Volumes for include Reports of the annual meetings.

Volumes for include Reports of the annual meetings.

Volumes for include Reports of the annual meetings.

Roger Jeffery in this book has brought together 10 original, well-researched and well-written essays which bring to life the presence of India in the capital city of Scotland, Edinburgh. On the surface Edinburgh is a purely Scottish city: its ‘India’ past is not easily visible. Yet, from the late 17th century onwards, many of Edinburgh’s young men and women were drawn to India. The city received back money and knowledge, sculpture and paintings, botanical specimens and even skulls! Colonel James Skinner, well-known for establishing Skinner’s Horse, brought his sons to Edinburgh for their schooling. Though Sir Walter Scott visited India only in his imagination (and tried to stop his own sons going there) he crafted a dashing India tale involving Tipu Sultan. The money from India helped create Edinburgh’s New Town, Edinburgh’s internationally-renowned schools (whose former pupils careers ranged from tea-planters to Viceroys) and people who came to Edinburgh from India established Edinburgh’s second women’s medical college. There are many such hidden stories of Edinburgh’s India connections. In this path-breaking book they are brought to life, using novel approaches to look at Edinburgh’s past, to see it as an imperial city, a city for which India held a special place. Focusing on the interactions between individual lives, social networks and financial, material, cultural and social flows, leading experts from Edinburgh’s history provide fascinating detail on how Edinburgh’s links to India were formed and transformed. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

What happened to Edinburgh's once notorious but picturesque Tolbooth Prison? Where was the Black Turnpike, once a dominant building in the town? Why has one of the New Town designer's major layouts been all but obliterated? What else has been lost in Edinburgh? From Edinburgh's mean beginnings - 'wretched accommodation, no comfortable houses, no soft beds', visiting French knights complained in 1341 - it went on to attract some of the world's greatest architects to design and build and shape a unique city. But over the centuries many of those fine buildings have gone. Some were destroyed by invasion and civil strife, some simply collapsed with old age and neglect, and others were swept away in the 'improvements' of the nineteenth century. Yet more fell to the developers' swathe of destruction in the twentieth century.Much of the medieval architecture vanished in the Old Town, Georgian Squares were attacked, Princes Street ruined, old tenements razed in huge slum clearance drives, and once familiar and much loved buildings vanished. The changing pattern of industry, social habits, health service, housing and road systems all took their toll; not even the city wall was immune. The buildings which stood in the way of what was deemed progress are the heritage of Lost Edinburgh. In this informative and stimulating book. Hamish Coghill sets out to trace many of the lost buildings and find out why they were doomed. Lavishly illustrated, "Lost Edinburgh" is a fascinating insight into an ever-changing cityscape.