and who wouldn’t?) someone’s already identified and catalogued the remaining lot of them in this handy Flickr album.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/historic_streetlights_leith/albums/72157629667895362
Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.Explore Threadinburgh by map:
Travelers' Map is loading...
If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.
NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret -
Bought #Codenames and #Sagrada yesterday.
We played Codenames with friends, and everyone loved it. Really fun game, and we played like 10 times in a row.
Today, me and my wife played Sagrada, and we both enjoyed it.
Two keepers. (Who am I fooling, I haven't sold a game yet 😂) -
The Hemorrh Age
We live now
in the Hemorrh Age,not the age of honest wounds
tended by trembling hands,
not the age of scars
that speak of healing,
but the age of the open vein,
the praised rupture,
the sanctified split.Everything is torn
and taught to remain torn.The old ligaments of neighborliness,
frayed.
The sinews of patience,
snapped.
The small capillaries of mercy
burst one by one
beneath the pressure
of opinion, spectacle, grievance, noise.We are leaking.
Trust runs into the street.
Language pools beneath the door.
Truth is carried away
on a thousand little red channels
no one bothers to close.And everywhere
the merchants of division
move among us
with clean white gloves,
smiling,
holding their polished instruments,
whispering that this incision
is necessary,
that this cut is clarity,
that this tearing apart
is what it means
to be awake.They call hemorrhage conviction.
They call hatred discernment.
They call contempt wisdom.
They call cruelty a kind
of courage.And we, half-dizzy,
half-devout,
watching our common life
soak through the bandages,
mistake the spreading stain
for a flag.Even the holy things
are not spared.Altars become platforms.
Prayer becomes signal.
Prophets are drafted
into factions.
The wounds of the world
are trimmed and displayed
for effect.
Compassion is made to perform
beneath bright lights
until it no longer knows
how to touch a body
without first finding a camera.How strange,
that a people can perish
not by a single blow
but by endless bleeding.
Not by invasion
but by laceration from within.
Not by silence
but by the shriek
of everyone opening
everyone else.We have become
students of severing.
Apprentices of fracture.
Curators of the unsutured.Every difference
a knife.
Every slight
a blade returned.
Every memory
reopened.
Every sorrow
milked for more.No one asks now
how to heal a wound.
Only how to name it,
frame it,
share it,
weaponize it,
keep it wet.And still—
still somewhere beneath
this failing body,
beneath the fevered rhetoric,
beneath the hot blush
of tribal wrath,
some quiet stubborn tissue
tries to knit.A hand reaches.
A voice lowers.
A stranger refuses
the sweet narcotic
of contempt.
Someone binds what they did not tear.
Someone stays near
what others abandoned.
Someone chooses
not victory,
but mending.Perhaps that is how
an age survives itself.Not by denying blood.
Not by pretending
there was never injury.
But by kneeling at last
beside the opened body
and saying:Enough.
Let the wound close.
Let the pressure ease.
Let mercy return
to the smallest vessels.
Let the torn muscle remember
its first design.
Let us become again
something more than our bleeding.For if this is
the Hemorrh Age,
then let there also rise
against it
the tender and stubborn saints
of suturing,the keepers of bandages,
#civicDecay #collectiveTrauma #commonGood #cultureOfContempt #division #HemorrhAge #mediaManipulation #mending #Mercy #neighborliness #outrageCulture #peaceWitness #Poetry #polarization #politicalSpectacle #propheticArt #publicDiscourse #Reconciliation #SocialFragmentation #socialHealing #SpiritualReflection #Tribalism #woundedSociety
the washers of torn flesh,
the enemies of spectacle,
the last believers
that a body
still can heal. -
Xenophobic marches are being held across SA, the #ANC is saying little and doing nothing because they don't want to lose voters, other parties are actively joining in, #ActionSA, #PatrioticAlliance.
This is incredibly dangerous and stupid. South Africa has been looted by rich business men and corrupt state officials, not poor shop keepers and workers. One example, obviously corrupt Minister Sisisi Tolashe is still in her position.
-
The Worst Kind of Freedom
Dediticii of the State, Paroikoi of the Kingdom:
On Christian Nationalism, False Freedom, and the Pilgrim Church
There is a freedom that sings loudly and yet is already in chains.
