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621.800 Euro für eine 18kWp Anlage.
621.800 Euro für 48 Solarmodule mit einer Leistung von je 380 WattDie spinnen, die #Schweizer
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Asus Zenbook 14 (UX3405CA) is a 2.8 pound laptop with a 14 inch OLED display and an Intel 200H processor
The new Asus Zenbook 14 (UX3405CA) is a 14 inch thin and light laptop that measures less than 0.6 inches thick and weighs 2.82 pounds. But it has a reasonably large 75 Wh battery and support for up to a 45-watt Intel Core Ultra 9 285H Arrow Lake-H processor.
Asus says its new Intel-powered laptop should be available in the first quarter of 2025 with prices starting at around $1000. And, […]
#arrowLake #arrowLakeH #asus #asusZenbook14 #ces2024 #laptop #oled
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Asus Zenbook 14 (UX3405CA) is a 2.8 pound laptop with a 14 inch OLED display and an Intel 200H processor
The new Asus Zenbook 14 (UX3405CA) is a 14 inch thin and light laptop that measures less than 0.6 inches thick and weighs 2.82 pounds. But it has a reasonably large 75 Wh battery and support for up to a 45-watt Intel Core Ultra 9 285H Arrow Lake-H processor.
Asus says its new Intel-powered laptop should be available in the first quarter of 2025 with prices starting at around $1000. And, […]
#arrowLake #arrowLakeH #asus #asusZenbook14 #ces2024 #laptop #oled
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M$ Teams disst mich, seit einer Weile fragt es immer, ob es die Sprache auf deutsch umschalten soll wenn ich rede (auf englisch),
I mean watt se fuck?!?? -
The thread about the Davie Street School(s); from “Rewards For Good Boys” to “Britain’s most unusual school”
Preamble. The schools of the “School Board” era of public education (1872-1918) hold a particular fascination for me, one most profound where they have been “deconsecrated” and are either no longer in use as schools or have disappeared entirely. This thread began as a couple of lines for my own notes about the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” but soon snowballed into an alphabetical deep-dive into each.
The fifth chapter of our series looking at the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” looks at Davie Street School; with which I made the mistake of proclaiming “there doesn’t seem to be anything interesting about this one” before I had taken a proper look see. Naturally I proved myself completely wrong! And so actually what follows is the quite interesting story of the various schools that have called Davie Street home.
The first school at Davie Street was the Lancasterian School whose foundation stone was laid by the Lord Provost and Magistrates on Monday 12th October 1812. It replaced a temporary home which had been built on the Calton Hill, a “long, low, wood and brick erection“. The school was the work of the Edinburgh Education (Lancasterian School) Society, a charitable institution founded in 1810 by “several respectable Gentlemen…” to address the lack of education for the lower classes of the city by providing it at the “least possible expense of time and money“. It had been determined to use the educational system of Joseph Lancaster, thought it to be both the most economical and the most extensively tested system in practice.
Joseph Lancaster, portrait by John Hazlitt c. 1818 in the National Portrait Gallery, NPG99.Lancaster’s was a Quaker and early pioneer of education for the masses, his schools being highly unusual at the time in being reward-based and almost entirely lacking in punishments. Like the contemporary Madras System of Dr Andrew Bell (familiar to generations of Leithers as the Dr Bell), the Lancasterian System taught large classes in a single “school room” with one teacher supported by multiple pupil monitors. These were older children who relayed the instructions to the younger and kept an eye on their work. The contemporary engraving below shows the pupil monitors walking amongst the rows of younger children, helping them with their work, with the teacher seated on a podium at the front. On the wall a sign reads “REWARDS FOR GOOD BOYS” and the walls and ceiling are hung with toys such as kites, hoops, racket and shuttlecocks, balls and bats which the children could win.
Contemporary engraving of a Lancasterian School – the Royal Free School on Borough Road. The teacher sits on a podium at the front, the children are arrayed in ranks by age (and ability) and the older Pupil Monitors move amongst the rows, relaying the lesson and checking the work.Davie Street had two school rooms, boys and girls being taught separately, sufficient to hold 1,000 scholars and was one of the first steps on the root to a free, mass education in the city. For a subsidised fee of just 2s 6d per quarter, children over 6 years old were taught their Reading, Writing and Arithmetic with the only book in use for teaching being the Bible. However with its Quaker roots, the school was non-sectarian and counted amongst its founding directors in Edinburgh both Presbyterians and Episcopalians. Children were taught the Church of Scotland’s approved Catechism by rote but “the Directors, from respect to the rights of private judgement, do not impose it on children whose parents have conscientious objections to it“.
Davie Street showing the Lancasterian School, 1849 OS Town Survey of Edinburgh. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe school was “the achievement of the Whigs and of the pious” and was well supported at the highest levels of Edinburgh and Scottish society, as evidenced by the titles of its presidents and directors in the below newspaper advert. It was not universally popular however and according to “Memorials of His Own Time” by Lord Henry Cockburn it was “cordially hated by all true Tories, who for many years never ceased to sneer at and obstruct it.”
Principal office bearers of the Edinburgh Education (Lancastrian Schools) Society in 1812 as published in the Caledonian Mercury.A report of the Committee of Council on Education of 1844 noted that the headteacher, Mr Robert Dun, had supplied “at his own expense, a considerable assortment of philosophical apparatus, with which he performs, before his pupils, the more useful and interesting experiments in Chemistry and Natural Philosophy“. Dun was praised as running an institution being representative “of a well conducted monitorial school“.
There is no educational institution in Edinburgh which does a more extended share of substantial good than the Davie Street Lancasterian School, now 25 years established, and none upon which the public spirited and philanthropic can, to better account, bestow their money.
The school at this time was very much a family affair; it had 200 older boys taught by Robert and an assistant plus 100 infant boys by his father, Robert Senior. 250 girls were taught by John and Miss M. Dun – Robert’s siblings. Including evening classes, the total roll was 622 but it was noted that absence could run high, between 10 to 20 percent. The Duns had joined the school in 1826 and remained there for 35 years until Robert resigned in 1861 and received wide praise for their long-term efforts to educate and better the lot of the poorer children of the city.
Mr Dun, of the Edinburgh Davie Street School, decidedly the best Lancasterian teacher I have yet met, has introduced much useful knowledge into his plan; and, if the means were afforded him, would yet do much more.
James Simpson, “Necessity of Popular Education as a National Object”, 1834
A notable alumnus of the Lancasterian School was George McCrae (1860-1928), later Colonel Sir George McCrae DSO DL VD. A self-made man in the textile and drapery trade, McCrae was knighted in 1908 for his services as MP for Edinburgh East. He is best remembered in Scotland for raising and commanding the 16th Battalion, The Royal Scots during World War 1. This unit, better known as McCrae’s Own, was composed of Edinburgh men and its ranks included 16 members of Heart of Midlothian Football Club as well as players from Hibernian, Raith Rovers, East Fife, St. Bernard’s, Falkirk and Dunfermline football clubs. Much of the rest were drawn from the supporters of these clubs.
George McCrae during his time as an MP, by Sir John Benjamin Stone, 1901At the time of the Duns’ departure the school was proving to be a financial liability for its directors. In that year its expenses were £147 14s 5d but they had raised only £98 9s 7d in subscriptions and fees; outgoings exceeded income by 50%. The Lancasterian School was being kept solvent only by the £900 proceeds of the sale of a bequeathed house. The trustees had therefore been looking to put the institution on a sounder financial footing and in 1857 had proposed to the Governors of the Heriot’s Hospital Trust that it be transferred to their care.
George Heriot’s Hospital (School) in 1966, looking towards the Castle. Edinburgh City Libraries, Edinburgh and Scottish Collection.The Governors in turn remitted the request to a sub-committee who reported favourably on the idea “when the state of funds admitted to an increase“. In the event it was not until 1874 – with the State’s financial support as a result of the Education (Scotland) Act 1872) – that Heriot’s were able to complete the takeover of Davie Street which was to be converted to one of its Outdoor Schools. These schools, instituted in 1838, were outdoor in the sense that they provided education outwith the walls of Heriot’s Hospital itself. They were run on the Madras System and financed by the surplus of the Heriot Trust to provided a free education for the “children of burgesses and others“: in practice this meant the poor.
In October 1874, temporary accommodation was arranged for the non-paying pupils of Davie Street while their school was to be demolished and replaced with a larger and more modern building for 650 children. The architect of the Heriot Trust, John Chesser, drew up plans for a two storey school in a Jacobean style, richly ornamented with the roses and stars from the coat of arms of George Heriot and mouldings and corner towers directly inspired by the mother Hospital School.
Davie Street school as rebuilt by Heriot’s in 1875The school reopened on Whitsunday 1875, the tablet on its principal gable now reading George Heriot’s Hospital School. Its first – and only – headmaster was to be Mr John McCrindle who held this position until his retirement in 1905. The infant headmistress was Miss Jane Johnston from 1877 to 1908, she herself having been educated at one of the Trust’s the Outdoor Schools at Heriot Bridge.
An engraved portrait of John McCrindle by the Edinburgh Evenening News upon his retirement, July 18th 1905In 1879 a tragedy occurred when a pupil, Ellen Bennet, died from burns she had received at the school; on a cold November day she sneaked unsupervised back into her classroom at lunchtime and climbed over the guard of the fire that heated the room to warm herself causing her clothing to catch fire. The following year there were 180 infants and 320 older children on the school roll and “almost all the children… are the boys and girls of parents of the strictly working and artisan classes. They all appeared scrupulously clean and very tidy at the examination“.
Davie Street showing the Heriot’s School, 1876 OS Town Survey of Edinburgh. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe school’s life with the Heriot Trust was to prove short lived. In 1886 the Edinburgh School Board agreed to purchase it for £2,368 16s 8d. The Heriot’s schools at Stockbridge (later St. Bernard’s) and Abbeyhill (later Regent Road) were also acquired at this time, the Trust having decided to dispose of all of its Outdoor Schools and move its remaining day scholars to the Hospital itself. The Trust approved the sale and transfer in January 1887, part of the transfer arrangement being that they would continued to fund the free education of its existing scholars – the School Board charged fees, unlike the Outdoor Schools – any pre-existing arrangements for free education, so long as the beneficiary continued to pass the relevant exam standards.
The Board “were not at all satisfied with the internal arrangement” of Davie Street and so spent a further £2,379 2s 9d on expansion and alterations. Their architect, Robert Wilson, added an additional wing to the south with accommodation an additional 130 pupils, increasing its capacity to 690. By re-using the additional ornamental stonework this addition appears almost seamless, beyond the plainer style of the roof line. Despite the change of administration, the “Heriot’s Hospital” tablet remained on its façade, never being replaced by the School Board’s roundel.
Davie Street showing the School Board’s public school, note the large projection of the new wing to the south. 1893 OS Town Survey of Edinburgh. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe peace of Davie Street Public School – as it was now known – was breached in October 1889 when a wave of excitement spread throughout British schools via newspaper reports of an attempt by schoolboys in Cardiff to institute a general strike. Their demands were a half-day Wednesday, no homework, shorter hours and no corporal punishment. The action spread contagiously and by the following afternoon the boys of Davie Street had organised themselves, marching behind a banner (reported to be “a handkerchief nailed to a stick“) to Castlehill and Dalry schools in an effort to instigate risings there too. Their demands – reasonable to modern eyes – were conveyed on a scrap of paper; “strike for short hours and no home lessons and free education for the whole school“. The action rumbled on for a few days more with “strikebreaking” pupils at some schools reporting being hissed at the gates by the holdouts before it petered out. Those who were judged to have been ringleaders found themselves punished for their efforts with the tawse – a short, sharp reminder of how things had changed since the days of the reward-based Lancasterian School.
Headline, Evening Mail, 9th October 1889Perhaps memories of the brief uprising of 1889 died hard as in October 1913, once again boys from Davie Street marched out of their school in spontaneous protest in an effort to get their compatriots in the district – at Causewayside, South Bridge and St. Leonards – to join them in resisting rumoured (and entirely spurious) plans to force them to attend school on Saturday mornings.
Life was harsh for many of the children in the Old Town and Southside and a particularly extreme case was reported in the Evening News in November 1908 involving children from Davie Street. Philip Lavin of 150 Dumbiedykes Road was sentenced to three months imprisonment at the Sheriff Court for ill-treatment and neglect of his five children, aged six months to 13 years. He had been repeatedly visited and warned of his conduct by the Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children (SSPCC) over the course of five years. Finally, Headmaster R. James Reith wrote to the SSPCC to inform them of bruising on the face of one of Lavin’s daughters which he suspected was the result of assault. Visiting the house again, they found the childrens’ “clothing was scanty and on [their] bed the only covering was an old quilt.” The hungry children had sometimes shared just two rolls between four for their breakfast or five potatoes for their dinner. Lavin earned good money as a painter, 30s a week, but spent it on drink and gave none to his wife, Marion Hewit. She instead had to go out to work for the upkeep of herself and the children and continued to do so when she became ill until collapsing and being sent to the City Fever Hospital suffering from acute consumption (TB). She died less than a year later, on 20th October 1909; her husband however lived until the age of 76.
Boys of Davie Street School in 1910, many barefoot, waiting for tickets for a day trip to Ratho organised by the charitable Courant Fund.In 1917 the School Board undertook an extensive reorganisation of education in the city to provide additional “supplementary education” – that for children over the age of 12 but who had failed to pass the qualification exams for Higher Grade schools. They recognised there was a demand for specialist commercial and technical education at this stage for children who soon be entering the workplace when they finished their compulsory schooling at the age of 14. It was therefore agreed to establish specialist institutes in the city and Davie Street was selected to become part of one of the city’s first specialised supplementary Technical Schools. In 1918, Davie Street closed without ceremony as a primary school and became an annexe for the nearby James Clark Intermediate School.
Former James Clark School with its remarkable corner tower.Initially Davie Street provided rooms for practical subjects such as art, home economics and science while these facilities were constructed at James Clark (which had been planned for elementary education and therefore was not originally built with them). In 1924 it was then taken in hand to be properly modernised (including being converted from gas to electric lighting) and converted into specialist technical workshops for teaching the trades of brassfinishing, tinsmithing, upholstery, plumbing, tailoring and printing. In this guise it provided centralised training in these crafts for the Southside, successful completion of its printing courses could lead to bursaries for a print qualifications at Heriot Watt College and entry into one of the city’s most prized blue collar careers.
An exhibition of work in the printing and allied trades by students of Davie Street in 1957 – a bookbinding for HMS Caledonia is admired.The specialist technical education at Davie Street was moved from the curriculum of James Clark School to those of Telford and Napier Colleges after 1966, its workshops being run-down and moved to those institutions shortly thereafter. James Clark school itself closed in 1972 as part of the citywide secondary education shake-up required to move to a fully comprehensive system; by this time its roll had declined steeply from an inter-war high of over 1,000 to just 300.
Davie Street School in 1959 from the Dumbiedykes Survey by Adam H. Malcolm © Edinburgh City Libraries L973BDavie Street sat vacant for a number of years until it started what was to be an altogether very different chapter in its life story. In 1969 it was turned into the Theatre Art Centre, the brainchild of Edinburgh Corporation’s drama advisor Gerard Slevin. Slevin approached English teacher Leslie Hills, a self-described “newly minted teacher“, to run this project on the basis that she had upset her school establishment by abandoning the old “chalk and talk” methods and using instead the medium of drama to engage and teach her students. On her first visit to Davie Street she found:
The paintwork was ancient; the boiler was coal-fired and the toilets indescribable. I said yes. I was 23.
Leslie Hills, describing her first visit to Davie Street School
On a shoestring budget, the school was converted to its new purpose which involved removal of a large quantity of old printing machinery, outfitting the hall as a drama studio and cleaning the toilets as best as could be done. With a drama teacher, art teacher and music teacher under Leslie, by the autumn of that year the centre was open for business: “It was an extraordinary position to be in. No-one knew what we should be doing, so we made it all up.”
Edinburgh Corporation’s Theatre Art Centre sign, rescued from Davie Street when it was replaced by a sign for Lothian Regional Council in 1975. Picture kindly provided by Leslie Hills.The first pupils to attend came from the city’s Junior Secondary schools, those destined to be replaced by Comprehensives in the coming years. “Many came from difficult backgrounds, some from the surrounding housing soon to be flattened, where water was obtained from a tap in the yard. Many were underfed, ill-clothed for Edinburgh’s winters and, leaving school at 15, just too wee to be sent, bewildered, out to scrapyards and tyre depots with a bit of paper on which was written an address in a part of town of which they had no knowledge.“
Slum housing in Edinburgh, 1969. Marshall’s Court, Greenside, . S. G. Jackman photo, Edinburgh City Libraries, Edinburgh and Scottish Collection.Up to 500 secondary-age children a week came through the doors of the Theatre Art Centre from across the city, including from “List D” reformatory schools, those pushed to the very extremes of the education system. Leslie Hills takes up the story:
I talked to every class on their first day, explaining that we did not use the belt – still in use in schools – and that the rules were behave yourself and no graffiti – except in the toilets into which they were allowed to take felt-tipped pens which were in plentiful supply. The boys’ toilet became a wonder to behold – absolutely covered in intricate designs. I never worked out how they did the ceilings. The rest of the building remained pristine.
With its radical approach to learning through the mediums of drama, art and music, the laid back approach to uniform, lesson structure and timetabling and the lack of corporal punishment, the “school-in-a-theatre” was dubbed “Britain’s most unusual school” by the Daily Record. It was a fitting coincidence that Davie Street School had unwittingly been returned to its roots of education without punishment.
Drama teacher David Prince is “attacked” by his pupils at the Theatre Art Centre in an exercise learning about the value of movement in drama. Daily Record, 2nd December 1970The initial success of the Theatre Art Centre gamble allowed the facilities and services on offer to be improved. Finding out from the Corporation’s painters that they didn’t need to follow the official schools’ colour palette of mushroom and cream, re-painting made use of colour. One room was colour drenched in pale green and fitted with an epidiascope and light box for projecting and copying designs for poster; An in-house theatre company – Theatre in Education – was set up who undertook outreach visits to city schools; A technician and a van was acquired to run a stage equipment lending library; The curriculum was widened to include photography, printing and film; Evening drama clubs for teenagers were run and later, Edinburgh Youth Theatre found a home here and it was a regular performance venue during the annual Festival Fringe.
The reorganisation of local authorities in 1975, the Centre became part of Lothian Regional Council and the geographical remit expanded accordingly. Leslie Hills departed in 1980. Ten years later it survived a threat to its continued existence at Davie Street when the site was short-listed as a potential location for a new medical centre for the district. It was announced in 1993 that a central arts school for Lothian Region would be created in the former Leith Academy building on Duke Street, which would have seen Davie Street closed and relocated there. This plan never came to fruition, likely as the result of Lothian Region losing control of its further education colleges later that year. Having survived these threats, it was the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994 – which abolished Lothian Regional Council in 1996 – that did for the Centre and it was closed by the new, unitary City of Edinburgh Council in 1997. A “cheery wake in the rather battered studio” was held by staff past and present to celebrate its 28 year life, which also marked the end of 185 years of continuous educational use of the site.
Over the next three years the Council sought to dispose of the old school and it saw only intermittent use as a Fringe location. It was finally sold for redevelopment in 2000 and was converted into flats, a change which at the very least preserved its fine Jacobean-style masonry for the future.
Davie Street School in 2021, estate agent’s photo from the sale of one of its flatsIf you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site – including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget to find further stories to bring you – by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.
These threads © 2017-2025, 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.
The previous chapter of this series looked at Causewayside School.
If you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site – including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget to find further stories to bring you – by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.
These threads © 2017-2025, 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.
#Edinburgh #EdinburghSchoolBoard #Education #Heriots #JamesClarkSchool #LostBoardSchoolsOfEdinburgh #Quaker #School #Schools #Theatre #Written2025
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The thread about the Davie Street School(s); from “Rewards For Good Boys” to “Britain’s most unusual school”
Preamble. The schools of the “School Board” era of public education (1872-1918) hold a particular fascination for me, one most profound where they have been “deconsecrated” and are either no longer in use as schools or have disappeared entirely. This thread began as a couple of lines for my own notes about the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” but soon snowballed into an alphabetical deep-dive into each.
The fifth chapter of our series looking at the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” looks at Davie Street School; with which I made the mistake of proclaiming “there doesn’t seem to be anything interesting about this one” before I had taken a proper look see. Naturally I proved myself completely wrong! And so actually what follows is the quite interesting story of the various schools that have called Davie Street home.
The first school at Davie Street was the Lancasterian School whose foundation stone was laid by the Lord Provost and Magistrates on Monday 12th October 1812. It replaced a temporary home which had been built on the Calton Hill, a “long, low, wood and brick erection“. The school was the work of the Edinburgh Education (Lancasterian School) Society, a charitable institution founded in 1810 by “several respectable Gentlemen…” to address the lack of education for the lower classes of the city by providing it at the “least possible expense of time and money“. It had been determined to use the educational system of Joseph Lancaster, thought it to be both the most economical and the most extensively tested system in practice.
Joseph Lancaster, portrait by John Hazlitt c. 1818 in the National Portrait Gallery, NPG99.Lancaster’s was a Quaker and early pioneer of education for the masses, his schools being highly unusual at the time in being reward-based and almost entirely lacking in punishments. Like the contemporary Madras System of Dr Andrew Bell (familiar to generations of Leithers as the Dr Bell), the Lancasterian System taught large classes in a single “school room” with one teacher supported by multiple pupil monitors. These were older children who relayed the instructions to the younger and kept an eye on their work. The contemporary engraving below shows the pupil monitors walking amongst the rows of younger children, helping them with their work, with the teacher seated on a podium at the front. On the wall a sign reads “REWARDS FOR GOOD BOYS” and the walls and ceiling are hung with toys such as kites, hoops, racket and shuttlecocks, balls and bats which the children could win.
Contemporary engraving of a Lancasterian School – the Royal Free School on Borough Road. The teacher sits on a podium at the front, the children are arrayed in ranks by age (and ability) and the older Pupil Monitors move amongst the rows, relaying the lesson and checking the work.Davie Street had two school rooms, boys and girls being taught separately, sufficient to hold 1,000 scholars and was one of the first steps on the root to a free, mass education in the city. For a subsidised fee of just 2s 6d per quarter, children over 6 years old were taught their Reading, Writing and Arithmetic with the only book in use for teaching being the Bible. However with its Quaker roots, the school was non-sectarian and counted amongst its founding directors in Edinburgh both Presbyterians and Episcopalians. Children were taught the Church of Scotland’s approved Catechism by rote but “the Directors, from respect to the rights of private judgement, do not impose it on children whose parents have conscientious objections to it“.
