Old Edinburgh: 29 Amazing Vintage Photos Show the Capital of Scotland From Between the 1900s and 1930s

Edinburgh is the capital and second most populous city of Scotland, it is also the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom.

Edinburgh is Scotland's compact, hilly capital. It has a medieval Old Town and elegant Georgian New Town with gardens and neoclassical buildings. Looming over the city is Edinburgh Castle, home to Scotland’s crown jewels and the Stone of Destiny, used in the coronation of Scottish rulers. Arthur’s Seat is an imposing peak in Holyrood Park with sweeping views, and Calton Hill is topped with monuments and memorials.

Let's get back the early 20th century to see how Edinburgh has changed.

Leith street scene, 1912

Old College and South Bridge in Edinburgh, ca. 1900s

Old Town in Edinburgh, ca. 1910s

Old Town with City Chambers and the market cross in Edinburgh, ca. 1930s

Princes Street showing the North British Station Hotel, Waverley Gardens and North Bridge, Edinburgh, ca. 1930s

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The Earliest Known Photograph of Men Drinking Beer, Edinburgh Ale, 1844

On the table we see a beer bottle and three 19th-century drinking glasses called “ale flutes”. One contemporary account describes a popular Edinburgh ale (Younger's) as "a potent fluid, which almost glued the lips of the drinker together, and of which few, therefore, could dispatch more than a bottle."

Edinburgh Ale: James Ballantine, Dr George Bell and David Octavius Hill (Image: Metropolitan Museum of Art)

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the photographers were David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson. The skills involved in producing calotypes were not only of a technical nature. Hill’s sociability, humor and his capacity to gauge the sitters’ characters all played a crucial part in his photography.

D.O. Hill is shown here on the right, apparently sharing a drink and a joke with James Ballantine and Dr George Bell. Bell, in the middle, was one of the commissioners of the Poor Law of 1845, which reformed poor relief in Scotland, and author of Day and night in the wynds of Edinburgh. Ballantine was a writer and stained-glass artist, and the son of an Edinburgh brewer.

58 Color Found Slides That Show Everyday Life of Edinburgh in the 1950s

Here is a stunning found slide collection that shows everyday life and street scenes in urban era of Edinburgh in the 1950s.

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36 Incredible Vintage Photos Capture Daily Life of Scotland From Between the 1840s and 1880s

In 19th century Glasgow became one of the largest cities in the world, and known as “the Second City of the Empire” after London. After 1860 the Clydeside shipyards specialized in steamships made of iron (after 1870, made of steel), which rapidly replaced the wooden sailing vessels of both the merchant fleets and the battle fleets of the world.

It became the world’s pre-eminent shipbuilding centre. The industrial developments, while they brought work and wealth, were so rapid that housing, town-planning, and provision for public health did not keep pace with them, and for a time living conditions in some of the towns and cities were notoriously bad, with overcrowding, high infant mortality, and growing rates of tuberculosis.

Here is an rare vintage photo collection that shows the capital and several cities, also islands and towns of Scotland from the 1840s to 1880s.

Jamaica Street, Glasgow, ca. 1880s

Glasgow Exhibition, 1888

Grassmarket, Edinburgh, 1860

Leith Pier in Edinburgh, 1870

Monument in Glasgow Necropolis, 1852

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22 Rare Color Photographs That Capture Street Scenes of Edinburgh, Scotland in the 1950s

Edinburgh in the 1950s was a very different place. After the ravages of war, the International Festival and Military Tattoo was introduced as an antidote to post-war austerity, the new Civic Survey and Plan put forward grandiose recommendations for change, and a new young Queen visited the city.

This was a time when slum housing was a blight on many people's lives, but there was a real sense of community that was ultimately lost in the move to sparkling, modern homes in the new housing estates. People continued to use the trams to travel to work in the many factories or make trips to Portobello for a day of fun, but they were slowly usurped by the car.

It was a glory period for the local football teams, and nights spent dancing or at the pictures were a weekly event. There was still the horse-drawn milk float and children played in streets that were lit by gas. Beautifully illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs, Edinburgh in the 1950s provides an exceptional insight into a time now acknowledged as the end of an era in Edinburgh - for good and for bad.

St Cuthberts milk float, 1955

Hart Street, New Town, c. 1954

Princes Street, c. 1954

Princes Street in 1953

Edinburgh Castle from Princes Street, 1953

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