#AmericanChristianity #captiveChurch #chains #ChristianNationalism #ChurchAndState #CivilReligion #crossAndFlag #dediticii #empireAndGospel #falseFreedom #Idolatry #kingdomOfGod #nationalismAndFaith #paroikoi #pilgrimChurch #politicalReligion #propheticArt #propheticWitness #religiousSymbolism #spiritualBondage #symbolicPhotography
There is a freedom that waves a flag, quotes a verse, demands a prayer in the public square, and calls itself holy. There is a freedom that speaks the name of Jesus with one breath and the language of domination with the next. There is a freedom that insists it is under threat whenever the neighbor is also allowed to breathe, speak, worship, live, vote, belong, or flourish. And that freedom is no freedom at all. It is fear dressed in patriotic robes. It is anxiety holding a Bible. It is the oldest lie of empire baptized in civil religion.
Christian nationalism is built upon that lie.
It says, “We must take the nation back.”
It says, “We must restore Christian order.”
It says, “We must defend our way of life.”
But underneath all of its grand language is a smaller and sadder confession: we do not trust the way of Jesus to be enough unless Caesar kneels beside him. And once the church begins to think that way, it has already bent the knee to another throne.
That is why the old Roman word dediticii has such prophetic force here. In Roman usage, deditio was surrender, and dediticii were those marked by that surrender, those living under the terms of a conquering power; in later Roman legal usage the term could also refer to people whose liberty was degraded, curtailed, a kind of freedom beneath full belonging. What a terrible phrase that is for the church to deserve: not merely conquered, but living in the illusion of liberty while shaped by the chains of empire.
And that is the tragedy of Christian nationalism. It imagines itself strong, but it is surrendered. It imagines itself sovereign, but it is already owned. It imagines itself defending the faith, but it has accepted the terms of a lesser kingdom. It seeks power in the way Rome seeks power, order in the way empires seek order, peace in the way fearful nations seek peace: through threat, hierarchy, exclusion, privilege, and force. It calls this righteousness. It calls this prudence. It calls this realism. But the gospel calls it what it is: temptation.
For every freedom built on another person’s diminishment is already a form of bondage.
If I can only feel secure when someone else is excluded, then I am not secure.
If I can only feel righteous when someone else is silenced, then I am not righteous.
If I can only feel free when someone else is less free, then I am not free.
I am merely protected by a cage large enough to mistake for a kingdom.
This is the bitterest irony of all: those who would limit the freedom of others in the name of preserving their own eventually discover that they, too, have become servants of limitation. They must constantly patrol the borders. They must always be on the lookout for enemies. They must keep watch over books, bodies, ballots, classrooms, pulpits, prayers, and pronouns. They must nourish grievance. They must cultivate suspicion. They must remain forever agitated because domination cannot rest. The soul that clings to supremacy must live in permanent alarm. And so the one who promised freedom becomes the custodian of fear.
That is why this is not merely a political error. It is a spiritual deformation.
Christian nationalism is not simply bad analysis. It is bad discipleship. It is the church forgetting what kind of people it is. It is the church forgetting that Jesus did not seize Rome; Rome seized Jesus. It is the church forgetting that salvation did not come through occupying the governor’s palace, but through faithfulness unto death. It is the church forgetting that Pentecost did not create a purified nation but a multilingual people. It is the church forgetting that the Lord’s Table is not bordered by tribe, race, party, passport, or patriotic myth. It is the church forgetting that Christ rules from a cross before he is confessed in glory.
And when the church forgets these things, it becomes available for conscription.
It can still sing.
It can still preach.
It can still quote scripture.
It can still say “Lord, Lord.”
But it begins to sound less like the Beatitudes and more like a millstone. Less like the prophets and more like the court. Less like the crucified and more like Pilate washing his hands while the machinery of death carries on.
Against all this, the New Testament gives the church another word, a better word: paroikoi. The term carries the sense of strangers, sojourners, resident aliens, people dwelling near but not fully at home in the order around them. In 1 Peter 2:11, believers are addressed in precisely that way, as “foreigners and exiles,” those whose lives in the world are real but not reducible to the world’s claims. And Paul, in Philippians 3:20, gives the church its political center of gravity: “our citizenship is in heaven.”
There is the contrast.
Dediticii are defined by surrender to imperial terms.
Paroikoi are defined by faithful dwelling without ultimate belonging.
Dediticii live under the dictates of the conqueror.
Paroikoi live under the promise of God.
Dediticii accept diminished freedom as though it were normal.
Paroikoi know that their life comes from another commonwealth.
Dediticii are shaped by subjection.
Paroikoi are shaped by pilgrimage.
The church is called to be paroikoi, not dediticii.