Davie Street showing the Lancasterian School, 1849 OS Town Survey of Edinburgh. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe school was “the achievement of the Whigs and of the pious” and was well supported at the highest levels of Edinburgh and Scottish society, as evidenced by the titles of its presidents and directors in the below newspaper advert. It was not universally popular however and according to “Memorials of His Own Time” by Lord Henry Cockburn it was “cordially hated by all true Tories, who for many years never ceased to sneer at and obstruct it.”
Principal office bearers of the Edinburgh Education (Lancastrian Schools) Society in 1812 as published in the Caledonian Mercury.A report of the Committee of Council on Education of 1844 noted that the headteacher, Mr Robert Dun, had supplied “at his own expense, a considerable assortment of philosophical apparatus, with which he performs, before his pupils, the more useful and interesting experiments in Chemistry and Natural Philosophy“. Dun was praised as running an institution being representative “of a well conducted monitorial school“.
There is no educational institution in Edinburgh which does a more extended share of substantial good than the Davie Street Lancasterian School, now 25 years established, and none upon which the public spirited and philanthropic can, to better account, bestow their money.
The school at this time was very much a family affair; it had 200 older boys taught by Robert and an assistant plus 100 infant boys by his father, Robert Senior. 250 girls were taught by John and Miss M. Dun – Robert’s siblings. Including evening classes, the total roll was 622 but it was noted that absence could run high, between 10 to 20 percent. The Duns had joined the school in 1826 and remained there for 35 years until Robert resigned in 1861 and received wide praise for their long-term efforts to educate and better the lot of the poorer children of the city.
Mr Dun, of the Edinburgh Davie Street School, decidedly the best Lancasterian teacher I have yet met, has introduced much useful knowledge into his plan; and, if the means were afforded him, would yet do much more.
James Simpson, “Necessity of Popular Education as a National Object”, 1834
A notable alumnus of the Lancasterian School was George McCrae (1860-1928), later Colonel Sir George McCrae DSO DL VD. A self-made man in the textile and drapery trade, McCrae was knighted in 1908 for his services as MP for Edinburgh East. He is best remembered in Scotland for raising and commanding the 16th Battalion, The Royal Scots during World War 1. This unit, better known as McCrae’s Own, was composed of Edinburgh men and its ranks included 16 members of Heart of Midlothian Football Club as well as players from Hibernian, Raith Rovers, East Fife, St. Bernard’s, Falkirk and Dunfermline football clubs. Much of the rest were drawn from the supporters of these clubs.
George McCrae during his time as an MP, by Sir John Benjamin Stone, 1901At the time of the Duns’ departure the school was proving to be a financial liability for its directors. In that year its expenses were £147 14s 5d but they had raised only £98 9s 7d in subscriptions and fees; outgoings exceeded income by 50%. The Lancasterian School was being kept solvent only by the £900 proceeds of the sale of a bequeathed house. The trustees had therefore been looking to put the institution on a sounder financial footing and in 1857 had proposed to the Governors of the Heriot’s Hospital Trust that it be transferred to their care.
George Heriot’s Hospital (School) in 1966, looking towards the Castle. Edinburgh City Libraries, Edinburgh and Scottish Collection.The Governors in turn remitted the request to a sub-committee who reported favourably on the idea “when the state of funds admitted to an increase“. In the event it was not until 1874 – with the State’s financial support as a result of the Education (Scotland) Act 1872) – that Heriot’s were able to complete the takeover of Davie Street which was to be converted to one of its Outdoor Schools. These schools, instituted in 1838, were outdoor in the sense that they provided education outwith the walls of Heriot’s Hospital itself. They were run on the Madras System and financed by the surplus of the Heriot Trust to provided a free education for the “children of burgesses and others“: in practice this meant the poor.
In October 1874, temporary accommodation was arranged for the non-paying pupils of Davie Street while their school was to be demolished and replaced with a larger and more modern building for 650 children. The architect of the Heriot Trust, John Chesser, drew up plans for a two storey school in a Jacobean style, richly ornamented with the roses and stars from the coat of arms of George Heriot and mouldings and corner towers directly inspired by the mother Hospital School.
Davie Street school as rebuilt by Heriot’s in 1875The school reopened on Whitsunday 1875, the tablet on its principal gable now reading George Heriot’s Hospital School. Its first – and only – headmaster was to be Mr John McCrindle who held this position until his retirement in 1905. The infant headmistress was Miss Jane Johnston from 1877 to 1908, she herself having been educated at one of the Trust’s the Outdoor Schools at Heriot Bridge.
An engraved portrait of John McCrindle by the Edinburgh Evenening News upon his retirement, July 18th 1905In 1879 a tragedy occurred when a pupil, Ellen Bennet, died from burns she had received at the school; on a cold November day she sneaked unsupervised back into her classroom at lunchtime and climbed over the guard of the fire that heated the room to warm herself causing her clothing to catch fire. The following year there were 180 infants and 320 older children on the school roll and “almost all the children… are the boys and girls of parents of the strictly working and artisan classes. They all appeared scrupulously clean and very tidy at the examination“.
Davie Street showing the Heriot’s School, 1876 OS Town Survey of Edinburgh. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe school’s life with the Heriot Trust was to prove short lived. In 1886 the Edinburgh School Board agreed to purchase it for £2,368 16s 8d. The Heriot’s schools at Stockbridge (later St. Bernard’s) and Abbeyhill (later Regent Road) were also acquired at this time, the Trust having decided to dispose of all of its Outdoor Schools and move its remaining day scholars to the Hospital itself. The Trust approved the sale and transfer in January 1887, part of the transfer arrangement being that they would continued to fund the free education of its existing scholars – the School Board charged fees, unlike the Outdoor Schools – any pre-existing arrangements for free education, so long as the beneficiary continued to pass the relevant exam standards.
The Board “were not at all satisfied with the internal arrangement” of Davie Street and so spent a further £2,379 2s 9d on expansion and alterations. Their architect, Robert Wilson, added an additional wing to the south with accommodation an additional 130 pupils, increasing its capacity to 690. By re-using the additional ornamental stonework this addition appears almost seamless, beyond the plainer style of the roof line. Despite the change of administration, the “Heriot’s Hospital” tablet remained on its façade, never being replaced by the School Board’s roundel.
Davie Street showing the School Board’s public school, note the large projection of the new wing to the south. 1893 OS Town Survey of Edinburgh. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe peace of Davie Street Public School – as it was now known – was breached in October 1889 when a wave of excitement spread throughout British schools via newspaper reports of an attempt by schoolboys in Cardiff to institute a general strike. Their demands were a half-day Wednesday, no homework, shorter hours and no corporal punishment. The action spread contagiously and by the following afternoon the boys of Davie Street had organised themselves, marching behind a banner (reported to be “a handkerchief nailed to a stick“) to Castlehill and Dalry schools in an effort to instigate risings there too. Their demands – reasonable to modern eyes – were conveyed on a scrap of paper; “strike for short hours and no home lessons and free education for the whole school“. The action rumbled on for a few days more with “strikebreaking” pupils at some schools reporting being hissed at the gates by the holdouts before it petered out. Those who were judged to have been ringleaders found themselves punished for their efforts with the tawse – a short, sharp reminder of how things had changed since the days of the reward-based Lancasterian School.
Headline, Evening Mail, 9th October 1889Perhaps memories of the brief uprising of 1889 died hard as in October 1913, once again boys from Davie Street marched out of their school in spontaneous protest in an effort to get their compatriots in the district – at Causewayside, South Bridge and St. Leonards – to join them in resisting rumoured (and entirely spurious) plans to force them to attend school on Saturday mornings.
Life was harsh for many of the children in the Old Town and Southside and a particularly extreme case was reported in the Evening News in November 1908 involving children from Davie Street. Philip Lavin of 150 Dumbiedykes Road was sentenced to three months imprisonment at the Sheriff Court for ill-treatment and neglect of his five children, aged six months to 13 years. He had been repeatedly visited and warned of his conduct by the Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children (SSPCC) over the course of five years. Finally, Headmaster R. James Reith wrote to the SSPCC to inform them of bruising on the face of one of Lavin’s daughters which he suspected was the result of assault. Visiting the house again, they found the childrens’ “clothing was scanty and on [their] bed the only covering was an old quilt.” The hungry children had sometimes shared just two rolls between four for their breakfast or five potatoes for their dinner. Lavin earned good money as a painter, 30s a week, but spent it on drink and gave none to his wife, Marion Hewit. She instead had to go out to work for the upkeep of herself and the children and continued to do so when she became ill until collapsing and being sent to the City Fever Hospital suffering from acute consumption (TB). She died less than a year later, on 20th October 1909; her husband however lived until the age of 76.
Boys of Davie Street School in 1910, many barefoot, waiting for tickets for a day trip to Ratho organised by the charitable Courant Fund.In 1917 the School Board undertook an extensive reorganisation of education in the city to provide additional “supplementary education” – that for children over the age of 12 but who had failed to pass the qualification exams for Higher Grade schools. They recognised there was a demand for specialist commercial and technical education at this stage for children who soon be entering the workplace when they finished their compulsory schooling at the age of 14. It was therefore agreed to establish specialist institutes in the city and Davie Street was selected to become part of one of the city’s first specialised supplementary Technical Schools. In 1918, Davie Street closed without ceremony as a primary school and became an annexe for the nearby James Clark Intermediate School.
Former James Clark School with its remarkable corner tower.Initially Davie Street provided rooms for practical subjects such as art, home economics and science while these facilities were constructed at James Clark (which had been planned for elementary education and therefore was not originally built with them). In 1924 it was then taken in hand to be properly modernised (including being converted from gas to electric lighting) and converted into specialist technical workshops for teaching the trades of brassfinishing, tinsmithing, upholstery, plumbing, tailoring and printing. In this guise it provided centralised training in these crafts for the Southside, successful completion of its printing courses could lead to bursaries for a print qualifications at Heriot Watt College and entry into one of the city’s most prized blue collar careers.
An exhibition of work in the printing and allied trades by students of Davie Street in 1957 – a bookbinding for HMS Caledonia is admired.The specialist technical education at Davie Street was moved from the curriculum of James Clark School to those of Telford and Napier Colleges after 1966, its workshops being run-down and moved to those institutions shortly thereafter. James Clark school itself closed in 1972 as part of the citywide secondary education shake-up required to move to a fully comprehensive system; by this time its roll had declined steeply from an inter-war high of over 1,000 to just 300.
Davie Street School in 1959 from the Dumbiedykes Survey by Adam H. Malcolm © Edinburgh City Libraries L973BDavie Street sat vacant for a number of years until it started what was to be an altogether very different chapter in its life story. In 1969 it was turned into the Theatre Art Centre, the brainchild of Edinburgh Corporation’s drama advisor Gerard Slevin. Slevin approached English teacher Leslie Hills, a self-described “newly minted teacher“, to run this project on the basis that she had upset her school establishment by abandoning the old “chalk and talk” methods and using instead the medium of drama to engage and teach her students. On her first visit to Davie Street she found:
The paintwork was ancient; the boiler was coal-fired and the toilets indescribable. I said yes. I was 23.
Leslie Hills, describing her first visit to Davie Street School
On a shoestring budget, the school was converted to its new purpose which involved removal of a large quantity of old printing machinery, outfitting the hall as a drama studio and cleaning the toilets as best as could be done. With a drama teacher, art teacher and music teacher under Leslie, by the autumn of that year the centre was open for business: “It was an extraordinary position to be in. No-one knew what we should be doing, so we made it all up.”
Edinburgh Corporation’s Theatre Art Centre sign, rescued from Davie Street when it was replaced by a sign for Lothian Regional Council in 1975. Picture kindly provided by Leslie Hills.The first pupils to attend came from the city’s Junior Secondary schools, those destined to be replaced by Comprehensives in the coming years. “Many came from difficult backgrounds, some from the surrounding housing soon to be flattened, where water was obtained from a tap in the yard. Many were underfed, ill-clothed for Edinburgh’s winters and, leaving school at 15, just too wee to be sent, bewildered, out to scrapyards and tyre depots with a bit of paper on which was written an address in a part of town of which they had no knowledge.“
Slum housing in Edinburgh, 1969. Marshall’s Court, Greenside, . S. G. Jackman photo, Edinburgh City Libraries, Edinburgh and Scottish Collection.Up to 500 secondary-age children a week came through the doors of the Theatre Art Centre from across the city, including from “List D” reformatory schools, those pushed to the very extremes of the education system. Leslie Hills takes up the story:
I talked to every class on their first day, explaining that we did not use the belt – still in use in schools – and that the rules were behave yourself and no graffiti – except in the toilets into which they were allowed to take felt-tipped pens which were in plentiful supply. The boys’ toilet became a wonder to behold – absolutely covered in intricate designs. I never worked out how they did the ceilings. The rest of the building remained pristine.
With its radical approach to learning through the mediums of drama, art and music, the laid back approach to uniform, lesson structure and timetabling and the lack of corporal punishment, the “school-in-a-theatre” was dubbed “Britain’s most unusual school” by the Daily Record. It was a fitting coincidence that Davie Street School had unwittingly been returned to its roots of education without punishment.
Drama teacher David Prince is “attacked” by his pupils at the Theatre Art Centre in an exercise learning about the value of movement in drama. Daily Record, 2nd December 1970The initial success of the Theatre Art Centre gamble allowed the facilities and services on offer to be improved. Finding out from the Corporation’s painters that they didn’t need to follow the official schools’ colour palette of mushroom and cream, re-painting made use of colour. One room was colour drenched in pale green and fitted with an epidiascope and light box for projecting and copying designs for poster; An in-house theatre company – Theatre in Education – was set up who undertook outreach visits to city schools; A technician and a van was acquired to run a stage equipment lending library; The curriculum was widened to include photography, printing and film; Evening drama clubs for teenagers were run and later, Edinburgh Youth Theatre found a home here and it was a regular performance venue during the annual Festival Fringe.
The reorganisation of local authorities in 1975, the Centre became part of Lothian Regional Council and the geographical remit expanded accordingly. Leslie Hills departed in 1980. Ten years later it survived a threat to its continued existence at Davie Street when the site was short-listed as a potential location for a new medical centre for the district. It was announced in 1993 that a central arts school for Lothian Region would be created in the former Leith Academy building on Duke Street, which would have seen Davie Street closed and relocated there. This plan never came to fruition, likely as the result of Lothian Region losing control of its further education colleges later that year. Having survived these threats, it was the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994 – which abolished Lothian Regional Council in 1996 – that did for the Centre and it was closed by the new, unitary City of Edinburgh Council in 1997. A “cheery wake in the rather battered studio” was held by staff past and present to celebrate its 28 year life, which also marked the end of 185 years of continuous educational use of the site.
Over the next three years the Council sought to dispose of the old school and it saw only intermittent use as a Fringe location. It was finally sold for redevelopment in 2000 and was converted into flats, a change which at the very least preserved its fine Jacobean-style masonry for the future.
Davie Street School in 2021, estate agent’s photo from the sale of one of its flatsIf you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site – including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget to find further stories to bring you – by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.
These threads © 2017-2025, 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.
The previous chapter of this series looked at Causewayside School.
If you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site – including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget to find further stories to bring you – by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.
These threads © 2017-2025, 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.
#Edinburgh #EdinburghSchoolBoard #Education #Heriots #JamesClarkSchool #LostBoardSchoolsOfEdinburgh #Quaker #School #Schools #Theatre #Written2025
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The thread about the Davie Street School(s); from “Rewards For Good Boys” to “Britain’s most unusual school”
Preamble. The schools of the “School Board” era of public education (1872-1918) hold a particular fascination for me, one most profound where they have been “deconsecrated” and are either no longer in use as schools or have disappeared entirely. This thread began as a couple of lines for my own notes about the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” but soon snowballed into an alphabetical deep-dive into each.
The fifth chapter of our series looking at the “Lost Board Schools of Edinburgh” looks at Davie Street School; with which I made the mistake of proclaiming “there doesn’t seem to be anything interesting about this one” before I had taken a proper look see. Naturally I proved myself completely wrong! And so actually what follows is the quite interesting story of the various schools that have called Davie Street home.
The first school at Davie Street was the Lancasterian School whose foundation stone was laid by the Lord Provost and Magistrates on Monday 12th October 1812. It replaced a temporary home which had been built on the Calton Hill, a “long, low, wood and brick erection“. The school was the work of the Edinburgh Education (Lancasterian School) Society, a charitable institution founded in 1810 by “several respectable Gentlemen…” to address the lack of education for the lower classes of the city by providing it at the “least possible expense of time and money“. It had been determined to use the educational system of Joseph Lancaster, thought it to be both the most economical and the most extensively tested system in practice.
Joseph Lancaster, portrait by John Hazlitt c. 1818 in the National Portrait Gallery, NPG99.Lancaster’s was a Quaker and early pioneer of education for the masses, his schools being highly unusual at the time in being reward-based and almost entirely lacking in punishments. Like the contemporary Madras System of Dr Andrew Bell (familiar to generations of Leithers as the Dr Bell), the Lancasterian System taught large classes in a single “school room” with one teacher supported by multiple pupil monitors. These were older children who relayed the instructions to the younger and kept an eye on their work. The contemporary engraving below shows the pupil monitors walking amongst the rows of younger children, helping them with their work, with the teacher seated on a podium at the front. On the wall a sign reads “REWARDS FOR GOOD BOYS” and the walls and ceiling are hung with toys such as kites, hoops, racket and shuttlecocks, balls and bats which the children could win.
Contemporary engraving of a Lancasterian School – the Royal Free School on Borough Road. The teacher sits on a podium at the front, the children are arrayed in ranks by age (and ability) and the older Pupil Monitors move amongst the rows, relaying the lesson and checking the work.Davie Street had two school rooms, boys and girls being taught separately, sufficient to hold 1,000 scholars and was one of the first steps on the root to a free, mass education in the city. For a subsidised fee of just 2s 6d per quarter, children over 6 years old were taught their Reading, Writing and Arithmetic with the only book in use for teaching being the Bible. However with its Quaker roots, the school was non-sectarian and counted amongst its founding directors in Edinburgh both Presbyterians and Episcopalians. Children were taught the Church of Scotland’s approved Catechism by rote but “the Directors, from respect to the rights of private judgement, do not impose it on children whose parents have conscientious objections to it“.
Davie Street showing the Lancasterian School, 1849 OS Town Survey of Edinburgh. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe school was “the achievement of the Whigs and of the pious” and was well supported at the highest levels of Edinburgh and Scottish society, as evidenced by the titles of its presidents and directors in the below newspaper advert. It was not universally popular however and according to “Memorials of His Own Time” by Lord Henry Cockburn it was “cordially hated by all true Tories, who for many years never ceased to sneer at and obstruct it.”
Principal office bearers of the Edinburgh Education (Lancastrian Schools) Society in 1812 as published in the Caledonian Mercury.A report of the Committee of Council on Education of 1844 noted that the headteacher, Mr Robert Dun, had supplied “at his own expense, a considerable assortment of philosophical apparatus, with which he performs, before his pupils, the more useful and interesting experiments in Chemistry and Natural Philosophy“. Dun was praised as running an institution being representative “of a well conducted monitorial school“.
There is no educational institution in Edinburgh which does a more extended share of substantial good than the Davie Street Lancasterian School, now 25 years established, and none upon which the public spirited and philanthropic can, to better account, bestow their money.
The school at this time was very much a family affair; it had 200 older boys taught by Robert and an assistant plus 100 infant boys by his father, Robert Senior. 250 girls were taught by John and Miss M. Dun – Robert’s siblings. Including evening classes, the total roll was 622 but it was noted that absence could run high, between 10 to 20 percent. The Duns had joined the school in 1826 and remained there for 35 years until Robert resigned in 1861 and received wide praise for their long-term efforts to educate and better the lot of the poorer children of the city.
Mr Dun, of the Edinburgh Davie Street School, decidedly the best Lancasterian teacher I have yet met, has introduced much useful knowledge into his plan; and, if the means were afforded him, would yet do much more.
James Simpson, “Necessity of Popular Education as a National Object”, 1834
A notable alumnus of the Lancasterian School was George McCrae (1860-1928), later Colonel Sir George McCrae DSO DL VD. A self-made man in the textile and drapery trade, McCrae was knighted in 1908 for his services as MP for Edinburgh East. He is best remembered in Scotland for raising and commanding the 16th Battalion, The Royal Scots during World War 1. This unit, better known as McCrae’s Own, was composed of Edinburgh men and its ranks included 16 members of Heart of Midlothian Football Club as well as players from Hibernian, Raith Rovers, East Fife, St. Bernard’s, Falkirk and Dunfermline football clubs. Much of the rest were drawn from the supporters of these clubs.
George McCrae during his time as an MP, by Sir John Benjamin Stone, 1901At the time of the Duns’ departure the school was proving to be a financial liability for its directors. In that year its expenses were £147 14s 5d but they had raised only £98 9s 7d in subscriptions and fees; outgoings exceeded income by 50%. The Lancasterian School was being kept solvent only by the £900 proceeds of the sale of a bequeathed house. The trustees had therefore been looking to put the institution on a sounder financial footing and in 1857 had proposed to the Governors of the Heriot’s Hospital Trust that it be transferred to their care.
George Heriot’s Hospital (School) in 1966, looking towards the Castle. Edinburgh City Libraries, Edinburgh and Scottish Collection.The Governors in turn remitted the request to a sub-committee who reported favourably on the idea “when the state of funds admitted to an increase“. In the event it was not until 1874 – with the State’s financial support as a result of the Education (Scotland) Act 1872) – that Heriot’s were able to complete the takeover of Davie Street which was to be converted to one of its Outdoor Schools. These schools, instituted in 1838, were outdoor in the sense that they provided education outwith the walls of Heriot’s Hospital itself. They were run on the Madras System and financed by the surplus of the Heriot Trust to provided a free education for the “children of burgesses and others“: in practice this meant the poor.
In October 1874, temporary accommodation was arranged for the non-paying pupils of Davie Street while their school was to be demolished and replaced with a larger and more modern building for 650 children. The architect of the Heriot Trust, John Chesser, drew up plans for a two storey school in a Jacobean style, richly ornamented with the roses and stars from the coat of arms of George Heriot and mouldings and corner towers directly inspired by the mother Hospital School.
Davie Street school as rebuilt by Heriot’s in 1875The school reopened on Whitsunday 1875, the tablet on its principal gable now reading George Heriot’s Hospital School. Its first – and only – headmaster was to be Mr John McCrindle who held this position until his retirement in 1905. The infant headmistress was Miss Jane Johnston from 1877 to 1908, she herself having been educated at one of the Trust’s the Outdoor Schools at Heriot Bridge.
An engraved portrait of John McCrindle by the Edinburgh Evenening News upon his retirement, July 18th 1905In 1879 a tragedy occurred when a pupil, Ellen Bennet, died from burns she had received at the school; on a cold November day she sneaked unsupervised back into her classroom at lunchtime and climbed over the guard of the fire that heated the room to warm herself causing her clothing to catch fire. The following year there were 180 infants and 320 older children on the school roll and “almost all the children… are the boys and girls of parents of the strictly working and artisan classes. They all appeared scrupulously clean and very tidy at the examination“.
Davie Street showing the Heriot’s School, 1876 OS Town Survey of Edinburgh. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe school’s life with the Heriot Trust was to prove short lived. In 1886 the Edinburgh School Board agreed to purchase it for £2,368 16s 8d. The Heriot’s schools at Stockbridge (later St. Bernard’s) and Abbeyhill (later Regent Road) were also acquired at this time, the Trust having decided to dispose of all of its Outdoor Schools and move its remaining day scholars to the Hospital itself. The Trust approved the sale and transfer in January 1887, part of the transfer arrangement being that they would continued to fund the free education of its existing scholars – the School Board charged fees, unlike the Outdoor Schools – any pre-existing arrangements for free education, so long as the beneficiary continued to pass the relevant exam standards.
The Board “were not at all satisfied with the internal arrangement” of Davie Street and so spent a further £2,379 2s 9d on expansion and alterations. Their architect, Robert Wilson, added an additional wing to the south with accommodation an additional 130 pupils, increasing its capacity to 690. By re-using the additional ornamental stonework this addition appears almost seamless, beyond the plainer style of the roof line. Despite the change of administration, the “Heriot’s Hospital” tablet remained on its façade, never being replaced by the School Board’s roundel.
Davie Street showing the School Board’s public school, note the large projection of the new wing to the south. 1893 OS Town Survey of Edinburgh. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe peace of Davie Street Public School – as it was now known – was breached in October 1889 when a wave of excitement spread throughout British schools via newspaper reports of an attempt by schoolboys in Cardiff to institute a general strike. Their demands were a half-day Wednesday, no homework, shorter hours and no corporal punishment. The action spread contagiously and by the following afternoon the boys of Davie Street had organised themselves, marching behind a banner (reported to be “a handkerchief nailed to a stick“) to Castlehill and Dalry schools in an effort to instigate risings there too. Their demands – reasonable to modern eyes – were conveyed on a scrap of paper; “strike for short hours and no home lessons and free education for the whole school“. The action rumbled on for a few days more with “strikebreaking” pupils at some schools reporting being hissed at the gates by the holdouts before it petered out. Those who were judged to have been ringleaders found themselves punished for their efforts with the tawse – a short, sharp reminder of how things had changed since the days of the reward-based Lancasterian School.
Headline, Evening Mail, 9th October 1889Perhaps memories of the brief uprising of 1889 died hard as in October 1913, once again boys from Davie Street marched out of their school in spontaneous protest in an effort to get their compatriots in the district – at Causewayside, South Bridge and St. Leonards – to join them in resisting rumoured (and entirely spurious) plans to force them to attend school on Saturday mornings.
Life was harsh for many of the children in the Old Town and Southside and a particularly extreme case was reported in the Evening News in November 1908 involving children from Davie Street. Philip Lavin of 150 Dumbiedykes Road was sentenced to three months imprisonment at the Sheriff Court for ill-treatment and neglect of his five children, aged six months to 13 years. He had been repeatedly visited and warned of his conduct by the Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children (SSPCC) over the course of five years. Finally, Headmaster R. James Reith wrote to the SSPCC to inform them of bruising on the face of one of Lavin’s daughters which he suspected was the result of assault. Visiting the house again, they found the childrens’ “clothing was scanty and on [their] bed the only covering was an old quilt.” The hungry children had sometimes shared just two rolls between four for their breakfast or five potatoes for their dinner. Lavin earned good money as a painter, 30s a week, but spent it on drink and gave none to his wife, Marion Hewit. She instead had to go out to work for the upkeep of herself and the children and continued to do so when she became ill until collapsing and being sent to the City Fever Hospital suffering from acute consumption (TB). She died less than a year later, on 20th October 1909; her husband however lived until the age of 76.
Boys of Davie Street School in 1910, many barefoot, waiting for tickets for a day trip to Ratho organised by the charitable Courant Fund.In 1917 the School Board undertook an extensive reorganisation of education in the city to provide additional “supplementary education” – that for children over the age of 12 but who had failed to pass the qualification exams for Higher Grade schools. They recognised there was a demand for specialist commercial and technical education at this stage for children who soon be entering the workplace when they finished their compulsory schooling at the age of 14. It was therefore agreed to establish specialist institutes in the city and Davie Street was selected to become part of one of the city’s first specialised supplementary Technical Schools. In 1918, Davie Street closed without ceremony as a primary school and became an annexe for the nearby James Clark Intermediate School.
Former James Clark School with its remarkable corner tower.Initially Davie Street provided rooms for practical subjects such as art, home economics and science while these facilities were constructed at James Clark (which had been planned for elementary education and therefore was not originally built with them). In 1924 it was then taken in hand to be properly modernised (including being converted from gas to electric lighting) and converted into specialist technical workshops for teaching the trades of brassfinishing, tinsmithing, upholstery, plumbing, tailoring and printing. In this guise it provided centralised training in these crafts for the Southside, successful completion of its printing courses could lead to bursaries for a print qualifications at Heriot Watt College and entry into one of the city’s most prized blue collar careers.
An exhibition of work in the printing and allied trades by students of Davie Street in 1957 – a bookbinding for HMS Caledonia is admired.The specialist technical education at Davie Street was moved from the curriculum of James Clark School to those of Telford and Napier Colleges after 1966, its workshops being run-down and moved to those institutions shortly thereafter. James Clark school itself closed in 1972 as part of the citywide secondary education shake-up required to move to a fully comprehensive system; by this time its roll had declined steeply from an inter-war high of over 1,000 to just 300.
Davie Street School in 1959 from the Dumbiedykes Survey by Adam H. Malcolm © Edinburgh City Libraries L973BDavie Street sat vacant for a number of years until it started what was to be an altogether very different chapter in its life story. In 1969 it was turned into the Theatre Art Centre, the brainchild of Edinburgh Corporation’s drama advisor Gerard Slevin. Slevin approached English teacher Leslie Hills, a self-described “newly minted teacher“, to run this project on the basis that she had upset her school establishment by abandoning the old “chalk and talk” methods and using instead the medium of drama to engage and teach her students. On her first visit to Davie Street she found:
The paintwork was ancient; the boiler was coal-fired and the toilets indescribable. I said yes. I was 23.
Leslie Hills, describing her first visit to Davie Street School
On a shoestring budget, the school was converted to its new purpose which involved removal of a large quantity of old printing machinery, outfitting the hall as a drama studio and cleaning the toilets as best as could be done. With a drama teacher, art teacher and music teacher under Leslie, by the autumn of that year the centre was open for business: “It was an extraordinary position to be in. No-one knew what we should be doing, so we made it all up.”
Edinburgh Corporation’s Theatre Art Centre sign, rescued from Davie Street when it was replaced by a sign for Lothian Regional Council in 1975. Picture kindly provided by Leslie Hills.The first pupils to attend came from the city’s Junior Secondary schools, those destined to be replaced by Comprehensives in the coming years. “Many came from difficult backgrounds, some from the surrounding housing soon to be flattened, where water was obtained from a tap in the yard. Many were underfed, ill-clothed for Edinburgh’s winters and, leaving school at 15, just too wee to be sent, bewildered, out to scrapyards and tyre depots with a bit of paper on which was written an address in a part of town of which they had no knowledge.“
Slum housing in Edinburgh, 1969. Marshall’s Court, Greenside, . S. G. Jackman photo, Edinburgh City Libraries, Edinburgh and Scottish Collection.Up to 500 secondary-age children a week came through the doors of the Theatre Art Centre from across the city, including from “List D” reformatory schools, those pushed to the very extremes of the education system. Leslie Hills takes up the story:
I talked to every class on their first day, explaining that we did not use the belt – still in use in schools – and that the rules were behave yourself and no graffiti – except in the toilets into which they were allowed to take felt-tipped pens which were in plentiful supply. The boys’ toilet became a wonder to behold – absolutely covered in intricate designs. I never worked out how they did the ceilings. The rest of the building remained pristine.
With its radical approach to learning through the mediums of drama, art and music, the laid back approach to uniform, lesson structure and timetabling and the lack of corporal punishment, the “school-in-a-theatre” was dubbed “Britain’s most unusual school” by the Daily Record. It was a fitting coincidence that Davie Street School had unwittingly been returned to its roots of education without punishment.
Drama teacher David Prince is “attacked” by his pupils at the Theatre Art Centre in an exercise learning about the value of movement in drama. Daily Record, 2nd December 1970The initial success of the Theatre Art Centre gamble allowed the facilities and services on offer to be improved. Finding out from the Corporation’s painters that they didn’t need to follow the official schools’ colour palette of mushroom and cream, re-painting made use of colour. One room was colour drenched in pale green and fitted with an epidiascope and light box for projecting and copying designs for poster; An in-house theatre company – Theatre in Education – was set up who undertook outreach visits to city schools; A technician and a van was acquired to run a stage equipment lending library; The curriculum was widened to include photography, printing and film; Evening drama clubs for teenagers were run and later, Edinburgh Youth Theatre found a home here and it was a regular performance venue during the annual Festival Fringe.
The reorganisation of local authorities in 1975, the Centre became part of Lothian Regional Council and the geographical remit expanded accordingly. Leslie Hills departed in 1980. Ten years later it survived a threat to its continued existence at Davie Street when the site was short-listed as a potential location for a new medical centre for the district. It was announced in 1993 that a central arts school for Lothian Region would be created in the former Leith Academy building on Duke Street, which would have seen Davie Street closed and relocated there. This plan never came to fruition, likely as the result of Lothian Region losing control of its further education colleges later that year. Having survived these threats, it was the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994 – which abolished Lothian Regional Council in 1996 – that did for the Centre and it was closed by the new, unitary City of Edinburgh Council in 1997. A “cheery wake in the rather battered studio” was held by staff past and present to celebrate its 28 year life, which also marked the end of 185 years of continuous educational use of the site.
Over the next three years the Council sought to dispose of the old school and it saw only intermittent use as a Fringe location. It was finally sold for redevelopment in 2000 and was converted into flats, a change which at the very least preserved its fine Jacobean-style masonry for the future.
Davie Street School in 2021, estate agent’s photo from the sale of one of its flatsIf you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site – including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget to find further stories to bring you – by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.
These threads © 2017-2025, 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.
The previous chapter of this series looked at Causewayside School.
If you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site – including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget to find further stories to bring you – by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.
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Ninja Luxe Café Premier Full Review
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Article
Ninja Luxe Cafe Premier Box
Luxe Cafe Machine
Tamper: Pillar Design
Comparing the Luxe Cafe to Oracle Jet
Chromed Brass?
Brew Over Ice Mode
The Ninja Luxe Cafe, Ready to Brew
Dosing Collar Storage
Double Filter
Storage Door
Deep Grouphead
Barista Assist
350g of Coffee
Drip Tray Assembly Removed
Bean Shut Off Control
Low Water Sensor
Don’t Do This
Well Made Burrs
Pitcher in Place
Removable Whisk
Cup Warmer Tray
Reservoir Markings
Left Side of the Panel
Documentation
Side Panel
Machine Revealed
Shut Off Latch
Steam Arm
Plastic Removed
Ninja Luxe Cafe Starter Kit
Fully Dialed In
First Shots with the Luxe Cafe
Second Tray
Testing the Machine
Luxe Cafe Machine
The Portafilter
Luxe Basket
Can’t Brew Into Two Cups
Tray with metal cover removed.
Shut Off System
Removable Reservoir
The Machine Removed
Cleaning Brush
Drink Suggestions
Dialed in Shots
Dosing Collar
Tamper Home
The Luxe Cafe Machine
Whereto Buy
Manufacturer Website
Buy from Supplier
Buy from Amazon (US)
Buy here to support CoffeeGeek!
Buy from Amazon (CA)
Buy here to support CoffeeGeek!
NotableFeaturesLet’s be real for a second: Ninja is a company with infomercial DNA. Their parent company, Shark, cut their teeth selling vacuums to insomniacs on late-night TV, and that heritage still exists in the Luxe Café Premier (ES601). The box practically screams “As Seen on TV.” It is covered in splashy graphics, bold claims, and enough reading material printed right on the cardboard that you could probably skip the manual entirely (sidenote: don’t; always RTFM). It is loud, it is busy, but hey, you definitely know what you just bought.
The Premier version of the Ninja Luxe Cafe
The front of the Ninja Luxe Cafe box.
One of the side panels, detailing everything the machine can do.
The other side panel, showing various drink builds.But here is where I have to get grumpy. We take sustainability seriously at CoffeeGeek. The machine is packed in a mountain of polystyrene. Styrofoam, people! In this day and age. If Breville can ship the massive Oracle Jet in fancy molded cardboard and Rancilio can go plastic-free, surely Ninja can figure it out. Come on, Shark folks: read the room. Make an environmental statement and be a leader, not a landfill filler.
After removing the paperwork, you’ll find a chromed metal cup tray, and the Luxe Café Starter Kit nestled in styrofoam. Once those are removed, the machine itself is revealed all wrapped in a plastic bag.
The top of the box for the Luxe Cafe Premiere machine, which shows a lot of the things the side of the box does.
Opening the lid reveals some of the drinks you can make with the machine.
First look inside reveals styrofoam, and a lot of paperwork and parts
The Quick Start Guide is a must read, and well laid out for getting the machine fired up
The second cup tray grid, starter kit and power cord are slotted into the top styrofoam.
The elevated cup tray is very heavy and a chromed type of metal.
The main machine revealed once the top styrofoam is removed.
Ninja did reduce the styrofoam somewhat, by using these corner stays made of cardboard.
The machine sits on another layer of styrofoam.
The machine and all the parts, removed from the box.Inside the starter kit, you get the portafilter (we will get to that unique bit later), a standard double basket, and their massive “Luxe” basket. Thankfully, neither are pressurized, which is a great sign. You also get a surprisingly decent click-pillar tamper, the mandatory dosing collar, and the usual cleaning suspects like a brush and blind filter. Gratefully missing? That useless plastic double-scoop spoon most cheap machines include. We definitely don’t miss it.
The starter kit that comes with the Luxe Cafe espresso machine
Starter Kit insert details what comes with the machine.
Inside you’ll find the portafilter, Luxe basket, tamper, dosing collar, and the cleaning and maintenance kit.
This scan code brings you to the starter page online for the Luxe Cafe, including setup videos.Digging the machine out, there is another box, holding the milk pitcher, tucked under the grouphead. This thing has a magnetic whisk in the bottom, so don’t lose that. Then comes the ritual of peeling off about a mile of blue tape securing everything. Once it is naked, the Luxe Café actually looks pretty good. It has real brushed steel plates where it counts, specifically on the front, top, and sides, balanced out by some high-quality dark grey plastic. It doesn’t look like a toy, which is a relief.
There’s still a lot of tape and other parts to remove from the machine. Setup takes about 10 minutes.Let’s now look at the machine in more detail.
Machine, Top to Bottom
There’s a lot to cover with the Ninja Luxe Café, but I’ll let our photos speak for themselves, aside from the detail we get into with the control panel.
At the top, you’ll find the bean hopper for the grinder, a cup warmer, and the lid for the removable reservoir. The grinder hopper low-profile design is a nice touch, making it more under-counter friendly. The cup warmer is large and features a brushed stainless steel ridged plate.
The reservoir holds 2 litres of water and has a low water sensor (something missing from the Breville Barista Express). However, it lacks a built-in water filter, which is surprising since all espresso machines should have one, and it would be a long-term profit opportunity for Ninja to sell replacement filters to owners.
The cup warmer tray does indeed get warm and holds a fair amount of cups.
The bean hopper lid is also low profile and seals pretty tight to help keep beans from going stale.
Inside the hopper is a lever to shut off the flow of beans to the grinder.
The reservoir lid is flush with the cup tray level, and easy to remove and access.
The reservoir level and markings are easy to read and view from the front side of the machine.
The reservoir is removable, and holds 2L of water.
The Ninja Luxe has a low water sensor, but no water filter system.Moving down the front of the machine, you come upon the Luxe Café’s rather busy control panel, which has many LEDs and indicators. While it lacks a fancy OLED screen, it makes up for it with plenty of bright lights and number readouts. It might look a bit intimidating at first, but trust me, it becomes second nature after using it for a week. The top half is sleek glossy black glass, while the bottom half gets down to business with brushed steel buttons and knobs.
The panel is split into three distinct zones. The left side primarily runs the grinder show, and also includes options for espresso temperature (you get three choices) and the descale button. It displays your current grind setting and even recommends where you should be based on your drink choice. It also helpfully nags you to tamp the coffee after grinding, whether for espresso or the larger 16 to 18oz brewed coffee drinks.
The middle section is mission control for drink selection. A central dial lets you scroll through options like espresso, quad shot, cold pressed espresso, and the various hot and cold coffee brewing methods. The machine tells you exactly which basket to swap in and lets you pick a brew size from 6 to 18 fl. oz with a button push. If you long press that size button, you access the advanced menu, which you can read about in the manual if you are feeling brave (or read on in this review).
The right side is all about the milk. You get four main options: no froth, low, high, and cold froth. “No froth” is what you use for manual steaming since it kills the spinning whisk mode, while cold froth uses no steam at all, just the magnetic whisk spinning away. You also have controls to tell the machine if you are using dairy or plant-based milk, foam type selectors, a clean button, and a purge button to blast the wand before use.
The reside of the display panel (unpowered) showing options for brewing and milk operation
The left side is where the grinding choice and drink temperatures are made.
The initial barista guidance is for “12” on the grinder; which I always wonder: what kind of coffee were they using to require this coarse a grind?
Here’s what you see on the panel if you are low on water in the reservoir.
Though the panel isn’t OLED or anything super fancy, various text and iconic indicators light up depending on your modes and choices.
The “barista assist” system in operation: it times the shot pulled and if it runs too fast, recommends a finer grind setting.
One thing I learned quick: don’t use grind settings of 12 or so for brewed coffee options. It will stall out the group. But 25 is way too coarse, too.
There is a removable sticker on the right side of the machine with the most common drink build recipes. I’ve left ours on.Continuing down the machine, you reach the main “business” area: the grinder doser, grouphead brewing area, and steaming platform.
The grinder only works with Ninja’s dosing collar; if you insert the portafilter into the grinder cradle without it, the machine won’t operate and alerts you on the display. The doser cradle includes a built-in scale, which Ninja markets as “Grind by Weight,” though our testing suggests it is actually an Adaptive Time Based Dosing (non official name) system that weighs the output post-grind to calibrate the next shot’s timer.
The grinder and burr assembly resemble the Barista Express, though there are differences. It features a removable conical top burr but cannot be micro-adjusted like Breville grinders. The grinder is fast, and the removable hopper holds up to 12 oz of coffee (350g). It features a bean shut-off system that allows you to remove a half full hopper without spilling beans everywhere.
The Luxe Cafe Bean Hopper can shut off the flow of beans for easy removal of the entire hopper.
Looks similar to the Breville grinder espresso machines, but doesn’t have the micro adjust.
the 39mm burr set looks fantastic, and is easily removed for deep cleaning.
The shut off system for the hopper.
The bean hopper can hold a full 12oz / 350g of coffee, no problem.
The cradle you insert the portafilter into. If you do not have the dosing collar attached, the machine won’t grind, and will warn you on the front panel.Another unique element of the Luxe Café is the grouphead and portafilter. The 53mm chromed brass portafilter is extremely deep with two spouts cast into its design. Why it has two spouts is remains a mystery, because you cannot fit two espresso (or larger) cups on the elevated or base drip trays. The handle is weighted, featuring a metal Ninja logo at the end cap. While it shares the triple bayonet design of Breville’s 54mm portafilters, they aren’t compatible due to the recessed grouphead designed for the deeper portafilter.
Ninja’s filter baskets are also incompatible with standard 54mm Breville baskets or aftermarket baskets made for Breville machines. The Luxe Café baskets feature rubber insets, fitting only one way into the portafilter. The machine includes two baskets: a standard double basket for up to 18g of coffee and an extra deep “Luxe” basket, holding up to 45g. Thankfully, neither are pressurized. Also thankfully, Ninja sells replacements for these on their website at decent prices.
The very unique, and very deep portafilter for the Luxe Cafe
Here’s why any Breville aftermarket 54mm PF won’t fit on the Luxe Cafe: the deeply recessed grouphead design.
Very essential: you cannot use the grinder without it. It’s all plastic, and a possible failure point.
Sure seems like chromed brass, but Ninja have not confirmed this.
The double filter in place. Note the rubber collar on the filter basket that only fits one way in the portafilter. I suspect the machine “reads” this type, and knows which basket you are using.
The Luxe (deep) basket, also note the rubber collar.
The double basket is similar to the Breville doubles, but has the rubber collar.
The Luxe Cafe double basket (on the right) compared to the Breville double basket on the left.
The unique Luxe Basket, which can hold over 40g of coffee.
This deep basket is used for brewed coffee modes, and for the quad shot. It’s something Breville can’t touch.
Both baskets are “standard”, with no pressurizing tricks.
The luxe cafe tamper, from the top.And there’s still more unique design choices to explore on the Luxe Café: its dual cup tray designs. A removable “mini” tray fits into the main drip tray. This allows the machine to accommodate large 18-20oz insulated cups by removing the mini tray and placing the cup directly on the counter. Since the Luxe Café uses a 3-way solenoid valve to release pressurized water after a shot, the main drip tray catches this purge water even when the mini tray is removed.
The second removable cup tray, made of thick metal, can be slotted into one of three positions, allowing you to move your espresso cup closer to the two spouts (again, why does this machine have dual spouts?).
The drip tray in place, on the Luxe Cafe Machine
The removable, elevated second cup tray. It can also be slotted into place to be level with the bottom tray.
The removable mini or “satellite” drip tray.
There’s not enough room to place two cups to brew in. So why does the PF have two spouts?
Even trying to angle the cups results in some espresso spilling outside the cups.On the right side of the business area is the milk station with a cradle for the Ninja Luxe Café pitcher. It includes a temperature sensor, a purge hole directing steam wand water to the drip tray, and a hidden magnetic stirrer to spin the frothing whisk inside Ninja’s steam pitcher at different speeds.
The pitcher has markings for milk levels, and the frothing whisk is easily removable due to its magnetic attachment.
The custom milk pitcher for the Luxe Cafe
The magnetically held spinning whisk in the bottom of the steam pitcher.
The Luxe Cafe’s pitcher, in place.
The steam pitcher base houses a temperature probe, and a magnetic stirrer that runs at two speeds.