The church is called to dwell in the world, bless the world, serve the world, weep with the world, labor for justice in the world, and seek the welfare of the city; but it is never called to worship the city, confuse the city with the kingdom, or surrender its conscience to the rulers of the age. It is called to be near without being possessed. Present without being absorbed. Public without becoming idolatrous. Loving without becoming captive. The church does not need to dominate in order to be faithful. The church needs to remember who it is.
And who is it?
It is a baptized people, not a blood-and-soil people.
It is a Eucharistic people, not a nationalist people.
It is a Pentecost people, not a monocultural people.
It is a cruciform people, not a triumphalist people.
It is a resurrection people, not a fear-governed people.
That is why Christian nationalism is so dangerous. It does not merely propose a flawed strategy. It offers the church a false identity. It tells Christians they are landowners of a sacred nation rather than pilgrims of a holy kingdom. It tells them they are guardians of civilization rather than witnesses to Christ. It tells them their task is to possess the machinery of rule rather than embody the mercy of God. It tells them the neighbor’s difference is a threat rather than an occasion for love. It tells them anxiety is wisdom. It tells them domination is stewardship. It tells them privilege is providence.
And many believe it because it flatters the flesh.
It flatters the longing to be secure without sacrifice.
It flatters the longing to be righteous without repentance.
It flatters the longing to be powerful without being crucified.
It flatters the longing to call coercion conviction and call fear discernment.
But Christ does not flatter the flesh. Christ calls the church to die.
To die to supremacy.
To die to tribal vanity.
To die to the dream of holy violence.
To die to the seduction of being chaplain to empire.
To die to every flag that asks for what belongs only to God.
The church must hear this plainly: when it reaches for power by limiting the lives of others, it does not become more itself. It becomes less. When it seeks freedom through exclusion, it does not enlarge liberty. It redistributes bondage. When it blesses structures that narrow the humanity of the neighbor, it nails its own soul to those same structures. That is the judgment hidden inside the word dediticii: those who think they have secured their place have, in truth, surrendered themselves to a power that can only give them the worst kind of freedom.
But the gospel still offers another way.
Be paroikoi.
Be pilgrims.
Be resident aliens of grace.
Be people whose identity papers are issued in heaven.
Be people who do not need Caesar to certify the lordship of Christ.
Be people free enough to bless without ruling, to serve without controlling, to witness without seizing, to love without fearing.
For our citizenship is in heaven.
And because our citizenship is in heaven, we are finally free on earth: free to tell the truth, free to defend the vulnerable, free to refuse idols, free to reject every gospel of blood and soil, free to stand with those whose liberty is threatened, free to be neither conquerors nor cowards.
The church does not need a Christian nation.
The church needs Christian faithfulness.
The church does not need the illusion of greatness.
The church needs the courage of holiness.
The church does not need to become the soul of the state.
The church must become again the body of Christ.
So let the nations rage. Let the parties boast. Let the demagogues preach their frightened liturgies of invasion, purity, and control. The church must not join their choir. The church must remember its name.
Not dediticii of the state.
But paroikoi of the kingdom.
Not surrendered to empire.
But dwelling in hope.
Not the keepers of a lesser freedom.
But the witnesses of the all-encompassing liberation of Christ. -
US-Justizministerium will Rechtsextreme freisprechen lassen!
Im Zuge des von Donald Trump initiierten Sturms auf das Capitol 2021, wurden zahlreiche Rechtsextreme der Gruppierungen Proud Boys und Oath Keepers strafrechtlich verurteilt.
US-Präsiden Trump hatte sie nach Amtsantritt 2025 begnadigt- aber damit gelten sie weiterhin als „verurteilt“. Nun fordert das Justizministerium in Berufungsanträgen die Aufhebung der Verurteilungen, das dies „in the interests of justice“, d.h. im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit, sei.
Während also alles was nach Antifaschismus, nach Links oder auch Queer aussieht verfolgt, verleumdet, beschimpft oder gar als Terrorismus verfolgt wird, werden Rechtsextreme von der US-Regierung erst begnadigt und dann hofiert.
Bericht aus „The Guardian“
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/14/january-6-convictions-overturn-doj-proud-boys-oath-keepersBerufungsantrag als PDF:
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cadc.39855/gov.uscourts.cadc.39855.01208840665.0.pdf#uspol #usgov #trump #oath #oathkeepers #proud #proudboys #uspresident #potus #rightwing #rechtsextrem #rechtsextremismus #antifa #antifaschismus #doj #usdoj #deutschland #mittwoch #theguardian #capitol #conspiracy #siege #queer #antifacsist