The steam arm can also be used manually, but only pulls straight out from the machine: it cannot be angled to the side.
the spinning vortex action on milk when making foam milk on the Luxe CafeOn the left of the machine is the grind adjustment dial and slots for the tamper and dosing collar. More innovation can be found in the grinder adjustment settings: as long as the portafilter and doser collar are in the grinder cradle, each click finer you set on the grinder activates the motor for milliseconds, to purge some grinds and prevent damage to the burr carrier. We thought this was brilliant when we first saw it, and it remains so today (and something no other grinder maker or company making combi machines has duplicated).
You can also further purge the grinder of any left over grinds by pressing and holding the front mounted grinder button.
The tamper is a pillar design, and has a click effect with about 30lb of pressure applied. It is designed to work with the dosing collar, and using both ensures a very level pack on the ground coffee. Users have found that giving the portafilter a quick horizontal shake (our buddy Coffee Kev calls it the “Ninja Shake”) before removing the collar helps settle the fluffy mound of coffee and prevents spills.
The Luxe Cafe tamper isn’t cheap or a toy: it’s good weight, is a “click” tamper, and works with the dosing collar for a perfect level tamp.
Storage slots for tamper and dosing collar. I though the dosing collar had to be screwed in, but nope, just clicks into place.
A slot on the left side of the machine is the home for the tamper when not being used.
Just push the dosing collar into place, and it clicks, and is held securely.
The adjustment dial. When the PF and cradle are in place, the grinder runs for a few milliseconds with each click finer.The Ninja Luxe Café Premier model is smaller in real life than it looks in photographs; at least that was my initial impression. It sits just 37cm tall (14.5”), and will have no problem sitting under most kitchen cabinets. It is 34cm wide (13.25”) but you need a bit more clearance on the side for the tamper and dosing collar storage. Back to front it is just 33cm (over a foot at 13”).
The machine weighs 12.5kg (around 25lb). It runs at a full 1650W when doing everything, but my initial tests with a Kill-a-Watt meter show it manages that power well and is pretty efficient, drawing low power most of the time. The cord is 1m long, which to me is a perfect length for most kitchens, but some might find it too short.
Lastly, the warranty is one year, though there are options to extend that if you buy directly from the manufacturer.
The Ninja Luxe Cafe, fully set up, seasoned and ready to brew.Technical Specifications
If you are a tech specs geek, here are the full main specifications for the Ninja Luxe Café Premier, ES601 Model.
FeatureSpecificationModel NumberES601MSRP$549 USDMachine TypeHybrid Espresso, Drip & Cold Brew SystemPump Pressure15 BarHeating SystemSingle ThermoblockDimensions (H x W x D)37.1 x 33.0 x 34.0 cm (14.6″ x 13.0″ x 13.4″)Weight11.7 kg (25.7 lbs)Power1650 Watts / 120VWater Reservoir Capacity2.0 L (70 fl oz) – RemovableBean Hopper Capacity340 g (12 oz) – RemovableDrip Tray Capacity~350 ml (12 fl oz)Portafilter Size53mm (Stainless Steel)Filter BasketsDouble Shot, Luxe/Drip (Non-Pressurized)Espresso Drink StylesDouble Shot, Quad Shot, Cold Pressed EspressoCoffee Drink StylesClassic, Rich, Over Ice, Cold BrewCoffee/Cold Brew Sizes177, 237, 296, 355, 414, 473, 532 ml (6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 fl oz)Programmable Temperature3 Levels (Low, Medium, High)Programmable Milk Foam4 Presets (Steamed, Thin Froth, Thick Froth, Cold Foam)Programmable Milk TypeDairy, Plant-Based (Adjusts steaming profile)Grinder TypeIntegrated Conical Burr (25 Settings)Tamping SystemManual Spring-Loaded “Assisted Tamper”InterfaceLED Display with Barista Assist™ (Grind & Dose Guidance)Warm-Up Time< 30 SecondsWarranty1 Year LimitedBefore pulling a single shot, there are a few ground rules the Ninja Luxe Café Premier imposes on you. First, it simply won’t let you grind into the portafilter unless you attach the dosing collar stored on the side of the machine. The display will nag you until you comply. Second, you have very little “play” regarding your dose. The machine is programmed to grind approximately 17.5g to 18g of coffee for every double shot, and you cannot easily change this variable.
In our First Look, we speculated that the grinder wasn’t actually “Grind by Weight” as marketed, but rather a smart timer system. After extensive testing, we are confident this is an Adaptive Time Based Dosing system. The scale measures the finished weight of the coffee to judge the next dose. If a dose comes up light, the machine adjusts the timer for the next grind to run longer. It works well enough once dialed in, but don’t expect it to catch a sudden change in bean density instantly. We cover the pros and cons of this system in the Extended Use section below.
Back to the operation: the machine is delightfully fast. It requires almost no preheating time to brew its first shot of the day. There is no 15-minute wait and no need to run blank shots to warm up the grouphead. The machine runs its own active preheating routine immediately after you grind coffee. It is not an “instant on, instant work” system like the Thermojet-equipped Breville Bambino Plus or Oracle Jet, but it is faster than the cold-start performance of many more expensive thermoblock machines we’ve tested. The machine does have a roughly 30 to 45 second “preheating” mode to go through once you set up your first shot of the day and have ground your coffee. Follow up shot pulls happen much quicker.
Before diving into the initial critical tasting, I seasoned the grinder with about 3kg of stale coffee gifted by a local roaster. The Ninja handled the volume like a champ, though it did get confused when I was just grinding and dumping without brewing. I had to power cycle the machine occasionally to reset its internal logic, which expects a brew cycle to follow every grind.
Once seasoned, I loaded up our excellent standard lab coffee, Social Coffee’s People’s Daily Bump blend. The machine suggested a grind setting of “12”. Based on experience, I ignored this and set it to “8”. I kept all other parameters at factory stock.
The first shot ran fast, and the “Barista Assist” feature immediately chimed in, suggesting I go finer. I adjusted down to “5”, purged the grinder, and pulled again. The result was a 1:2.5 ratio shot that was tasty, fine, and solid. It was a 3-star shot out of 5; not bad at all, though perhaps a tad sour.
I dialed the grinder down to “4” and increased the brew temperature via the front panel. The next shot was significantly better. Good volume, great crema, and no sour notes. I would rate it a 3.5 to 3.75 star shot. Repeated pulls yielded near-identical results, proving the machine’s consistency.
The first or second shot I ran on the Luxe Cafe. Note the fast pour, undulating stream.Right out of the gate, the Ninja Luxe Café produces a better shot of espresso than a cold-start, thermojet-equipped Breville machine. Because the Ninja manages its own thermal stability during that post-grind pause, you avoid the sour, tepid shots common with other rapid-heat machines that haven’t been manually pre-heated. Of course, once a Thermojet equipped machine like the Oracle Jet or Bambino Plus are fully up to temperatures, they can and will produce better shots of espresso in seasoned hands.
This raises a point: experienced home baristas might find the ceiling is lower here with the Ninja, when compared to a Breville Barista Express or Infuser. In the hands of a skilled user, those machines can deliver a better cup, but they require much more “crafted input.” The Ninja delivers a “very good” shot with almost zero effort.
One immediate disappointment during this first session was the lack of hot water. I looked for a way to dispense water for an Americano or just to preheat a ceramic cup, and found nothing. It is a baffling omission for a machine that claims to be a “swiss-army knife” of coffee. We discuss this frustration in more detail in the The Overall Good and Bad subsection below.
Fully dialed in, the Luxe Cafe produces excellent shots of espresso.Living with the Ninja Luxe Café Premier is a mix of happy surprises and specific, daily frustrations. This is a machine that tries to be everything to everyone, and for the most part, it succeeds, provided you are willing to accept a few compromises.
Let’s get the annoyances out of the way first. The machine is loud. The milk frothing emits a high-pitched screech that could wake the dead, especially when doing hotter milk settings or using the “Thick Froth” mode. It settles down once the air is incorporated, but that initial shriek is jarring. If you have a sleeping baby or a light-sleeping partner, you might find yourself using the manual steam mode just to control the volume.
Second, this machine is thirsty. It feels like for every cup of coffee you drink, the machine drinks one too. It frequently auto-purges the steam wand and thermoblock, dumping water into that deep drip tray. You will find yourself emptying the tray and refilling the 2L tank far more often than you expect. This is the price of the “Auto-Purge” system that keeps the wand and internals clean, but it is a maintenance reality you must accept.
A specific gripe for the US and Canada model (ES601) is the lack of a hot water dispenser. If you are an Americano drinker, you are out of luck unless you use a separate kettle or run blank shots, which is messy, inaccurate, and can lead to stray grinds in your hot water. The EU model has this feature, but we didn’t get it. This is a baffling omission for a machine that claims to be a complete café solution.
How the Ninja Luxe Café Handles Milk
On the subject of milk production with this machine, Ninja have executed a very neat and unique solution. At first you might think what they got going on is a clone of sorts of what Breville does on their Oracle and Touch lines of machines. But nope, Ninja found their own solutions. A magnetically spinning whisk tied in with traditional steam wand (with airflow that adjusts), and a temperature sensor to get the milk more or less right.
The automated results are a bit of a mixed bag out of the box. The system prioritizes stiff, dense foam over the silky microfoam we usually aim for. We also found the factory temperature settings to be aggressively hot, often hitting 75°C (167°F). At that temperature, the natural sweetness of the lactose breaks down and you risk a scalded taste.
We strongly recommend diving into the Advanced Menu (accessible by long-pressing the Size button) to lower the target temperature to the “Low” setting. This brings the finish closer to a sweeter, more palatable 60°C to 65°C range that specialty coffee demands. The machine’s instruction manual covers how to do this.
For those wanting true latte art quality milk, you might want to bypass the automation entirely. The machine actually hides a fully manual steam mode that ignores the sensors and whisk logic. Select ‘No Froth’ on the dial, and hold the “Start Froth” button for three seconds; this will engage continuous manual steam. We found the best results came from setting the Ninja pitcher aside and using a standard 12oz stainless steel barista pitcher. With some practice, you can roll the milk manually to create that elusive wet paint texture the automated whisk struggles to replicate.
The automation does shine for pure volume and convenience, however, and if I’m honest, at the mid foam levels, does an admirable job hands off. The magnetic whisk spins at varying speeds to incorporate air while the steam heats the liquid. It creates thick, slightly silky foam that is perfect for “dry cappuccinos” but also pourable enough for some basic latte art.
Finally, we have to talk about the milk workflow, specifically the “Queue Milk” feature. This is pure genius for a lazy morning. You set up your shot, prep that milk pitcher with the magnetic whisk, select your foam level, and hit start. You press “Brew” first for the coffee and “Start” for the milk immediately after. The machine brews your shot, and the second the pump stops, the steam system fires up, and after a few seconds, the steam wand and whisk both kick in automatically. You can literally walk away to grab a pastry. It handles the difficult coordination of timing your milk and espresso perfectly, even if it “screams” at you while doing it.
The combination of the bottom magnetically spun whisk, and the introduction of air via the steam wand does a remarkable job with most of the machine’s froth modes. Definite pourable microfoam when set to the medium setting. And to die for in the cold froth mode.The Drink Building Process: Robot included
Using the Luxe Café feels less like operating a traditional espresso machine at times and more like collaborating with a slightly bossy robot. It starts with that big central dial. Let’s say you want a simple double espresso. You rotate the knob to “Espresso,” and the machine immediately wakes up, telling you exactly which basket to load (the standard double) and lighting up the grind setting it thinks you should use. If you have the “Luxe” basket in there from your morning cold brew, the machine will actually scold you, politely, on the LED readout, to swap it out.
Once your portafilter is loaded, attaching the dosing funnel isn’t optional; the machine demands it physically and digitally. You slide the whole assembly into the grinder cradle, press start, and endure the whine of the motor. It dispenses what it thinks is 18 grams of coffee, though it is likely timing this based on previous results rather than live-weighing every bean.
After the grind, you pull the portafilter out, tamp right through the funnel using the surprisingly solid click-tamper, and lock it into the grouphead. It feels secure, with a reassuring resistance that cheap machines often lack.
The actual espresso output is where Ninja was an initial pleasant surprise. Out of the box, it aims for SCA-level standards, using roughly 18g of coffee to yield about 45g of liquid (a 1:2.5 ratio). You can tweak this to a tighter 1:2 or a looser 1:3 in the menu, but you cannot change the coffee dose itself. Honestly? I am good with that. It removes the variables that mess up most beginners. The shots are consistent, syrupy, and if you use good beans, better than what you get at most chain cafes. It isn’t a machine for wild pressure-profiling experiments, but for a solid morning quality shot? It delivers.
Barista Assist: The Good and The Bad
This entire process is overseen by Ninja’s “Barista Assist” technology, which is essentially a backseat driver for your coffee making. When it works, it is a happy inclusion. It monitors the flow rate and time of your shot. If your espresso gushed out in 15 seconds, the machine knows it was too fast. The next time you go to grind, the display will suggest, or even insist, that you move the grind dial finer by a specific number of clicks. For a beginner who doesn’t understand the relationship between grind size and flow rate, this is an invaluable tutorial. It removes the frustration of “why is my coffee sour?” by giving you a direct mechanical solution.
However, the system has a dark side for experienced users. We found it can sometimes “chase its tail.” If you have a shot that runs just slightly fast, the machine might suggest moving the grinder five steps finer. You do that, and suddenly you choke the machine, getting a 45-second dripper. The machine then panics and tells you to go four steps coarser. You end up oscillating back and forth, wasting coffee. We also found that the “recommendations” are likely calibrated for generic grocery store beans. When using fresh, high-quality specialty coffee, the machine’s logic doesn’t always align with reality. Sometimes you just have to ignore the flashing lights and trust your palate and what you see in the shot visually, which feels rebellious when a robot is telling you you are wrong.
Or better yet, you can dive into the advanced menus, and turn the Barista Assist features off. (there’s two settings to change, the manual has the full details).
The Barista Assist mode, doing its thing by suggesting a new grind setting.Going Off Menu: Quad Shots and Filter Mode
The Luxe Café Premier really flexes its muscles when you move beyond standard espresso. Maybe you are heading out for a hike on the Juan de Fuca trail and need a thermos full of caffeine. That is where the “Quad Shot” mode comes in. You swap in the massive, deep “Luxe” basket, select Quad Shot, and the machine changes its entire personality. It uses a different pre-infusion and pump cadence to push water through that massive puck, delivering about 100ml of espresso in one go. The taste isn’t quite as balanced or sweet as the standard double shot, but it is totally drinkable and saves you the chore of pulling back-to-back shots while your hiking boots are waiting.
I have to admit, I have leaned on this feature more than a few times myself. I enjoy going for, ahem, “spirited drives” in a little two-seater sports car. I found the Quad Shot mode perfect for filling a sleek 350ml Kinto thermos that actually fits in the car’s tiny cupholders. Of course, because this US and Canadian model lacks a hot water spout, I still have to boil a separate kettle to top it up Americano style. It is a bit ridiculous to have a “robot barista” that can’t give you hot water, but it remains an easy, hassle-free way to fuel up for a half day of local tourism.
If you aren’t in the mood for espresso at all, the machine offers two hot filter-style modes: Classic and Rich. These mimic pour-over techniques using low-flow pulses. I mostly rolled with the “Rich” mode, which uses more coffee and adjusts the flow for a stronger cup. A pro-tip: whatever grind setting the machine suggests for these modes (usually 25), ignore it. Go finer, down to 21 or 22. The default is way too coarse and leaves you with a sour cup. Just be warned: the pucks in this mode are a wet, soupy mess to clean up because the machine doesn’t use a solenoid suction on this setting.
I will say this: the brewed coffee modes will have manual pourover purists lifting their noses. But that’s okay: these modes aren’t for them. These brewed coffee modes are meant to entice the Keurig users amongst us to move to something better in just about every way: better quality, better taste, lower operating costs, and way less waste. In that instance, these filter modes are a clear winner.
Brewing Coffee with the Luxe Cafe may not satisfy the super pour over nerd among us, but it will provide way better quality brewed coffee to reformed Keurig users.The Cold Truth: Iced vs. Cold Brew
Then there is the cold stuff. Ninja includes “Brew Over Ice” and a true “Cold Brew” mode. “Brew Over Ice” is basically their take on the Japanese Iced Coffee method (make sure to check out our How To!). It brews hot but concentrated, designed to melt the ice in your cup instantly. It keeps the acidity and bright flavors, but can skew bitter if you aren’t careful. For a 20oz drink, it only dispenses about 9oz (275ml) of hot coffee, expecting the ice to do the rest.
Personally, I am on Team “Cold Brew.” This mode uses reservoir-temperature water and slow pulses to extract coffee without heat. The result is smooth, low-acid, and naturally sweet. A CoffeeGeek hack that other reviewers missed: fill your water tank with ice water before running this mode. It drops the extraction temp even further and makes for a genuinely excellent cold cup.
Oh, did I mention how much I came to absolutely love the machine’s cold froth mode? I literally built new drinks around the fact that this machine produces an icey frothed milk. Even boozy drinks with Kahlua and Baileys. No other machine we’ve tested and used can produce this kind of ice cold, densely foamed milk. Add some sugar to the milk before spinning it up and it is like pourable whipped cream.
Brewing over Ice, which brews hot, but concentrated, retains most of the coffee’s flavour.The Overall Good and Bad
After months of testing in the CoffeeGeek Lab, we have a clear picture of where this machine leads the class, and stumbles. It is easily the most feature-rich machine under $600 we have ever tested, but that ambition comes with some distinct quirks. We’ve covered most of this already, but here is the concise wrapup of our long-term findings.
The Bad
- The Sonic Assault
There is no getting around it, this machine is loud. The initial phase of milk steaming produces a high-pitched screech that is genuinely unpleasant. It settles down, but early mornings require a closed kitchen door.
- Fragile Dosing Collar
This is a major failure point. The plastic dosing funnel, which is mandatory for the machine to operate, feels brittle. We have seen widespread reports of the mounting tabs cracking or snapping off completely after a few months of daily use. Treat this part like glass, or be prepared to hunt for an aftermarket aluminum replacement.
- Water Consumption
The Luxe Café is incredibly thirsty. Between the pre-infusions, the active heating management, and the aggressive auto-purging of the steam wand, you will be refilling the 2L tank constantly.
- The Americano Omission
On the US and Canadian model (ES601), the lack of a dedicated hot water dispenser is a baffling miss. You are forced to use a kettle or run blank shots to dilute your espresso, which feels like a step backward for a “do-it-all” station.
- Messy Pucks
When using the “Rich” or “Classic” filter coffee modes, the lack of a solenoid valve release means the coffee pucks are soupy and wet, requiring a rinse rather than a simple knock to clean.
The Good
- Genuine Innovation
The “Cold Brew” mode is not a gimmick. Using low-pressure, cool-temp pulses creates a beverage that actually tastes like cold brew, distinct from iced coffee.
- Cold Froth Versatility
This feature is entirely unique to the Luxe Café line. By adding a bit of sugar to the milk, you can create an instant “whipped cream” topping perfect for capping off cold brew drinks or even elevating your evening cocktails.
- Workflow Magic
The “Queue Milk” feature is a legitimate game-changer for home workflow. Being able to stack the espresso and milk commands and walk away makes the morning routine significantly smoother.
- Shot Quality
For a machine that controls the dose and ratio for you, the espresso is surprisingly consistently good. It hits that syrupy, balanced sweet spot more often than not, especially with the 1:2.5 ratio.
- Near Instant On
The thermoblock system is efficient. The zero-wait time from power-on to brewing is a massive perk compared to traditional boilers.
The cold brew result, with cold foam on top.CoffeeGeek Lab vs. The Internet
We also need to address some reliability issues reported online that we simply did not experience. A common complaint on Reddit is “Grinder Drift,” where the machine eventually forces the user to the finest setting (1) to get a good shot. In our testing of hundreds of shots, our grinder setting remained stable between 5 and 7.
Similarly, we never encountered the dreaded “Add Beans” error loop. We suspect this is because we perform a deep clean of the hopper and sensor area every few weeks. If you treat this machine like a precision tool and keep it clean, it seems to behave like one. If you treat it like a toaster, you might run into trouble.
Breville Barista Express (BES870XL)
This is the machine the Ninja is clearly aiming to dethrone, and why not: The Breville Barista Express (approx $999 CAD / $699 USD) is the world’s best selling espresso machine. The Barista Express feels more “premium” with its stainless steel skin, visible pressure gauge, and uses the standard 54mm accessory ecosystem, meaning you can easily buy upgraded baskets and tampers. It is quieter and feels more like a traditional, analog machine that rewards skill development.
However, the Ninja destroys it on features. The Ninja has Cold Brew, Cold Foam, and a more “hands-off” milk workflow with the “Queue Milk” function. The Breville requires you to manually steam the milk; you have to hold the pitcher and learn the technique yourself. The Breville’s grinder is also older technology with larger grind and timer steps between settings, whereas the Ninja’s guidance system actively helps you dial in.
If you want to learn espresso as a craft and enjoy the manual ritual, buy the Breville. If you want a drink with zero fuss, modern cold drink options, and more variety, the Ninja wins on value and versatility.
De’Longhi La Specialista Arte
Priced similarly to the Ninja, the De’Longhi La Specialista is a much more manual experience. It lacks the sophisticated “assist” features of the Ninja and certainly lacks the Cold Brew tech. The De’Longhi requires more user input for tamping and steaming. While it looks a bit more “classic” on the counter, the Ninja feels a generation ahead in terms of software and user guidance. The De’Longhi is for the person who wants to tinker; the Ninja is for the person who wants the result.
Gaggia Classic Evo Pro + Budget Grinder
For the same $550 spend, you could buy a Gaggia Classic and a hand grinder, or a cheap electric one. That setup will last you 20 years and is fully repairable. The Ninja is an appliance that might last 5-7 years with occasional maintenance. The Gaggia makes better espresso if you have the skills to temperature surf and mod it. The Ninja makes better espresso if you don’t have those skills. It is a trade-off of longevity vs. convenience. The Ninja also offers milk frothing that is arguably easier for a beginner than the Gaggia’s single-hole wand.
Ninja Luxe Café Pro (ES701)
The stiffest competition this machine faces comes directly from its own sibling. The “Pro” model typically costs about $150 more, and honestly, it fixes our biggest gripe with the Premier model because it finally includes hot water functionality. It can dispense hot water and even has an “Auto Americano” feature, though the implementation is a bit janky compared to a dedicated spout. It also adds an integrated “Smart Tamping System” lever on the left side.
While we usually prefer manual tools, the lever fits the target market for this machine perfectly as it simplifies the workflow even further for beginners. Throw in the fact that the Luxe Café Pro includes a single shot basket (missing on the Premier) alongside the double and quad, and the Pro is likely worth the extra cash if you are a daily Americano drinker or want a less involved (yet more accurate) tamping system.
Comparison Chart
FeatureNinja Luxe Café PremierNinja Luxe Café ProBreville Barista ExpressDe’Longhi La Specialista ArteGaggia Classic Evo ProModel NumberES601ES701BES870XLEC9155N/AMSRP (USD)$549$699$699$699$499 (Machine Only)Brew ModesEspresso, Drip Coffee, Cold Brew, Quad ShotEspresso, Drip Coffee, Cold Brew, Quad, AmericanoEspresso, Hot Water (Manual Americano)Espresso, Americano, Hot WaterEspresso OnlyIntegrated GrinderYesYesYesYesNo (Requires Separate Purchase)Portafilter Size53mm53mm54mm51mm58mm (Commercial Standard)Warm-Up Time~30 Seconds~30 Seconds~3 Minutes< 30 Seconds~5 MinutesTamping WorkflowManual “Assisted” (Spring-Loaded)Integrated “Smart” LeverManual (Tamper Included)Manual (Tamper Included)Manual (Tamper Included)Milk FrothingHands-Free (Auto Steam + Whisk)Hands-Free (Auto Steam + Whisk)Manual Steam WandManual Steam WandManual Steam WandCold Brew ModeYes (Low Temp & Pressure)Yes (Low Temp & Pressure)NoNo*NoHot Water SpoutNoYesYesYesYes (Via Steam Wand)Baskets IncludedDouble, Quad (Non-Pressurized)Single, Double, Quad (Non-Pressurized)Single & Double (Pressurized + Standard)Single & Double (Pressurized)Single, Double (Pressurized + Standard)Pressure GaugeDigital (On Screen)Digital (On Screen)Analog Pressure GaugeAnalog Pressure GaugeNoneBest For…Convenience & ValueAll-in-One Feature SeekersLearning the CraftTinkering / Manual FeelLongevity & RepairabilityThe Ninja Luxe Café Premier (ES601) is the machine that forced me to eat my words. I started this review with a “don’t prejudge” note on my whiteboard, fully expecting a plastic toy that made pressurized, fake espresso. I was wrong. This is a legitimate brewing tool that successfully bridges the gap between a kitchen appliance and a hobbyist espresso setup.
It is not perfect. It is loud, it wastes water like a leaky faucet, and the lack of a hot water dispenser on this specific model is a frustrating omission. But we cannot argue with the results in the cup. The espresso is syrupy and properly extracted. The “Queue Milk” workflow is a morning lifesaver. The Cold Brew mode is a genuine innovation that actually works.
For $549, there is simply nothing else on the market that offers this level of technology and cup quality. That is why we are awarding it a very high score of 88.5 out of 100. This score secures the machine a CoffeeGeek Best in Class award for entry-level espresso systems. It redefines what an appliance in this category can be.
The “Pro” Dilemma
However, there is a plot twist. We have also been testing the Ninja Luxe Café Pro (ES701), and spoiler alert: it is going to score even higher. The Pro model fixes our biggest complaints by adding a hot water dispenser, an Americano mode, and a single-shot basket. It also includes an automated tamping lever that simplifies the workflow even further.
So here is the bottom line. If your budget is strictly capped at $550, buy the Premier (ES601). It is the absolute best bang for your buck in the coffee world right now. You will love it.
But, if you can stretch your budget by another $150 to reach the $699 price point for the Pro, wait for that machine. That extra cash buys you the “complete” experience that the Premier just barely misses.
- 9.0
Design
A busy but generally logical interface. The magnetic storage and hidden compartments are brilliant, elevating it beyond a typical appliance. - 9.5
Usability
“Queue Milk” is magic. The workflow is incredibly smooth, and automated steps remove almost all frustration for those new to espresso. - 9.0
Features
Cold Brew, Cold Foam, Auto-Purge, and varied espresso ratios. It packs more tech than machines costing three times as much. Would score 10 if it had hot water ability. - 8.5
Performance
Solid 1:2.5 espresso ratios and genuine Cold Brew innovation. The milk texture is good, though the process remains loud. - 10
Value vs. Cost
Unbeatable. You cannot find this feature set, build quality, and performance for $549 anywhere else. Period. - 8.5
Quality of Build
Unexpectedly dense and heavy (9.5kg). The accessories (tamper, baskets) are premium quality, feeling far better than budget standard. - 8.0
Service / Warranty
Standard warranty, but the wide availability of cheap spare parts (baskets, reservoirs) suggests a machine meant to be repaired. - 9.5
Included in the Box
The “Starter Kit” is complete. Two baskets, a heavy tamper, cleaning kit, and specific milk jug. Nothing else to buy. - 8.0
Resale Value
High demand and unique features likely mean this will hold value better than typical kitchen appliances. - 8.5
Overall
The Ninja Luxe Café Premier is a category disruptor. It is not perfect as the noise and water usage are real issues, but it successfully democratizes specialty coffee features that were previously out of reach for this price point. It does exactly what it promises to do.
Where to Buy
Manufacturer Website
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Buy here to support CoffeeGeek! - The Sonic Assault
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Scattered across the streets lying south and west of Glasgow Cross, there are five steeples bearing distinctive blue-faced clocks: the Tolbooth, the Tron, the Briggait, St Andrew’s in the Square, and Hutchesons’ Hall. Occasionally a tour guide will point at one of them and explain that it’s painted blue because of an edict of Henry VIII. This is not, as far as I know, true. Nevertheless, the city’s blue clocks have a story to tell. It’s a story about Glasgow’s growth from the Reformation to the Industrial Revolution, from a market town in the shadow of the Church to a confident manufacturing giant.
The steeples of the Tolbooth (lower right) and St Andrew’s in the Square (left).In the late sixteenth century, Glasgow had just two public clocks. One occupied the old Tolbooth at the Cross, a building that probably dated to the early fifteenth century; the other was in one of the now-demolished west towers of the Cathedral.
The Tolbooth clock first enters the records in September 1573, when one Dauid Lioun was paid three shillings “for ane pece of trie to þe knok”. Three years later, the Council employed David Kaye, of Craill,
to ſett wp and repair or mend þe two knokks, þe ane maid be himſelf, and þe wþer auld knok mendit be him, how oft he beis requyrit þairto, be þame or ony in thayr name, and þat wpone þe tounes raonable expenſs fo be payit and done be him thairfor.
Kaye, who had already built a clock for St Mary’s Church in Dundee, was probably as close as Scotland had to a professional clockmaker. The Tolbooth clock was an elaborate piece of work, with not only an “orlage” (face) but a “moyne”, i.e. a display showing the phases of the moon. Unfortunately, like most clocks of the period it could not be trusted to keep good time if left to its own devices, and by 1578 the position of “rewler of the knok” had been established. The first incumbent was a chaplain, Archibald Dickie, who was paid a small salary
for rowlling and gyding of the knok and for lying nychtlie in the tolbuth to rewll and keip the samyne.
Dickie, lying every night alone in the Tolbooth with a watchful eye on the rickety machinery, must have felt the cold, and his remuneration included a separate allowance “for helping and support of him to his bed clais”.
It’s possible that the first clock in the High Kirk was in fact the old Tolbooth clock replaced by Kaye. It first appears in 1587, when a smith from Blantyre was called in to repair it. The records of the Kirk Session from 1591 suggest that this clock was under the supervision of the beadles, who were charged
to allow none to enter the Steeple to trouble the Knock and Bell there, but to keep the Knock going at all times.
By 1610, responsibility for the two clocks had been combined, and
George Smyth, rewler of the Tolbuith knok, hes bund him to the town to rewll the said knok for all the dayis of his lyfetyme for the sowme of tuentie pundis money yeirlie… and siklike, oblissis him to rewll the Hie Kirk knok and keip the same in gangand grath, and visie hir twa seuerall dayis in the wik, the sessioun payand him ten merkis yeirlie.
Although Smyth’s salary of twenty pounds a year was not colossal, this solemn contract suggests that the clocks were important to the town, and it’s worth asking why.
One reason was undoubtedly prestige. For a couple of centuries, increasingly complex astronomical clocks, such as the Pražský orloj of 1410, had been used to signal status and sophistication. Typically such clocks carried gilded numerals and astronomical symbols on a blue background. In 1540, Henry VIII of England had a particularly splendid example installed at Hampton Court, and it seems likely that this set the fashion across the British Isles. Though we have no information about the decoration of the Tolbooth or High Kirk clocks, it’s reasonable to guess they were in the same tradition.
The astronomical clock (1540) at Hampton Court. [Wikimedia Commons]A second reason the clocks mattered was more practical: a town clock set a definitive standard of time. This was important to a mercantile centre because trade, including trading hours, was strongly regulated. Glasgow’s Letter of Guildry in 1605 specified that
It shall not be leasome to any unfreeman to hold stands upon the Highstreet, to sell anything pertaining to the crafts or handy work, but betwixt eight of the morning and two of the clock in the afternoon, under the penalty of forty shilling; providing that tappers of linen and woollen cloth be suffered from morning to evening, at their pleasure, to sell. All kind of vivers to be sold from morning to evening; but unfreemen, who shall sell white bread, to keep the hours appointed.
This system which defended the rights of the established merchants and other burgesses against “unfreemen” could be enforced only if the “hours appointed” could be defined. (The legal importance of the town clock is echoed in a tale a century later, when the burghers of Banff put their clock forward a quarter of an hour to hang the outlaw James MacPherson before his pardon could arrive.)
In 1626 the increasingly prosperous burgh demolished the old Tolbooth and erected a new one on splendid lines. A combination of city hall, prison, and bell-tower topped with vanes and a gilded weathercock, it required a clock to match. One John Neill was paid six hundred merks “to mak ane new knok and haill furnitour of irne work, als sufficient, fyne, and worthie as the great knok in the laich stipill of the Metrapolitane Kirk”. It came with “horolog brodie, mones, bunkis and roweris”, i.e. a clock face, a moon, rollers, and mysterious accessories that appear nowhere else in Early Modern Scots.
The project ran somewhat over budget. Neill had to be paid a further three hundred merks in 1628, while a subcontractor received another fifty “becaus it was lang in working, and sindrie pairtis thairof wrocht over agane”. Finally “Vallentyn Ginking, paintour” was called in to make the whole ensemble glorious by “gilting of the horologe brodis, palmes, mones, the Kingis armes and all paintrie and cullouring thairof”. It was pure bling, and a powerful statement that Glasgow had arrived.
Glasgow showing off its gilded cock.Neill’s struggles with the mechanism reflected the fact that clockmaking locally was in its early days. It was in 1630 that the first clockmaker was recommended to the Incorporation of Hammermen, and only in 1649 that he was formally admitted, although the Hammermen had been asserting their right to regulate clockmaking since 1622.
The Tolbooth clock would not rule alone for long over the lower part of Glasgow. The next to join it was the clock in the steeple of Hutchesons’ Hospital, on the north side of the Trongate, which was installed in 1649 at a cost of £408 14s Scots. This clock must have had a rough time of it, as the lead that protected the steeple was stripped off in 1651 to save it from Cromwell’s troops; stashed under the floor of the Hospital, it was not restored until 1654.
Artist’s impression of the old Hutchesons’ Hospital on Trongate. [The Glasgow Story]In the late 1650s the University under Principal Patrick Gillespie also embarked on a building project, and a tower duly rose between the courts, containing a clock apparently made by a local blacksmith.
The University in the 1660s, from Slezer’s Theatrum Scotiae (1693), showing the bell/clock tower. [The Glasgow Story]Not to be left behind, in 1663 the Merchants’ House erected their new steeple in Briggait, with its own clock and peal of bells. This triggered one of the periodic rows between Council and contractors.
Artist’s impression of the Merchants’ Hall in Briggait, with its steeple. [The Glasgow Story]Andrew Purdoune had succeded John Neill in 1657 as “rewler of the knocks”, a task which increased in complexity with every new clock that had to be synchronised with the others. Meanwhile James Colquhoune, a general factotum to the Council, picked up a deal of work colouring and gilding the horologes. The job of making and rewling the new Briggait clock went to John Brodbridge, who briefly ousted Purdoune, but by 1665 the Council were accusing him of “not performing his ingadgment in relatioune to the perfecting the knock in Briggait”. Brodbridge was held to his contract to produce chimes for this clock, but they were instead to be installed in the Tolbooth. This took a couple more years to achieve, and finally in 1668,
The provest having relaited in counsell that there was ane generall complent throw the whoill toune anent the misgoverning of the knockis, in consideratioune quherof it was concludit, be pluraltie of votis, that the keyes should be takin from Johne Brodbridge and delyvered againe to Andrew Purdoune; and the said Johne, being sent for, come and did lay doune the said keyes wpon the counsell table.
Despite this discord the Tolbooth now had a musical clock, or at least a clock equipped to make loud noises at specified intervals. Musicality took longer. In 1673, fifty pounds sterling were “deburst to Mr. Kervie for tuning the bellis”, and in 1677, a further five pounds sterling were paid to “Walter Corbett, lait prenteis to Androw Purdoume, for chynging the note of the chyme of bellis in the tolbuith quhen his maister was at Holland”. By 1693, at least, John Slezer could remark on “the Tolbooth, magnificently built of hewn stone, with a very high tower, and bells which sound melodiously at every hour’s end”.
Competition continued for the role of clock-keeper, which suggests that it was either profitable in itself or a good opportunity to pick up lucrative jobs. In a small community with close links between the Trades and the Council, work was often awarded on the basis of estimates which were understood to be elastic. In 1720, the keeper William Telfer did find his “extravagant” bill of £136/11/6 sterling for work on the Tolbooth and Briggait clocks firmly reduced to 2000 Scots merks (roughly £100 sterling), but this didn’t stop him keeping the role until 1736, when he was cut out by John Dunlop, who’d been petitioning for it since 1729. The Telfer dynasty, in the person of John Telfer, recovered the contract in 1739 and retained it at least until 1758; from 1752 onward it was held by John’s widow (whose first name is sadly not recorded). Another widow, Katherine Hannington, would be keeper of the clocks from 1812 to 1813 in succession to her husband William.
By modern standards, the maintenance the keepers carried out was probably fairly crude. We know the mechanisms were lubricated, as one of Walter Corbet’s duties in 1688 was “to furnishe the haill clocks with oyll”. This oil was, in all probability, derived from tallow produced by the local fleshers, which would explain the occasional references to violent cleansing procedures: “putting [the Tolbooth clock] throw the fyre” in 1702 and “boyling” the clocks in 1738 and 1744. In turn, this handling probably explains why Glasgow’s clocks needed regular replacement or repair.
The eighteenth century brought a new technology: the pendulum. A mechanical clock needs two main elements: a drive to supply the force to keep the parts moving, and an escapement which measures out that motion in regular amounts. Glasgow’s early clocks were driven, like most steeple clocks, by slowly descending weights. We don’t have direct evidence about their escapements, but we can assume that they used the standard system of the day: a verge and foliot. This consisted of a toothed wheel which engaged a vertical rod, the verge, turning it alternately in one direction and the other; the verge in turn rotated a weighted horizontal rod, the foliot, and it was the foliot’s moment of inertia that controlled the rate of the rotation.
Early verge and foliot escapement [Wikimedia Commons].Verge and foliot escapements seem to have been about as fiddly as this description suggests: modern estimates suggest that if carefully tended — and presumably not boiled too often — they might be accurate to within fifteen minutes per day. Pendulum escapements, invented by Christiaan Huygens in 1756 and gradually improved, were a huge advance, reducing daily errors to as little as tens of seconds. Pendulums had reached eastern Scotland by the 1690s, and took a further decade to spread west. The Tolbooth clock was converted in 1702, with a minute hand added at the same time; an idea of the scale of the operation is given by the charge for “twelve stone and twelve pound of iron… for wheels to the said clock”. The Hutchesons clock was similarly upgraded in 1703, and the High Kirk in 1707.
The High Kirk clock was replaced entirely in 1724, and that decade saw various bling-enhancement works on the others: when the Briggait steeple was redded up in 1728, it used 119 books of gold leaf, exhausting the local book-binder’s supplies so that more had to be ordered from Edinburgh.
The next major upgrade came in 1736, when the Council revived their interest in music. A Stirling watchmaker, Andrew Dickie, was contracted to make a completely new chime of bells, along with “a new sett of wheels and pinions, a wooden barrell, a new sett of keys and comb barr, a sett of clappers with hammers and hammer springs and other tackling”. These chimes weren’t just a gigantic music box: they could also be played by hand. A local music teacher, Rodger Rodburn, was sent through to Edinburgh to learn the art, and equipped with a small set of practice bells at the town’s expense. He was then paid an annual salary of £15 sterling “for playing on the bells from half one to half two in the afternoon each day, Sabbath days excepted, and for extraordinary playing on Hallow days. These live performances were in addition to the mechanical sounding of the “curious set of chymes and tuneable bells, which plays every two hours”.
“Curious” was probably the right word. The original set of eighteen bells ordered to be cast in London turned out to be one short, and a B-flat bell was hurriedly added to the order — which came to £311 1s. 9d. sterling. Whether from deficiencies in casting or in installation, the chime was not in tune, and after two excruciating years the Council employed John Fife, “player on the musick bells at Edinburgh” to sort it out. The process took four months of chiselling and the casting of fourteen new bells, while one of the old bells sent to Edinburgh proved irredeemable and was melted down for scrap. (It weighed 620 pounds; transporting it in pre-canal days must have been a major operation.)
Even with approximately tuneful bells, the performances can’t have been subtle. “Senex” recalled watching the musician in action around 1790, and recorded that the keys were “sturdily beaten with the whole force of the clenched fists, and these fists carefully guarded from danger by being enclosed in well-stuffed coverings of stout leather”. Nevertheless, the performances became a treasured part of Glasgow life.
As the city expanded, new churches were required, and these naturally came with clocks. The first was the North-West Kirk (also known as the Ramshorn) in 1722. St Andrew’s followed in 1756, St Enoch’s in 1780, and St George’s in 1809. In 1757, the Tolbooth clock was replaced again, with “a new four-day clock, carricing eight hands, with a quarter piece”; this may also have been when this clock acquired “day o’ the month brodds” in addition to its other paraphernalia. After some repair work, the old Tolbooth clock was put up in the steeple of the Laigh Kirk on Trongate; the Tron steeple remains today after the rest of the kirk was lost to accidental arson by the City Guard.
The Trongate in 1770, from a drawing by Robert Paul. The old Tolbooth clock can be seen in the Tron Steeple to the left, and the new Tolbooth clock in the Tolbooth steeple to the right. [The Glasgow Story]We get occasional glimpses of the University clock and its tower. By 1730, one Henry Drew, hammerman, was being given an allowance for keeping this clock in order. (Drew also worked for Robert Dick, Professor of Natural Philosophy, becoming the first recorded lab assistant in the University’s history.) This clock was replaced in about 1750. In 1771 Dick’s successor John Anderson entertained a kite-flying crony from America, one Benjamin Franklin, on a visit to Scotland; the following year saw Glasgow’s first lightning conductor fitted to that tower.
The University clock tower, in a George Washington Wilson photo from the mid-C19th. [Aberdeen University]In 1802-5, as part of the city’s redevelopment and expansion westward, the old Hutchesons’ Hospital was demolished and Hutcheson Street opened through the site. A new building, Hutchesons’ Hall, was erected where Hutcheson Street met Ingram Street. The original plan may have been to recycle the old clock, now a century or more old, but in the end a replacement was supplied by William Hannington for £168 11s. Hannington, in fact, was only a middleman, and the clock itself was made by John Thwaites & Co, the leading clockmakers of London. Rising on manufacture and the Atlantic trade, Glasgow could finally afford the best that dubiously gained wealth could buy.
The arrival of the new Hutchesons clock, and the other Thwaites clock that graced the steeple of St George’s, set the Council fretting. By now there were nine public clocks: some were effectively worn out, and there was not much consensus on the time. A Committee on Clocks was formed, and as well as recommending a change of contractor it set out an expensive programme of repairs and replacements.
Public clocks marked on Fleming’s 1808 plan of Glasgow: from north to south, the High Kirk, the University, the North-West Kirk, St George’s, Hutchesons, the Tolbooth, the Tron Steeple, St Andrew’s, St Enoch’s and the Briggait. [National Library of Scotland]This work took place in fits and starts over the next twelve years. The Tron clock was the first to be replaced, with another Thwaites piece; the old Tron clock made its way to the High Kirk. The Tolbooth clock was recommended for replacement in 1809, but the Council baulked first at the price tag and then at the countersuggestion that “it should not in future be burdened with the additional machinery for playing tunes every two hours”. A solemn warning was recorded that “[t]he public would be sensible of the want and might complain”, and the Council bravely resolved to take no action.
Instead, the Tolbooth clock limped on with successive repairs until 1815, when the new contractors Mitchell & Russell reported that “on taking it to pieces we find it so completely worn out that to repair it… would be throwing away the sum voted for that purpose”. Mitchell & Russell provided a detailed proposal, which was accepted, and which constitutes the most detailed description of any of the Glasgow civic clocks:
… the machine to be what is termed an eight day clock, with the exception of the musical part which is to go 24 hours as at present, the quarters are to strike on two bells instead of one as is the case at present, copper hands gilt are to be placed on each of the four dials so as to show the hours and minutes, the great wheels are to be as follows, vizt., striking 16 inches, watch 15 inches, quarter 16 inches, and chime 24 inches diameter, all of which are to be fixed in strong iron frames; the barrel for the music is to be new, and fitted for the tunes at present in use, vizt., for Sunday—the Easter hymn, Monday—Gilderoy, Tuesday—Nancy’s to the greenwood gane, Wednesday—Tweedside, Thursday—Lass o’ Patie’s mill, Friday—The last time I came o’er the moor, and Saturday—Roslin Castle. Conformable to the above description we hereby offer to make and put up the whole machinery, &c., and to find the weights, pulleys, ropes, and carpenter work, and do every other necessary thing in a sufficient manner to your satisfaction, the work to be fitted into its place and clock going by the 1st of January next, for the sum of £325, at 6 months’ credit or 5 per cent. for cash.
(Apart from the Easter Hymn — probably Jesus Christ is Risen Today from Lyra Davidica — these tunes were traditional Scots airs, dating to early in the previous century. The chimes were still going forty years later, when the antiquarian Gilbert Neil noted that “Though said even yet not to be sufficiently perfect in the musical scale, the chime must be allowed as of a respectable order, and possessing such variety of tones as to render the harmony always cheering and agreeable.”)
The five remaining blue-faced clocks: Hutchesons’ Hall (centre); St Andrew’s in the Square (top left); the Tolbooth (top right); the Tron steeple (bottom right); the Briggait (bottom left). Note the close family resemblance, which may be the result of the rapid burst of replacement in the early nineteenth century.The High Kirk clock, which had started out a century earlier in the Tolbooth, was finally scrapped and replaced in 1817, as was the North-West Kirk clock. (It may be one of these that had recently nearly killed “a valuable and respectable clergyman” when one of its weights fell and ricocheted off the floor.) Haggling over the clock in the Briggait steeple ended only in 1821 with a deal to split the costs between the Council and the Merchants’ House. This seems to have been the last clock to be set up in the old blue-faced style: when the North-West Kirk was replaced entirely in 1825-6, it carried, like St George’s before it, a more modern design.
The clock on the Ramshorn Kirk (possibly a modern replica, but consistent with contemporary images).Maintenance costs were still a worry to the Council, with a perpetually lingering suspicion that clock-keepers were making work for themselves. The proposal to roll the costs of repairs into the keeper’s salary was first made in 1823, and finally agreed in 1829: after a round of maintenance the keeper, Mr Halbert, was contracted to wind and maintain the clocks, posting a £100 bond as surety that no extra expense would be laid on the town for fifteen years. After several centuries, the Council had finally learned to manage risk when awarding public contracts.
By this point the clock in the Tron steeple had acquired something genuinely new: gas light. The lighting was set up in October 1821, and consisted of an argand burner mounted above the dial and enclosed in a parabolic reflector. James Cleland boasted that “this is the only steeple in the kingdom where the hour can be seen after dark, at a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile”; being Cleland, it is almost certain that he had measured this.
Cleland made a point of naming the designers of the Tron’s lighting scheme: John and Robert Hart, a pair of pastry bakers from Bo’ness who had moved to Glasgow, taken classes at Anderson’s Institution, become pals with James Watt, and set themselves up as inventors. To Cleland and others, their career paths epitomised the rising industrial city, finally shaking off its provincial past and emerging as a centre of innovation.
After perhaps three centuries of chasing the technological curve, Glasgow had at last caught up. The brilliantly lit Tron clock, like all its predecessors, was more than a timepiece: it was quite consciously a sign of the times.
Main sources
Many of the details come from the Extracts from the Burgh Records of Glasgow published by the Scottish Burgh Records Society. (If anyone ever finds a copy of the 1760-1809 volume(s), please let me know.) Other key sources:
- James Cleland, Annals of Glasgow (1816) and Statistical Tables (1823)
- James Coutts, A history of the University of Glasgow, from its foundation in 1451 to 1909 (James Maclehose & Sons, 1909)
- William H. Hill, History of the Hospital and School Founded in Glasgow, A.D. 1639-41, by George and Thomas Hutcheson of Lambhill (Hutchesons, 1881)
- Harry Lumsden & P. Henderson Aitken, History of the Hammermen of Glasgow (Alexander Gardner, 1912)
- James D. Marwick, Early Glasgow (James Maclehose & Sons, 1911)
- John Muendel, “Friction and Lubrication in Medieval Europe: The Emergence of Olive Oil as a Superior Agent”, Isis, Vol. 86, No. 3 (Sep., 1995), pp. 373-393.
- David Murray, “The Preservation of the Tolbooth Steeple of Glasgow”, The Scottish Historical Review, Jul., 1915, Vol. 12, No. 48 (Jul., 1915), pp. 354-368.
- Gabriel Neil, “A few brief notices of the old Tolbooth at the Cross of Glasgow, removed in 1814, &c.”. Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1859), pp. 8-28.
- “Senex” and others, Glasgow Past and Present (David Robertson & Co., 1854)
- John Smith, Old Scottish Clockmakers from 1453 to 1850 (Oliver & Boyd, 1921)
I’m also grateful to Rebekah Higgitt and Thony Christie for responding to the hist-tech bat-signal when I had questions about astronomical clocks. Full details of everything available on request; corrections welcome, and all mistakes my own.
https://newcleckitdominie.wordpress.com/2023/10/09/blue-in-the-face/
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Scattered across the streets lying south and west of Glasgow Cross, there are five steeples bearing distinctive blue-faced clocks: the Tolbooth, the Tron, the Briggait, St Andrew’s in the Square, and Hutchesons’ Hall. Occasionally a tour guide will point at one of them and explain that it’s painted blue because of an edict of Henry VIII. This is not, as far as I know, true. Nevertheless, the city’s blue clocks have a story to tell. It’s a story about Glasgow’s growth from the Reformation to the Industrial Revolution, from a market town in the shadow of the Church to a confident manufacturing giant.
The steeples of the Tolbooth (lower right) and St Andrew’s in the Square (left).In the late sixteenth century, Glasgow had just two public clocks. One occupied the old Tolbooth at the Cross, a building that probably dated to the early fifteenth century; the other was in one of the now-demolished west towers of the Cathedral.
The Tolbooth clock first enters the records in September 1573, when one Dauid Lioun was paid three shillings “for ane pece of trie to þe knok”. Three years later, the Council employed David Kaye, of Craill,
to ſett wp and repair or mend þe two knokks, þe ane maid be himſelf, and þe wþer auld knok mendit be him, how oft he beis requyrit þairto, be þame or ony in thayr name, and þat wpone þe tounes raonable expenſs fo be payit and done be him thairfor.
Kaye, who had already built a clock for St Mary’s Church in Dundee, was probably as close as Scotland had to a professional clockmaker. The Tolbooth clock was an elaborate piece of work, with not only an “orlage” (face) but a “moyne”, i.e. a display showing the phases of the moon. Unfortunately, like most clocks of the period it could not be trusted to keep good time if left to its own devices, and by 1578 the position of “rewler of the knok” had been established. The first incumbent was a chaplain, Archibald Dickie, who was paid a small salary
for rowlling and gyding of the knok and for lying nychtlie in the tolbuth to rewll and keip the samyne.
Dickie, lying every night alone in the Tolbooth with a watchful eye on the rickety machinery, must have felt the cold, and his remuneration included a separate allowance “for helping and support of him to his bed clais”.
It’s possible that the first clock in the High Kirk was in fact the old Tolbooth clock replaced by Kaye. It first appears in 1587, when a smith from Blantyre was called in to repair it. The records of the Kirk Session from 1591 suggest that this clock was under the supervision of the beadles, who were charged
to allow none to enter the Steeple to trouble the Knock and Bell there, but to keep the Knock going at all times.
By 1610, responsibility for the two clocks had been combined, and
George Smyth, rewler of the Tolbuith knok, hes bund him to the town to rewll the said knok for all the dayis of his lyfetyme for the sowme of tuentie pundis money yeirlie… and siklike, oblissis him to rewll the Hie Kirk knok and keip the same in gangand grath, and visie hir twa seuerall dayis in the wik, the sessioun payand him ten merkis yeirlie.
Although Smyth’s salary of twenty pounds a year was not colossal, this solemn contract suggests that the clocks were important to the town, and it’s worth asking why.
One reason was undoubtedly prestige. For a couple of centuries, increasingly complex astronomical clocks, such as the Pražský orloj of 1410, had been used to signal status and sophistication. Typically such clocks carried gilded numerals and astronomical symbols on a blue background. In 1540, Henry VIII of England had a particularly splendid example installed at Hampton Court, and it seems likely that this set the fashion across the British Isles. Though we have no information about the decoration of the Tolbooth or High Kirk clocks, it’s reasonable to guess they were in the same tradition.
The astronomical clock (1540) at Hampton Court. [Wikimedia Commons]A second reason the clocks mattered was more practical: a town clock set a definitive standard of time. This was important to a mercantile centre because trade, including trading hours, was strongly regulated. Glasgow’s Letter of Guildry in 1605 specified that
It shall not be leasome to any unfreeman to hold stands upon the Highstreet, to sell anything pertaining to the crafts or handy work, but betwixt eight of the morning and two of the clock in the afternoon, under the penalty of forty shilling; providing that tappers of linen and woollen cloth be suffered from morning to evening, at their pleasure, to sell. All kind of vivers to be sold from morning to evening; but unfreemen, who shall sell white bread, to keep the hours appointed.
This system which defended the rights of the established merchants and other burgesses against “unfreemen” could be enforced only if the “hours appointed” could be defined. (The legal importance of the town clock is echoed in a tale a century later, when the burghers of Banff put their clock forward a quarter of an hour to hang the outlaw James MacPherson before his pardon could arrive.)
In 1626 the increasingly prosperous burgh demolished the old Tolbooth and erected a new one on splendid lines. A combination of city hall, prison, and bell-tower topped with vanes and a gilded weathercock, it required a clock to match. One John Neill was paid six hundred merks “to mak ane new knok and haill furnitour of irne work, als sufficient, fyne, and worthie as the great knok in the laich stipill of the Metrapolitane Kirk”. It came with “horolog brodie, mones, bunkis and roweris”, i.e. a clock face, a moon, rollers, and mysterious accessories that appear nowhere else in Early Modern Scots.
The project ran somewhat over budget. Neill had to be paid a further three hundred merks in 1628, while a subcontractor received another fifty “becaus it was lang in working, and sindrie pairtis thairof wrocht over agane”. Finally “Vallentyn Ginking, paintour” was called in to make the whole ensemble glorious by “gilting of the horologe brodis, palmes, mones, the Kingis armes and all paintrie and cullouring thairof”. It was pure bling, and a powerful statement that Glasgow had arrived.
Glasgow showing off its gilded cock.Neill’s struggles with the mechanism reflected the fact that clockmaking locally was in its early days. It was in 1630 that the first clockmaker was recommended to the Incorporation of Hammermen, and only in 1649 that he was formally admitted, although the Hammermen had been asserting their right to regulate clockmaking since 1622.
The Tolbooth clock would not rule alone for long over the lower part of Glasgow. The next to join it was the clock in the steeple of Hutchesons’ Hospital, on the north side of the Trongate, which was installed in 1649 at a cost of £408 14s Scots. This clock must have had a rough time of it, as the lead that protected the steeple was stripped off in 1651 to save it from Cromwell’s troops; stashed under the floor of the Hospital, it was not restored until 1654.
Artist’s impression of the old Hutchesons’ Hospital on Trongate. [The Glasgow Story]In the late 1650s the University under Principal Patrick Gillespie also embarked on a building project, and a tower duly rose between the courts, containing a clock apparently made by a local blacksmith.
The University in the 1660s, from Slezer’s Theatrum Scotiae (1693), showing the bell/clock tower. [The Glasgow Story]Not to be left behind, in 1663 the Merchants’ House erected their new steeple in Briggait, with its own clock and peal of bells. This triggered one of the periodic rows between Council and contractors.
Artist’s impression of the Merchants’ Hall in Briggait, with its steeple. [The Glasgow Story]Andrew Purdoune had succeded John Neill in 1657 as “rewler of the knocks”, a task which increased in complexity with every new clock that had to be synchronised with the others. Meanwhile James Colquhoune, a general factotum to the Council, picked up a deal of work colouring and gilding the horologes. The job of making and rewling the new Briggait clock went to John Brodbridge, who briefly ousted Purdoune, but by 1665 the Council were accusing him of “not performing his ingadgment in relatioune to the perfecting the knock in Briggait”. Brodbridge was held to his contract to produce chimes for this clock, but they were instead to be installed in the Tolbooth. This took a couple more years to achieve, and finally in 1668,
The provest having relaited in counsell that there was ane generall complent throw the whoill toune anent the misgoverning of the knockis, in consideratioune quherof it was concludit, be pluraltie of votis, that the keyes should be takin from Johne Brodbridge and delyvered againe to Andrew Purdoune; and the said Johne, being sent for, come and did lay doune the said keyes wpon the counsell table.
Despite this discord the Tolbooth now had a musical clock, or at least a clock equipped to make loud noises at specified intervals. Musicality took longer. In 1673, fifty pounds sterling were “deburst to Mr. Kervie for tuning the bellis”, and in 1677, a further five pounds sterling were paid to “Walter Corbett, lait prenteis to Androw Purdoume, for chynging the note of the chyme of bellis in the tolbuith quhen his maister was at Holland”. By 1693, at least, John Slezer could remark on “the Tolbooth, magnificently built of hewn stone, with a very high tower, and bells which sound melodiously at every hour’s end”.
Competition continued for the role of clock-keeper, which suggests that it was either profitable in itself or a good opportunity to pick up lucrative jobs. In a small community with close links between the Trades and the Council, work was often awarded on the basis of estimates which were understood to be elastic. In 1720, the keeper William Telfer did find his “extravagant” bill of £136/11/6 sterling for work on the Tolbooth and Briggait clocks firmly reduced to 2000 Scots merks (roughly £100 sterling), but this didn’t stop him keeping the role until 1736, when he was cut out by John Dunlop, who’d been petitioning for it since 1729. The Telfer dynasty, in the person of John Telfer, recovered the contract in 1739 and retained it at least until 1758; from 1752 onward it was held by John’s widow (whose first name is sadly not recorded). Another widow, Katherine Hannington, would be keeper of the clocks from 1812 to 1813 in succession to her husband William.
By modern standards, the maintenance the keepers carried out was probably fairly crude. We know the mechanisms were lubricated, as one of Walter Corbet’s duties in 1688 was “to furnishe the haill clocks with oyll”. This oil was, in all probability, derived from tallow produced by the local fleshers, which would explain the occasional references to violent cleansing procedures: “putting [the Tolbooth clock] throw the fyre” in 1702 and “boyling” the clocks in 1738 and 1744. In turn, this handling probably explains why Glasgow’s clocks needed regular replacement or repair.
The eighteenth century brought a new technology: the pendulum. A mechanical clock needs two main elements: a drive to supply the force to keep the parts moving, and an escapement which measures out that motion in regular amounts. Glasgow’s early clocks were driven, like most steeple clocks, by slowly descending weights. We don’t have direct evidence about their escapements, but we can assume that they used the standard system of the day: a verge and foliot. This consisted of a toothed wheel which engaged a vertical rod, the verge, turning it alternately in one direction and the other; the verge in turn rotated a weighted horizontal rod, the foliot, and it was the foliot’s moment of inertia that controlled the rate of the rotation.
Early verge and foliot escapement [Wikimedia Commons].Verge and foliot escapements seem to have been about as fiddly as this description suggests: modern estimates suggest that if carefully tended — and presumably not boiled too often — they might be accurate to within fifteen minutes per day. Pendulum escapements, invented by Christiaan Huygens in 1756 and gradually improved, were a huge advance, reducing daily errors to as little as tens of seconds. Pendulums had reached eastern Scotland by the 1690s, and took a further decade to spread west. The Tolbooth clock was converted in 1702, with a minute hand added at the same time; an idea of the scale of the operation is given by the charge for “twelve stone and twelve pound of iron… for wheels to the said clock”. The Hutchesons clock was similarly upgraded in 1703, and the High Kirk in 1707.
The High Kirk clock was replaced entirely in 1724, and that decade saw various bling-enhancement works on the others: when the Briggait steeple was redded up in 1728, it used 119 books of gold leaf, exhausting the local book-binder’s supplies so that more had to be ordered from Edinburgh.
The next major upgrade came in 1736, when the Council revived their interest in music. A Stirling watchmaker, Andrew Dickie, was contracted to make a completely new chime of bells, along with “a new sett of wheels and pinions, a wooden barrell, a new sett of keys and comb barr, a sett of clappers with hammers and hammer springs and other tackling”. These chimes weren’t just a gigantic music box: they could also be played by hand. A local music teacher, Rodger Rodburn, was sent through to Edinburgh to learn the art, and equipped with a small set of practice bells at the town’s expense. He was then paid an annual salary of £15 sterling “for playing on the bells from half one to half two in the afternoon each day, Sabbath days excepted, and for extraordinary playing on Hallow days. These live performances were in addition to the mechanical sounding of the “curious set of chymes and tuneable bells, which plays every two hours”.
“Curious” was probably the right word. The original set of eighteen bells ordered to be cast in London turned out to be one short, and a B-flat bell was hurriedly added to the order — which came to £311 1s. 9d. sterling. Whether from deficiencies in casting or in installation, the chime was not in tune, and after two excruciating years the Council employed John Fife, “player on the musick bells at Edinburgh” to sort it out. The process took four months of chiselling and the casting of fourteen new bells, while one of the old bells sent to Edinburgh proved irredeemable and was melted down for scrap. (It weighed 620 pounds; transporting it in pre-canal days must have been a major operation.)
Even with approximately tuneful bells, the performances can’t have been subtle. “Senex” recalled watching the musician in action around 1790, and recorded that the keys were “sturdily beaten with the whole force of the clenched fists, and these fists carefully guarded from danger by being enclosed in well-stuffed coverings of stout leather”. Nevertheless, the performances became a treasured part of Glasgow life.
As the city expanded, new churches were required, and these naturally came with clocks. The first was the North-West Kirk (also known as the Ramshorn) in 1722. St Andrew’s followed in 1756, St Enoch’s in 1780, and St George’s in 1809. In 1757, the Tolbooth clock was replaced again, with “a new four-day clock, carricing eight hands, with a quarter piece”; this may also have been when this clock acquired “day o’ the month brodds” in addition to its other paraphernalia. After some repair work, the old Tolbooth clock was put up in the steeple of the Laigh Kirk on Trongate; the Tron steeple remains today after the rest of the kirk was lost to accidental arson by the City Guard.
The Trongate in 1770, from a drawing by Robert Paul. The old Tolbooth clock can be seen in the Tron Steeple to the left, and the new Tolbooth clock in the Tolbooth steeple to the right. [The Glasgow Story]We get occasional glimpses of the University clock and its tower. By 1730, one Henry Drew, hammerman, was being given an allowance for keeping this clock in order. (Drew also worked for Robert Dick, Professor of Natural Philosophy, becoming the first recorded lab assistant in the University’s history.) This clock was replaced in about 1750. In 1771 Dick’s successor John Anderson entertained a kite-flying crony from America, one Benjamin Franklin, on a visit to Scotland; the following year saw Glasgow’s first lightning conductor fitted to that tower.
The University clock tower, in a George Washington Wilson photo from the mid-C19th. [Aberdeen University]In 1802-5, as part of the city’s redevelopment and expansion westward, the old Hutchesons’ Hospital was demolished and Hutcheson Street opened through the site. A new building, Hutchesons’ Hall, was erected where Hutcheson Street met Ingram Street. The original plan may have been to recycle the old clock, now a century or more old, but in the end a replacement was supplied by William Hannington for £168 11s. Hannington, in fact, was only a middleman, and the clock itself was made by John Thwaites & Co, the leading clockmakers of London. Rising on manufacture and the Atlantic trade, Glasgow could finally afford the best that dubiously gained wealth could buy.
The arrival of the new Hutchesons clock, and the other Thwaites clock that graced the steeple of St George’s, set the Council fretting. By now there were nine public clocks: some were effectively worn out, and there was not much consensus on the time. A Committee on Clocks was formed, and as well as recommending a change of contractor it set out an expensive programme of repairs and replacements.
Public clocks marked on Fleming’s 1808 plan of Glasgow: from north to south, the High Kirk, the University, the North-West Kirk, St George’s, Hutchesons, the Tolbooth, the Tron Steeple, St Andrew’s, St Enoch’s and the Briggait. [National Library of Scotland]This work took place in fits and starts over the next twelve years. The Tron clock was the first to be replaced, with another Thwaites piece; the old Tron clock made its way to the High Kirk. The Tolbooth clock was recommended for replacement in 1809, but the Council baulked first at the price tag and then at the countersuggestion that “it should not in future be burdened with the additional machinery for playing tunes every two hours”. A solemn warning was recorded that “[t]he public would be sensible of the want and might complain”, and the Council bravely resolved to take no action.
Instead, the Tolbooth clock limped on with successive repairs until 1815, when the new contractors Mitchell & Russell reported that “on taking it to pieces we find it so completely worn out that to repair it… would be throwing away the sum voted for that purpose”. Mitchell & Russell provided a detailed proposal, which was accepted, and which constitutes the most detailed description of any of the Glasgow civic clocks:
… the machine to be what is termed an eight day clock, with the exception of the musical part which is to go 24 hours as at present, the quarters are to strike on two bells instead of one as is the case at present, copper hands gilt are to be placed on each of the four dials so as to show the hours and minutes, the great wheels are to be as follows, vizt., striking 16 inches, watch 15 inches, quarter 16 inches, and chime 24 inches diameter, all of which are to be fixed in strong iron frames; the barrel for the music is to be new, and fitted for the tunes at present in use, vizt., for Sunday—the Easter hymn, Monday—Gilderoy, Tuesday—Nancy’s to the greenwood gane, Wednesday—Tweedside, Thursday—Lass o’ Patie’s mill, Friday—The last time I came o’er the moor, and Saturday—Roslin Castle. Conformable to the above description we hereby offer to make and put up the whole machinery, &c., and to find the weights, pulleys, ropes, and carpenter work, and do every other necessary thing in a sufficient manner to your satisfaction, the work to be fitted into its place and clock going by the 1st of January next, for the sum of £325, at 6 months’ credit or 5 per cent. for cash.
(Apart from the Easter Hymn — probably Jesus Christ is Risen Today from Lyra Davidica — these tunes were traditional Scots airs, dating to early in the previous century. The chimes were still going forty years later, when the antiquarian Gilbert Neil noted that “Though said even yet not to be sufficiently perfect in the musical scale, the chime must be allowed as of a respectable order, and possessing such variety of tones as to render the harmony always cheering and agreeable.”)
The five remaining blue-faced clocks: Hutchesons’ Hall (centre); St Andrew’s in the Square (top left); the Tolbooth (top right); the Tron steeple (bottom right); the Briggait (bottom left). Note the close family resemblance, which may be the result of the rapid burst of replacement in the early nineteenth century.The High Kirk clock, which had started out a century earlier in the Tolbooth, was finally scrapped and replaced in 1817, as was the North-West Kirk clock. (It may be one of these that had recently nearly killed “a valuable and respectable clergyman” when one of its weights fell and ricocheted off the floor.) Haggling over the clock in the Briggait steeple ended only in 1821 with a deal to split the costs between the Council and the Merchants’ House. This seems to have been the last clock to be set up in the old blue-faced style: when the North-West Kirk was replaced entirely in 1825-6, it carried, like St George’s before it, a more modern design.
The clock on the Ramshorn Kirk (possibly a modern replica, but consistent with contemporary images).Maintenance costs were still a worry to the Council, with a perpetually lingering suspicion that clock-keepers were making work for themselves. The proposal to roll the costs of repairs into the keeper’s salary was first made in 1823, and finally agreed in 1829: after a round of maintenance the keeper, Mr Halbert, was contracted to wind and maintain the clocks, posting a £100 bond as surety that no extra expense would be laid on the town for fifteen years. After several centuries, the Council had finally learned to manage risk when awarding public contracts.
By this point the clock in the Tron steeple had acquired something genuinely new: gas light. The lighting was set up in October 1821, and consisted of an argand burner mounted above the dial and enclosed in a parabolic reflector. James Cleland boasted that “this is the only steeple in the kingdom where the hour can be seen after dark, at a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile”; being Cleland, it is almost certain that he had measured this.
Cleland made a point of naming the designers of the Tron’s lighting scheme: John and Robert Hart, a pair of pastry bakers from Bo’ness who had moved to Glasgow, taken classes at Anderson’s Institution, become pals with James Watt, and set themselves up as inventors. To Cleland and others, their career paths epitomised the rising industrial city, finally shaking off its provincial past and emerging as a centre of innovation.
After perhaps three centuries of chasing the technological curve, Glasgow had at last caught up. The brilliantly lit Tron clock, like all its predecessors, was more than a timepiece: it was quite consciously a sign of the times.
Main sources
Many of the details come from the Extracts from the Burgh Records of Glasgow published by the Scottish Burgh Records Society. (If anyone ever finds a copy of the 1760-1809 volume(s), please let me know.) Other key sources:
- James Cleland, Annals of Glasgow (1816) and Statistical Tables (1823)
- James Coutts, A history of the University of Glasgow, from its foundation in 1451 to 1909 (James Maclehose & Sons, 1909)
- William H. Hill, History of the Hospital and School Founded in Glasgow, A.D. 1639-41, by George and Thomas Hutcheson of Lambhill (Hutchesons, 1881)
- Harry Lumsden & P. Henderson Aitken, History of the Hammermen of Glasgow (Alexander Gardner, 1912)
- James D. Marwick, Early Glasgow (James Maclehose & Sons, 1911)
- John Muendel, “Friction and Lubrication in Medieval Europe: The Emergence of Olive Oil as a Superior Agent”, Isis, Vol. 86, No. 3 (Sep., 1995), pp. 373-393.
- David Murray, “The Preservation of the Tolbooth Steeple of Glasgow”, The Scottish Historical Review, Jul., 1915, Vol. 12, No. 48 (Jul., 1915), pp. 354-368.
- Gabriel Neil, “A few brief notices of the old Tolbooth at the Cross of Glasgow, removed in 1814, &c.”. Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1859), pp. 8-28.
- “Senex” and others, Glasgow Past and Present (David Robertson & Co., 1854)
- John Smith, Old Scottish Clockmakers from 1453 to 1850 (Oliver & Boyd, 1921)
I’m also grateful to Rebekah Higgitt and Thony Christie for responding to the hist-tech bat-signal when I had questions about astronomical clocks. Full details of everything available on request; corrections welcome, and all mistakes my own.
https://newcleckitdominie.wordpress.com/2023/10/09/blue-in-the-face/
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Scattered across the streets lying south and west of Glasgow Cross, there are five steeples bearing distinctive blue-faced clocks: the Tolbooth, the Tron, the Briggait, St Andrew’s in the Square, and Hutchesons’ Hall. Occasionally a tour guide will point at one of them and explain that it’s painted blue because of an edict of Henry VIII. This is not, as far as I know, true. Nevertheless, the city’s blue clocks have a story to tell. It’s a story about Glasgow’s growth from the Reformation to the Industrial Revolution, from a market town in the shadow of the Church to a confident manufacturing giant.
The steeples of the Tolbooth (lower right) and St Andrew’s in the Square (left).In the late sixteenth century, Glasgow had just two public clocks. One occupied the old Tolbooth at the Cross, a building that probably dated to the early fifteenth century; the other was in one of the now-demolished west towers of the Cathedral.
The Tolbooth clock first enters the records in September 1573, when one Dauid Lioun was paid three shillings “for ane pece of trie to þe knok”. Three years later, the Council employed David Kaye, of Craill,
to ſett wp and repair or mend þe two knokks, þe ane maid be himſelf, and þe wþer auld knok mendit be him, how oft he beis requyrit þairto, be þame or ony in thayr name, and þat wpone þe tounes raonable expenſs fo be payit and done be him thairfor.
Kaye, who had already built a clock for St Mary’s Church in Dundee, was probably as close as Scotland had to a professional clockmaker. The Tolbooth clock was an elaborate piece of work, with not only an “orlage” (face) but a “moyne”, i.e. a display showing the phases of the moon. Unfortunately, like most clocks of the period it could not be trusted to keep good time if left to its own devices, and by 1578 the position of “rewler of the knok” had been established. The first incumbent was a chaplain, Archibald Dickie, who was paid a small salary
for rowlling and gyding of the knok and for lying nychtlie in the tolbuth to rewll and keip the samyne.
Dickie, lying every night alone in the Tolbooth with a watchful eye on the rickety machinery, must have felt the cold, and his remuneration included a separate allowance “for helping and support of him to his bed clais”.
It’s possible that the first clock in the High Kirk was in fact the old Tolbooth clock replaced by Kaye. It first appears in 1587, when a smith from Blantyre was called in to repair it. The records of the Kirk Session from 1591 suggest that this clock was under the supervision of the beadles, who were charged
to allow none to enter the Steeple to trouble the Knock and Bell there, but to keep the Knock going at all times.
By 1610, responsibility for the two clocks had been combined, and
George Smyth, rewler of the Tolbuith knok, hes bund him to the town to rewll the said knok for all the dayis of his lyfetyme for the sowme of tuentie pundis money yeirlie… and siklike, oblissis him to rewll the Hie Kirk knok and keip the same in gangand grath, and visie hir twa seuerall dayis in the wik, the sessioun payand him ten merkis yeirlie.
Although Smyth’s salary of twenty pounds a year was not colossal, this solemn contract suggests that the clocks were important to the town, and it’s worth asking why.
One reason was undoubtedly prestige. For a couple of centuries, increasingly complex astronomical clocks, such as the Pražský orloj of 1410, had been used to signal status and sophistication. Typically such clocks carried gilded numerals and astronomical symbols on a blue background. In 1540, Henry VIII of England had a particularly splendid example installed at Hampton Court, and it seems likely that this set the fashion across the British Isles. Though we have no information about the decoration of the Tolbooth or High Kirk clocks, it’s reasonable to guess they were in the same tradition.
The astronomical clock (1540) at Hampton Court. [Wikimedia Commons]A second reason the clocks mattered was more practical: a town clock set a definitive standard of time. This was important to a mercantile centre because trade, including trading hours, was strongly regulated. Glasgow’s Letter of Guildry in 1605 specified that
It shall not be leasome to any unfreeman to hold stands upon the Highstreet, to sell anything pertaining to the crafts or handy work, but betwixt eight of the morning and two of the clock in the afternoon, under the penalty of forty shilling; providing that tappers of linen and woollen cloth be suffered from morning to evening, at their pleasure, to sell. All kind of vivers to be sold from morning to evening; but unfreemen, who shall sell white bread, to keep the hours appointed.
This system which defended the rights of the established merchants and other burgesses against “unfreemen” could be enforced only if the “hours appointed” could be defined. (The legal importance of the town clock is echoed in a tale a century later, when the burghers of Banff put their clock forward a quarter of an hour to hang the outlaw James MacPherson before his pardon could arrive.)
In 1626 the increasingly prosperous burgh demolished the old Tolbooth and erected a new one on splendid lines. A combination of city hall, prison, and bell-tower topped with vanes and a gilded weathercock, it required a clock to match. One John Neill was paid six hundred merks “to mak ane new knok and haill furnitour of irne work, als sufficient, fyne, and worthie as the great knok in the laich stipill of the Metrapolitane Kirk”. It came with “horolog brodie, mones, bunkis and roweris”, i.e. a clock face, a moon, rollers, and mysterious accessories that appear nowhere else in Early Modern Scots.
The project ran somewhat over budget. Neill had to be paid a further three hundred merks in 1628, while a subcontractor received another fifty “becaus it was lang in working, and sindrie pairtis thairof wrocht over agane”. Finally “Vallentyn Ginking, paintour” was called in to make the whole ensemble glorious by “gilting of the horologe brodis, palmes, mones, the Kingis armes and all paintrie and cullouring thairof”. It was pure bling, and a powerful statement that Glasgow had arrived.
Glasgow showing off its gilded cock.Neill’s struggles with the mechanism reflected the fact that clockmaking locally was in its early days. It was in 1630 that the first clockmaker was recommended to the Incorporation of Hammermen, and only in 1649 that he was formally admitted, although the Hammermen had been asserting their right to regulate clockmaking since 1622.
The Tolbooth clock would not rule alone for long over the lower part of Glasgow. The next to join it was the clock in the steeple of Hutchesons’ Hospital, on the north side of the Trongate, which was installed in 1649 at a cost of £408 14s Scots. This clock must have had a rough time of it, as the lead that protected the steeple was stripped off in 1651 to save it from Cromwell’s troops; stashed under the floor of the Hospital, it was not restored until 1654.
Artist’s impression of the old Hutchesons’ Hospital on Trongate. [The Glasgow Story]In the late 1650s the University under Principal Patrick Gillespie also embarked on a building project, and a tower duly rose between the courts, containing a clock apparently made by a local blacksmith.
The University in the 1660s, from Slezer’s Theatrum Scotiae (1693), showing the bell/clock tower. [The Glasgow Story]Not to be left behind, in 1663 the Merchants’ House erected their new steeple in Briggait, with its own clock and peal of bells. This triggered one of the periodic rows between Council and contractors.
Artist’s impression of the Merchants’ Hall in Briggait, with its steeple. [The Glasgow Story]Andrew Purdoune had succeded John Neill in 1657 as “rewler of the knocks”, a task which increased in complexity with every new clock that had to be synchronised with the others. Meanwhile James Colquhoune, a general factotum to the Council, picked up a deal of work colouring and gilding the horologes. The job of making and rewling the new Briggait clock went to John Brodbridge, who briefly ousted Purdoune, but by 1665 the Council were accusing him of “not performing his ingadgment in relatioune to the perfecting the knock in Briggait”. Brodbridge was held to his contract to produce chimes for this clock, but they were instead to be installed in the Tolbooth. This took a couple more years to achieve, and finally in 1668,
The provest having relaited in counsell that there was ane generall complent throw the whoill toune anent the misgoverning of the knockis, in consideratioune quherof it was concludit, be pluraltie of votis, that the keyes should be takin from Johne Brodbridge and delyvered againe to Andrew Purdoune; and the said Johne, being sent for, come and did lay doune the said keyes wpon the counsell table.
Despite this discord the Tolbooth now had a musical clock, or at least a clock equipped to make loud noises at specified intervals. Musicality took longer. In 1673, fifty pounds sterling were “deburst to Mr. Kervie for tuning the bellis”, and in 1677, a further five pounds sterling were paid to “Walter Corbett, lait prenteis to Androw Purdoume, for chynging the note of the chyme of bellis in the tolbuith quhen his maister was at Holland”. By 1693, at least, John Slezer could remark on “the Tolbooth, magnificently built of hewn stone, with a very high tower, and bells which sound melodiously at every hour’s end”.
Competition continued for the role of clock-keeper, which suggests that it was either profitable in itself or a good opportunity to pick up lucrative jobs. In a small community with close links between the Trades and the Council, work was often awarded on the basis of estimates which were understood to be elastic. In 1720, the keeper William Telfer did find his “extravagant” bill of £136/11/6 sterling for work on the Tolbooth and Briggait clocks firmly reduced to 2000 Scots merks (roughly £100 sterling), but this didn’t stop him keeping the role until 1736, when he was cut out by John Dunlop, who’d been petitioning for it since 1729. The Telfer dynasty, in the person of John Telfer, recovered the contract in 1739 and retained it at least until 1758; from 1752 onward it was held by John’s widow (whose first name is sadly not recorded). Another widow, Katherine Hannington, would be keeper of the clocks from 1812 to 1813 in succession to her husband William.
By modern standards, the maintenance the keepers carried out was probably fairly crude. We know the mechanisms were lubricated, as one of Walter Corbet’s duties in 1688 was “to furnishe the haill clocks with oyll”. This oil was, in all probability, derived from tallow produced by the local fleshers, which would explain the occasional references to violent cleansing procedures: “putting [the Tolbooth clock] throw the fyre” in 1702 and “boyling” the clocks in 1738 and 1744. In turn, this handling probably explains why Glasgow’s clocks needed regular replacement or repair.
The eighteenth century brought a new technology: the pendulum. A mechanical clock needs two main elements: a drive to supply the force to keep the parts moving, and an escapement which measures out that motion in regular amounts. Glasgow’s early clocks were driven, like most steeple clocks, by slowly descending weights. We don’t have direct evidence about their escapements, but we can assume that they used the standard system of the day: a verge and foliot. This consisted of a toothed wheel which engaged a vertical rod, the verge, turning it alternately in one direction and the other; the verge in turn rotated a weighted horizontal rod, the foliot, and it was the foliot’s moment of inertia that controlled the rate of the rotation.
Early verge and foliot escapement [Wikimedia Commons].Verge and foliot escapements seem to have been about as fiddly as this description suggests: modern estimates suggest that if carefully tended — and presumably not boiled too often — they might be accurate to within fifteen minutes per day. Pendulum escapements, invented by Christiaan Huygens in 1756 and gradually improved, were a huge advance, reducing daily errors to as little as tens of seconds. Pendulums had reached eastern Scotland by the 1690s, and took a further decade to spread west. The Tolbooth clock was converted in 1702, with a minute hand added at the same time; an idea of the scale of the operation is given by the charge for “twelve stone and twelve pound of iron… for wheels to the said clock”. The Hutchesons clock was similarly upgraded in 1703, and the High Kirk in 1707.
The High Kirk clock was replaced entirely in 1724, and that decade saw various bling-enhancement works on the others: when the Briggait steeple was redded up in 1728, it used 119 books of gold leaf, exhausting the local book-binder’s supplies so that more had to be ordered from Edinburgh.
The next major upgrade came in 1736, when the Council revived their interest in music. A Stirling watchmaker, Andrew Dickie, was contracted to make a completely new chime of bells, along with “a new sett of wheels and pinions, a wooden barrell, a new sett of keys and comb barr, a sett of clappers with hammers and hammer springs and other tackling”. These chimes weren’t just a gigantic music box: they could also be played by hand. A local music teacher, Rodger Rodburn, was sent through to Edinburgh to learn the art, and equipped with a small set of practice bells at the town’s expense. He was then paid an annual salary of £15 sterling “for playing on the bells from half one to half two in the afternoon each day, Sabbath days excepted, and for extraordinary playing on Hallow days. These live performances were in addition to the mechanical sounding of the “curious set of chymes and tuneable bells, which plays every two hours”.
“Curious” was probably the right word. The original set of eighteen bells ordered to be cast in London turned out to be one short, and a B-flat bell was hurriedly added to the order — which came to £311 1s. 9d. sterling. Whether from deficiencies in casting or in installation, the chime was not in tune, and after two excruciating years the Council employed John Fife, “player on the musick bells at Edinburgh” to sort it out. The process took four months of chiselling and the casting of fourteen new bells, while one of the old bells sent to Edinburgh proved irredeemable and was melted down for scrap. (It weighed 620 pounds; transporting it in pre-canal days must have been a major operation.)
Even with approximately tuneful bells, the performances can’t have been subtle. “Senex” recalled watching the musician in action around 1790, and recorded that the keys were “sturdily beaten with the whole force of the clenched fists, and these fists carefully guarded from danger by being enclosed in well-stuffed coverings of stout leather”. Nevertheless, the performances became a treasured part of Glasgow life.
As the city expanded, new churches were required, and these naturally came with clocks. The first was the North-West Kirk (also known as the Ramshorn) in 1722. St Andrew’s followed in 1756, St Enoch’s in 1780, and St George’s in 1809. In 1757, the Tolbooth clock was replaced again, with “a new four-day clock, carricing eight hands, with a quarter piece”; this may also have been when this clock acquired “day o’ the month brodds” in addition to its other paraphernalia. After some repair work, the old Tolbooth clock was put up in the steeple of the Laigh Kirk on Trongate; the Tron steeple remains today after the rest of the kirk was lost to accidental arson by the City Guard.
The Trongate in 1770, from a drawing by Robert Paul. The old Tolbooth clock can be seen in the Tron Steeple to the left, and the new Tolbooth clock in the Tolbooth steeple to the right. [The Glasgow Story]We get occasional glimpses of the University clock and its tower. By 1730, one Henry Drew, hammerman, was being given an allowance for keeping this clock in order. (Drew also worked for Robert Dick, Professor of Natural Philosophy, becoming the first recorded lab assistant in the University’s history.) This clock was replaced in about 1750. In 1771 Dick’s successor John Anderson entertained a kite-flying crony from America, one Benjamin Franklin, on a visit to Scotland; the following year saw Glasgow’s first lightning conductor fitted to that tower.
The University clock tower, in a George Washington Wilson photo from the mid-C19th. [Aberdeen University]In 1802-5, as part of the city’s redevelopment and expansion westward, the old Hutchesons’ Hospital was demolished and Hutcheson Street opened through the site. A new building, Hutchesons’ Hall, was erected where Hutcheson Street met Ingram Street. The original plan may have been to recycle the old clock, now a century or more old, but in the end a replacement was supplied by William Hannington for £168 11s. Hannington, in fact, was only a middleman, and the clock itself was made by John Thwaites & Co, the leading clockmakers of London. Rising on manufacture and the Atlantic trade, Glasgow could finally afford the best that dubiously gained wealth could buy.
The arrival of the new Hutchesons clock, and the other Thwaites clock that graced the steeple of St George’s, set the Council fretting. By now there were nine public clocks: some were effectively worn out, and there was not much consensus on the time. A Committee on Clocks was formed, and as well as recommending a change of contractor it set out an expensive programme of repairs and replacements.
Public clocks marked on Fleming’s 1808 plan of Glasgow: from north to south, the High Kirk, the University, the North-West Kirk, St George’s, Hutchesons, the Tolbooth, the Tron Steeple, St Andrew’s, St Enoch’s and the Briggait. [National Library of Scotland]This work took place in fits and starts over the next twelve years. The Tron clock was the first to be replaced, with another Thwaites piece; the old Tron clock made its way to the High Kirk. The Tolbooth clock was recommended for replacement in 1809, but the Council baulked first at the price tag and then at the countersuggestion that “it should not in future be burdened with the additional machinery for playing tunes every two hours”. A solemn warning was recorded that “[t]he public would be sensible of the want and might complain”, and the Council bravely resolved to take no action.
Instead, the Tolbooth clock limped on with successive repairs until 1815, when the new contractors Mitchell & Russell reported that “on taking it to pieces we find it so completely worn out that to repair it… would be throwing away the sum voted for that purpose”. Mitchell & Russell provided a detailed proposal, which was accepted, and which constitutes the most detailed description of any of the Glasgow civic clocks:
… the machine to be what is termed an eight day clock, with the exception of the musical part which is to go 24 hours as at present, the quarters are to strike on two bells instead of one as is the case at present, copper hands gilt are to be placed on each of the four dials so as to show the hours and minutes, the great wheels are to be as follows, vizt., striking 16 inches, watch 15 inches, quarter 16 inches, and chime 24 inches diameter, all of which are to be fixed in strong iron frames; the barrel for the music is to be new, and fitted for the tunes at present in use, vizt., for Sunday—the Easter hymn, Monday—Gilderoy, Tuesday—Nancy’s to the greenwood gane, Wednesday—Tweedside, Thursday—Lass o’ Patie’s mill, Friday—The last time I came o’er the moor, and Saturday—Roslin Castle. Conformable to the above description we hereby offer to make and put up the whole machinery, &c., and to find the weights, pulleys, ropes, and carpenter work, and do every other necessary thing in a sufficient manner to your satisfaction, the work to be fitted into its place and clock going by the 1st of January next, for the sum of £325, at 6 months’ credit or 5 per cent. for cash.
(Apart from the Easter Hymn — probably Jesus Christ is Risen Today from Lyra Davidica — these tunes were traditional Scots airs, dating to early in the previous century. The chimes were still going forty years later, when the antiquarian Gilbert Neil noted that “Though said even yet not to be sufficiently perfect in the musical scale, the chime must be allowed as of a respectable order, and possessing such variety of tones as to render the harmony always cheering and agreeable.”)
The five remaining blue-faced clocks: Hutchesons’ Hall (centre); St Andrew’s in the Square (top left); the Tolbooth (top right); the Tron steeple (bottom right); the Briggait (bottom left). Note the close family resemblance, which may be the result of the rapid burst of replacement in the early nineteenth century.The High Kirk clock, which had started out a century earlier in the Tolbooth, was finally scrapped and replaced in 1817, as was the North-West Kirk clock. (It may be one of these that had recently nearly killed “a valuable and respectable clergyman” when one of its weights fell and ricocheted off the floor.) Haggling over the clock in the Briggait steeple ended only in 1821 with a deal to split the costs between the Council and the Merchants’ House. This seems to have been the last clock to be set up in the old blue-faced style: when the North-West Kirk was replaced entirely in 1825-6, it carried, like St George’s before it, a more modern design.
The clock on the Ramshorn Kirk (possibly a modern replica, but consistent with contemporary images).Maintenance costs were still a worry to the Council, with a perpetually lingering suspicion that clock-keepers were making work for themselves. The proposal to roll the costs of repairs into the keeper’s salary was first made in 1823, and finally agreed in 1829: after a round of maintenance the keeper, Mr Halbert, was contracted to wind and maintain the clocks, posting a £100 bond as surety that no extra expense would be laid on the town for fifteen years. After several centuries, the Council had finally learned to manage risk when awarding public contracts.
By this point the clock in the Tron steeple had acquired something genuinely new: gas light. The lighting was set up in October 1821, and consisted of an argand burner mounted above the dial and enclosed in a parabolic reflector. James Cleland boasted that “this is the only steeple in the kingdom where the hour can be seen after dark, at a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile”; being Cleland, it is almost certain that he had measured this.
Cleland made a point of naming the designers of the Tron’s lighting scheme: John and Robert Hart, a pair of pastry bakers from Bo’ness who had moved to Glasgow, taken classes at Anderson’s Institution, become pals with James Watt, and set themselves up as inventors. To Cleland and others, their career paths epitomised the rising industrial city, finally shaking off its provincial past and emerging as a centre of innovation.
After perhaps three centuries of chasing the technological curve, Glasgow had at last caught up. The brilliantly lit Tron clock, like all its predecessors, was more than a timepiece: it was quite consciously a sign of the times.
Main sources
Many of the details come from the Extracts from the Burgh Records of Glasgow published by the Scottish Burgh Records Society. (If anyone ever finds a copy of the 1760-1809 volume(s), please let me know.) Other key sources:
- James Cleland, Annals of Glasgow (1816) and Statistical Tables (1823)
- James Coutts, A history of the University of Glasgow, from its foundation in 1451 to 1909 (James Maclehose & Sons, 1909)
- William H. Hill, History of the Hospital and School Founded in Glasgow, A.D. 1639-41, by George and Thomas Hutcheson of Lambhill (Hutchesons, 1881)
- Harry Lumsden & P. Henderson Aitken, History of the Hammermen of Glasgow (Alexander Gardner, 1912)
- James D. Marwick, Early Glasgow (James Maclehose & Sons, 1911)
- John Muendel, “Friction and Lubrication in Medieval Europe: The Emergence of Olive Oil as a Superior Agent”, Isis, Vol. 86, No. 3 (Sep., 1995), pp. 373-393.
- David Murray, “The Preservation of the Tolbooth Steeple of Glasgow”, The Scottish Historical Review, Jul., 1915, Vol. 12, No. 48 (Jul., 1915), pp. 354-368.
- Gabriel Neil, “A few brief notices of the old Tolbooth at the Cross of Glasgow, removed in 1814, &c.”. Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1859), pp. 8-28.
- “Senex” and others, Glasgow Past and Present (David Robertson & Co., 1854)
- John Smith, Old Scottish Clockmakers from 1453 to 1850 (Oliver & Boyd, 1921)
I’m also grateful to Rebekah Higgitt and Thony Christie for responding to the hist-tech bat-signal when I had questions about astronomical clocks. Full details of everything available on request; corrections welcome, and all mistakes my own.
https://newcleckitdominie.wordpress.com/2023/10/09/blue-in-the-face/
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Scattered across the streets lying south and west of Glasgow Cross, there are five steeples bearing distinctive blue-faced clocks: the Tolbooth, the Tron, the Briggait, St Andrew’s in the Square, and Hutchesons’ Hall. Occasionally a tour guide will point at one of them and explain that it’s painted blue because of an edict of Henry VIII. This is not, as far as I know, true. Nevertheless, the city’s blue clocks have a story to tell. It’s a story about Glasgow’s growth from the Reformation to the Industrial Revolution, from a market town in the shadow of the Church to a confident manufacturing giant.
The steeples of the Tolbooth (lower right) and St Andrew’s in the Square (left).In the late sixteenth century, Glasgow had just two public clocks. One occupied the old Tolbooth at the Cross, a building that probably dated to the early fifteenth century; the other was in one of the now-demolished west towers of the Cathedral.
The Tolbooth clock first enters the records in September 1573, when one Dauid Lioun was paid three shillings “for ane pece of trie to þe knok”. Three years later, the Council employed David Kaye, of Craill,
to ſett wp and repair or mend þe two knokks, þe ane maid be himſelf, and þe wþer auld knok mendit be him, how oft he beis requyrit þairto, be þame or ony in thayr name, and þat wpone þe tounes raonable expenſs fo be payit and done be him thairfor.
Kaye, who had already built a clock for St Mary’s Church in Dundee, was probably as close as Scotland had to a professional clockmaker. The Tolbooth clock was an elaborate piece of work, with not only an “orlage” (face) but a “moyne”, i.e. a display showing the phases of the moon. Unfortunately, like most clocks of the period it could not be trusted to keep good time if left to its own devices, and by 1578 the position of “rewler of the knok” had been established. The first incumbent was a chaplain, Archibald Dickie, who was paid a small salary
for rowlling and gyding of the knok and for lying nychtlie in the tolbuth to rewll and keip the samyne.
Dickie, lying every night alone in the Tolbooth with a watchful eye on the rickety machinery, must have felt the cold, and his remuneration included a separate allowance “for helping and support of him to his bed clais”.
It’s possible that the first clock in the High Kirk was in fact the old Tolbooth clock replaced by Kaye. It first appears in 1587, when a smith from Blantyre was called in to repair it. The records of the Kirk Session from 1591 suggest that this clock was under the supervision of the beadles, who were charged
to allow none to enter the Steeple to trouble the Knock and Bell there, but to keep the Knock going at all times.
By 1610, responsibility for the two clocks had been combined, and
George Smyth, rewler of the Tolbuith knok, hes bund him to the town to rewll the said knok for all the dayis of his lyfetyme for the sowme of tuentie pundis money yeirlie… and siklike, oblissis him to rewll the Hie Kirk knok and keip the same in gangand grath, and visie hir twa seuerall dayis in the wik, the sessioun payand him ten merkis yeirlie.
Although Smyth’s salary of twenty pounds a year was not colossal, this solemn contract suggests that the clocks were important to the town, and it’s worth asking why.
One reason was undoubtedly prestige. For a couple of centuries, increasingly complex astronomical clocks, such as the Pražský orloj of 1410, had been used to signal status and sophistication. Typically such clocks carried gilded numerals and astronomical symbols on a blue background. In 1540, Henry VIII of England had a particularly splendid example installed at Hampton Court, and it seems likely that this set the fashion across the British Isles. Though we have no information about the decoration of the Tolbooth or High Kirk clocks, it’s reasonable to guess they were in the same tradition.
The astronomical clock (1540) at Hampton Court. [Wikimedia Commons]A second reason the clocks mattered was more practical: a town clock set a definitive standard of time. This was important to a mercantile centre because trade, including trading hours, was strongly regulated. Glasgow’s Letter of Guildry in 1605 specified that
It shall not be leasome to any unfreeman to hold stands upon the Highstreet, to sell anything pertaining to the crafts or handy work, but betwixt eight of the morning and two of the clock in the afternoon, under the penalty of forty shilling; providing that tappers of linen and woollen cloth be suffered from morning to evening, at their pleasure, to sell. All kind of vivers to be sold from morning to evening; but unfreemen, who shall sell white bread, to keep the hours appointed.
This system which defended the rights of the established merchants and other burgesses against “unfreemen” could be enforced only if the “hours appointed” could be defined. (The legal importance of the town clock is echoed in a tale a century later, when the burghers of Banff put their clock forward a quarter of an hour to hang the outlaw James MacPherson before his pardon could arrive.)
In 1626 the increasingly prosperous burgh demolished the old Tolbooth and erected a new one on splendid lines. A combination of city hall, prison, and bell-tower topped with vanes and a gilded weathercock, it required a clock to match. One John Neill was paid six hundred merks “to mak ane new knok and haill furnitour of irne work, als sufficient, fyne, and worthie as the great knok in the laich stipill of the Metrapolitane Kirk”. It came with “horolog brodie, mones, bunkis and roweris”, i.e. a clock face, a moon, rollers, and mysterious accessories that appear nowhere else in Early Modern Scots.
The project ran somewhat over budget. Neill had to be paid a further three hundred merks in 1628, while a subcontractor received another fifty “becaus it was lang in working, and sindrie pairtis thairof wrocht over agane”. Finally “Vallentyn Ginking, paintour” was called in to make the whole ensemble glorious by “gilting of the horologe brodis, palmes, mones, the Kingis armes and all paintrie and cullouring thairof”. It was pure bling, and a powerful statement that Glasgow had arrived.
Glasgow showing off its gilded cock.Neill’s struggles with the mechanism reflected the fact that clockmaking locally was in its early days. It was in 1630 that the first clockmaker was recommended to the Incorporation of Hammermen, and only in 1649 that he was formally admitted, although the Hammermen had been asserting their right to regulate clockmaking since 1622.
The Tolbooth clock would not rule alone for long over the lower part of Glasgow. The next to join it was the clock in the steeple of Hutchesons’ Hospital, on the north side of the Trongate, which was installed in 1649 at a cost of £408 14s Scots. This clock must have had a rough time of it, as the lead that protected the steeple was stripped off in 1651 to save it from Cromwell’s troops; stashed under the floor of the Hospital, it was not restored until 1654.
Artist’s impression of the old Hutchesons’ Hospital on Trongate. [The Glasgow Story]In the late 1650s the University under Principal Patrick Gillespie also embarked on a building project, and a tower duly rose between the courts, containing a clock apparently made by a local blacksmith.
The University in the 1660s, from Slezer’s Theatrum Scotiae (1693), showing the bell/clock tower. [The Glasgow Story]Not to be left behind, in 1663 the Merchants’ House erected their new steeple in Briggait, with its own clock and peal of bells. This triggered one of the periodic rows between Council and contractors.
Artist’s impression of the Merchants’ Hall in Briggait, with its steeple. [The Glasgow Story]Andrew Purdoune had succeded John Neill in 1657 as “rewler of the knocks”, a task which increased in complexity with every new clock that had to be synchronised with the others. Meanwhile James Colquhoune, a general factotum to the Council, picked up a deal of work colouring and gilding the horologes. The job of making and rewling the new Briggait clock went to John Brodbridge, who briefly ousted Purdoune, but by 1665 the Council were accusing him of “not performing his ingadgment in relatioune to the perfecting the knock in Briggait”. Brodbridge was held to his contract to produce chimes for this clock, but they were instead to be installed in the Tolbooth. This took a couple more years to achieve, and finally in 1668,
The provest having relaited in counsell that there was ane generall complent throw the whoill toune anent the misgoverning of the knockis, in consideratioune quherof it was concludit, be pluraltie of votis, that the keyes should be takin from Johne Brodbridge and delyvered againe to Andrew Purdoune; and the said Johne, being sent for, come and did lay doune the said keyes wpon the counsell table.
Despite this discord the Tolbooth now had a musical clock, or at least a clock equipped to make loud noises at specified intervals. Musicality took longer. In 1673, fifty pounds sterling were “deburst to Mr. Kervie for tuning the bellis”, and in 1677, a further five pounds sterling were paid to “Walter Corbett, lait prenteis to Androw Purdoume, for chynging the note of the chyme of bellis in the tolbuith quhen his maister was at Holland”. By 1693, at least, John Slezer could remark on “the Tolbooth, magnificently built of hewn stone, with a very high tower, and bells which sound melodiously at every hour’s end”.
Competition continued for the role of clock-keeper, which suggests that it was either profitable in itself or a good opportunity to pick up lucrative jobs. In a small community with close links between the Trades and the Council, work was often awarded on the basis of estimates which were understood to be elastic. In 1720, the keeper William Telfer did find his “extravagant” bill of £136/11/6 sterling for work on the Tolbooth and Briggait clocks firmly reduced to 2000 Scots merks (roughly £100 sterling), but this didn’t stop him keeping the role until 1736, when he was cut out by John Dunlop, who’d been petitioning for it since 1729. The Telfer dynasty, in the person of John Telfer, recovered the contract in 1739 and retained it at least until 1758; from 1752 onward it was held by John’s widow (whose first name is sadly not recorded). Another widow, Katherine Hannington, would be keeper of the clocks from 1812 to 1813 in succession to her husband William.
By modern standards, the maintenance the keepers carried out was probably fairly crude. We know the mechanisms were lubricated, as one of Walter Corbet’s duties in 1688 was “to furnishe the haill clocks with oyll”. This oil was, in all probability, derived from tallow produced by the local fleshers, which would explain the occasional references to violent cleansing procedures: “putting [the Tolbooth clock] throw the fyre” in 1702 and “boyling” the clocks in 1738 and 1744. In turn, this handling probably explains why Glasgow’s clocks needed regular replacement or repair.
The eighteenth century brought a new technology: the pendulum. A mechanical clock needs two main elements: a drive to supply the force to keep the parts moving, and an escapement which measures out that motion in regular amounts. Glasgow’s early clocks were driven, like most steeple clocks, by slowly descending weights. We don’t have direct evidence about their escapements, but we can assume that they used the standard system of the day: a verge and foliot. This consisted of a toothed wheel which engaged a vertical rod, the verge, turning it alternately in one direction and the other; the verge in turn rotated a weighted horizontal rod, the foliot, and it was the foliot’s moment of inertia that controlled the rate of the rotation.
Early verge and foliot escapement [Wikimedia Commons].Verge and foliot escapements seem to have been about as fiddly as this description suggests: modern estimates suggest that if carefully tended — and presumably not boiled too often — they might be accurate to within fifteen minutes per day. Pendulum escapements, invented by Christiaan Huygens in 1756 and gradually improved, were a huge advance, reducing daily errors to as little as tens of seconds. Pendulums had reached eastern Scotland by the 1690s, and took a further decade to spread west. The Tolbooth clock was converted in 1702, with a minute hand added at the same time; an idea of the scale of the operation is given by the charge for “twelve stone and twelve pound of iron… for wheels to the said clock”. The Hutchesons clock was similarly upgraded in 1703, and the High Kirk in 1707.
The High Kirk clock was replaced entirely in 1724, and that decade saw various bling-enhancement works on the others: when the Briggait steeple was redded up in 1728, it used 119 books of gold leaf, exhausting the local book-binder’s supplies so that more had to be ordered from Edinburgh.
The next major upgrade came in 1736, when the Council revived their interest in music. A Stirling watchmaker, Andrew Dickie, was contracted to make a completely new chime of bells, along with “a new sett of wheels and pinions, a wooden barrell, a new sett of keys and comb barr, a sett of clappers with hammers and hammer springs and other tackling”. These chimes weren’t just a gigantic music box: they could also be played by hand. A local music teacher, Rodger Rodburn, was sent through to Edinburgh to learn the art, and equipped with a small set of practice bells at the town’s expense. He was then paid an annual salary of £15 sterling “for playing on the bells from half one to half two in the afternoon each day, Sabbath days excepted, and for extraordinary playing on Hallow days. These live performances were in addition to the mechanical sounding of the “curious set of chymes and tuneable bells, which plays every two hours”.
“Curious” was probably the right word. The original set of eighteen bells ordered to be cast in London turned out to be one short, and a B-flat bell was hurriedly added to the order — which came to £311 1s. 9d. sterling. Whether from deficiencies in casting or in installation, the chime was not in tune, and after two excruciating years the Council employed John Fife, “player on the musick bells at Edinburgh” to sort it out. The process took four months of chiselling and the casting of fourteen new bells, while one of the old bells sent to Edinburgh proved irredeemable and was melted down for scrap. (It weighed 620 pounds; transporting it in pre-canal days must have been a major operation.)
Even with approximately tuneful bells, the performances can’t have been subtle. “Senex” recalled watching the musician in action around 1790, and recorded that the keys were “sturdily beaten with the whole force of the clenched fists, and these fists carefully guarded from danger by being enclosed in well-stuffed coverings of stout leather”. Nevertheless, the performances became a treasured part of Glasgow life.
As the city expanded, new churches were required, and these naturally came with clocks. The first was the North-West Kirk (also known as the Ramshorn) in 1722. St Andrew’s followed in 1756, St Enoch’s in 1780, and St George’s in 1809. In 1757, the Tolbooth clock was replaced again, with “a new four-day clock, carricing eight hands, with a quarter piece”; this may also have been when this clock acquired “day o’ the month brodds” in addition to its other paraphernalia. After some repair work, the old Tolbooth clock was put up in the steeple of the Laigh Kirk on Trongate; the Tron steeple remains today after the rest of the kirk was lost to accidental arson by the City Guard.
The Trongate in 1770, from a drawing by Robert Paul. The old Tolbooth clock can be seen in the Tron Steeple to the left, and the new Tolbooth clock in the Tolbooth steeple to the right. [The Glasgow Story]We get occasional glimpses of the University clock and its tower. By 1730, one Henry Drew, hammerman, was being given an allowance for keeping this clock in order. (Drew also worked for Robert Dick, Professor of Natural Philosophy, becoming the first recorded lab assistant in the University’s history.) This clock was replaced in about 1750. In 1771 Dick’s successor John Anderson entertained a kite-flying crony from America, one Benjamin Franklin, on a visit to Scotland; the following year saw Glasgow’s first lightning conductor fitted to that tower.
The University clock tower, in a George Washington Wilson photo from the mid-C19th. [Aberdeen University]In 1802-5, as part of the city’s redevelopment and expansion westward, the old Hutchesons’ Hospital was demolished and Hutcheson Street opened through the site. A new building, Hutchesons’ Hall, was erected where Hutcheson Street met Ingram Street. The original plan may have been to recycle the old clock, now a century or more old, but in the end a replacement was supplied by William Hannington for £168 11s. Hannington, in fact, was only a middleman, and the clock itself was made by John Thwaites & Co, the leading clockmakers of London. Rising on manufacture and the Atlantic trade, Glasgow could finally afford the best that dubiously gained wealth could buy.
The arrival of the new Hutchesons clock, and the other Thwaites clock that graced the steeple of St George’s, set the Council fretting. By now there were nine public clocks: some were effectively worn out, and there was not much consensus on the time. A Committee on Clocks was formed, and as well as recommending a change of contractor it set out an expensive programme of repairs and replacements.
Public clocks marked on Fleming’s 1808 plan of Glasgow: from north to south, the High Kirk, the University, the North-West Kirk, St George’s, Hutchesons, the Tolbooth, the Tron Steeple, St Andrew’s, St Enoch’s and the Briggait. [National Library of Scotland]This work took place in fits and starts over the next twelve years. The Tron clock was the first to be replaced, with another Thwaites piece; the old Tron clock made its way to the High Kirk. The Tolbooth clock was recommended for replacement in 1809, but the Council baulked first at the price tag and then at the countersuggestion that “it should not in future be burdened with the additional machinery for playing tunes every two hours”. A solemn warning was recorded that “[t]he public would be sensible of the want and might complain”, and the Council bravely resolved to take no action.
Instead, the Tolbooth clock limped on with successive repairs until 1815, when the new contractors Mitchell & Russell reported that “on taking it to pieces we find it so completely worn out that to repair it… would be throwing away the sum voted for that purpose”. Mitchell & Russell provided a detailed proposal, which was accepted, and which constitutes the most detailed description of any of the Glasgow civic clocks:
… the machine to be what is termed an eight day clock, with the exception of the musical part which is to go 24 hours as at present, the quarters are to strike on two bells instead of one as is the case at present, copper hands gilt are to be placed on each of the four dials so as to show the hours and minutes, the great wheels are to be as follows, vizt., striking 16 inches, watch 15 inches, quarter 16 inches, and chime 24 inches diameter, all of which are to be fixed in strong iron frames; the barrel for the music is to be new, and fitted for the tunes at present in use, vizt., for Sunday—the Easter hymn, Monday—Gilderoy, Tuesday—Nancy’s to the greenwood gane, Wednesday—Tweedside, Thursday—Lass o’ Patie’s mill, Friday—The last time I came o’er the moor, and Saturday—Roslin Castle. Conformable to the above description we hereby offer to make and put up the whole machinery, &c., and to find the weights, pulleys, ropes, and carpenter work, and do every other necessary thing in a sufficient manner to your satisfaction, the work to be fitted into its place and clock going by the 1st of January next, for the sum of £325, at 6 months’ credit or 5 per cent. for cash.
(Apart from the Easter Hymn — probably Jesus Christ is Risen Today from Lyra Davidica — these tunes were traditional Scots airs, dating to early in the previous century. The chimes were still going forty years later, when the antiquarian Gilbert Neil noted that “Though said even yet not to be sufficiently perfect in the musical scale, the chime must be allowed as of a respectable order, and possessing such variety of tones as to render the harmony always cheering and agreeable.”)
The five remaining blue-faced clocks: Hutchesons’ Hall (centre); St Andrew’s in the Square (top left); the Tolbooth (top right); the Tron steeple (bottom right); the Briggait (bottom left). Note the close family resemblance, which may be the result of the rapid burst of replacement in the early nineteenth century.The High Kirk clock, which had started out a century earlier in the Tolbooth, was finally scrapped and replaced in 1817, as was the North-West Kirk clock. (It may be one of these that had recently nearly killed “a valuable and respectable clergyman” when one of its weights fell and ricocheted off the floor.) Haggling over the clock in the Briggait steeple ended only in 1821 with a deal to split the costs between the Council and the Merchants’ House. This seems to have been the last clock to be set up in the old blue-faced style: when the North-West Kirk was replaced entirely in 1825-6, it carried, like St George’s before it, a more modern design.
The clock on the Ramshorn Kirk (possibly a modern replica, but consistent with contemporary images).Maintenance costs were still a worry to the Council, with a perpetually lingering suspicion that clock-keepers were making work for themselves. The proposal to roll the costs of repairs into the keeper’s salary was first made in 1823, and finally agreed in 1829: after a round of maintenance the keeper, Mr Halbert, was contracted to wind and maintain the clocks, posting a £100 bond as surety that no extra expense would be laid on the town for fifteen years. After several centuries, the Council had finally learned to manage risk when awarding public contracts.
By this point the clock in the Tron steeple had acquired something genuinely new: gas light. The lighting was set up in October 1821, and consisted of an argand burner mounted above the dial and enclosed in a parabolic reflector. James Cleland boasted that “this is the only steeple in the kingdom where the hour can be seen after dark, at a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile”; being Cleland, it is almost certain that he had measured this.
Cleland made a point of naming the designers of the Tron’s lighting scheme: John and Robert Hart, a pair of pastry bakers from Bo’ness who had moved to Glasgow, taken classes at Anderson’s Institution, become pals with James Watt, and set themselves up as inventors. To Cleland and others, their career paths epitomised the rising industrial city, finally shaking off its provincial past and emerging as a centre of innovation.
After perhaps three centuries of chasing the technological curve, Glasgow had at last caught up. The brilliantly lit Tron clock, like all its predecessors, was more than a timepiece: it was quite consciously a sign of the times.
Main sources
Many of the details come from the Extracts from the Burgh Records of Glasgow published by the Scottish Burgh Records Society. (If anyone ever finds a copy of the 1760-1809 volume(s), please let me know.) Other key sources:
- James Cleland, Annals of Glasgow (1816) and Statistical Tables (1823)
- James Coutts, A history of the University of Glasgow, from its foundation in 1451 to 1909 (James Maclehose & Sons, 1909)
- William H. Hill, History of the Hospital and School Founded in Glasgow, A.D. 1639-41, by George and Thomas Hutcheson of Lambhill (Hutchesons, 1881)
- Harry Lumsden & P. Henderson Aitken, History of the Hammermen of Glasgow (Alexander Gardner, 1912)
- James D. Marwick, Early Glasgow (James Maclehose & Sons, 1911)
- John Muendel, “Friction and Lubrication in Medieval Europe: The Emergence of Olive Oil as a Superior Agent”, Isis, Vol. 86, No. 3 (Sep., 1995), pp. 373-393.
- David Murray, “The Preservation of the Tolbooth Steeple of Glasgow”, The Scottish Historical Review, Jul., 1915, Vol. 12, No. 48 (Jul., 1915), pp. 354-368.
- Gabriel Neil, “A few brief notices of the old Tolbooth at the Cross of Glasgow, removed in 1814, &c.”. Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1859), pp. 8-28.
- “Senex” and others, Glasgow Past and Present (David Robertson & Co., 1854)
- John Smith, Old Scottish Clockmakers from 1453 to 1850 (Oliver & Boyd, 1921)
I’m also grateful to Rebekah Higgitt and Thony Christie for responding to the hist-tech bat-signal when I had questions about astronomical clocks. Full details of everything available on request; corrections welcome, and all mistakes my own.
https://newcleckitdominie.wordpress.com/2023/10/09/blue-in-the-face/
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