The Informant

On a freezing cold night in 1829, anatomist John Lizars opened his door and found two men, James Gow and James Hewit, standing on the doorstep. They wanted money, they said, for a spade and a few other bits and pieces. There was a fresh corpse that they knew about, and they would - if only they had the right tools - bring it to him. Lizars shut the door on them.

So, they went to another nearby anatomist - John Aitken. His brother, Thomas Aitken, answered the door. He told them he wouldn't be giving them any money in advance, but if they managed to retrieve the body then he and his brother would take it.

Two nights later they came back with two more resurrectionists and a dead woman in a bag. No questions were asked.

The next night, the four were back again, this time with a dead child. The night after that - with four more resurrectionists in tow - they brought a dead man. Lizars decided he would have that one. They were paid for their efforts and no more was said - until there was an outcry in Lasswade.

Helen Miller, a widow from Lasswade, had turned informant. She had come to Edinburgh and met with Hewit, telling him about the bodies in her local kirkyard. There was no night-watch, she said, it would be easy pickings for him. When none of the anatomists would advance him the money for tools, Miller even lent him a spade. She was paid for her information.

Unfortunately for them, Hewit was not the only person Miller had told about the bodies. Each night that they visited the kirkyard, more and more resurrectionists had shown up. By the third night there had been quite a crowd, all digging up various graves in the hope of finding more fresh corpses. Realising they were creating a bit of a scene and desperate not to get caught, they all left without filling the ransacked graves back in.

They'd also left bits of the rotting bodies they'd rejected lying all over the grass.

Eight men travelling from a kirkyard to Surgeon's Square with a suspiciously body-shaped bag hadn't gone unnoticed - the Aitken's premises were searched. The brothers tried to bluff it out, inviting the sister of the dead man (whose body was with Lizars, not with them) to have a good look round. She instantly recognised the bodies of the woman and child from Lasswade.

The police needed more than her say so, though. They needed relatives of the deceased to come and formally identify their loved ones. They would be back on Monday morning, they warned the anatomists.

By Monday morning, a 'terrible error' had occurred. The Aitkens had 'discovered' that their students had taken the corpses and dissected them. The bodies were no longer recognisable.

The case fell apart and the informer, the anatomists and the resurrectionists all got off scot-free.

 

The Figgate Whins

The Figgate Whins were barren expanses of land about three miles from the centre of Edinburgh. In 1742, a single thatched cottage was built on them. It's thought that the cottage was built by a sailor, who named the building after a town in the Panama colonies, Porto Bello.

It was bought by Baron Muir (and later the land became known as Figgate Muir) who rented it out, and was used as a hostel for travellers going to and from Musselburgh. The lands around it had a terrible reputation for being a dangerous place of smugglers and thieves on account of the nearby beach, and the hostel soon suffered from the same bad name. In 1753, the tenant who ran the hostel, George Hamilton, took out an advert in the Edinburgh Courant. He offered a reward to anyone who could tell him who it was that had written a damning report about him, saying that he took in robbers.

In one incident, Alexander Henderson (a fishing master) was attacked by robbers. They beat him up, stabbed him with a broadsword, stole his money and left him to die. Thankfully, two people who were passing by heard him groaning. They carried him to Leith, and he lived.

In another incident, the stone coffins of some earlier residents were found underneath the sand. They weren't all that well-made, and vegetation had wormed its way inside and wrapped itself around the skeleton's rib-cages, and burrowed into the skulls.

In 1765, valuable clay was found at the Figgate Burn. A village slowly developed around it (now Portobello), and because of the beautiful beach, became a popular holiday destination. It became part of Edinburgh in 1896.

Friendly Fire

In an effort to stop the bodysnatchers, many of Edinburgh's kirkyards used Night Watchmen. These men would patrol the cemetery with guns at regular intervals.

In the village of Libberton (just outside Edinburgh back then, and now part of the city), they had two Night Watchmen - Andrew Ewart and Henry Pennycuik, a labourer and a weaver from Broken Bridge.

On the 4th of December 1827, Andrew went out to patrol. 

After a while, Henry decided that Andrew had been outside for longer than expected, and came out of the watchman's tower to see if he was all right.

Andrew spotted someone out of the corner of his eye. It was windy and cloudy, and he couldn't see very well, but whoever it was was creeping about, clearly up to no good. Andrew suddenly realised that the person was armed! He raised his own weapon and fired, badly injuring the grave-robbing miscreant.

Only, as it turned out, it wasn't a bodysnatcher...

It was of course, Henry Pennycuik, who later died from his wounds.

Andrew was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to be executed, his body given over for dissection. The sentence was later reduced to one year of imprisonment, as Andrew had been 'defending the church'.

Climbing Boy

Tenements in Edinburgh were often built as many as thirteen or even fourteen stories high. This was because of the Flodden Wall. As the population increased and the wall prevented the city from growing outwards, the only way was up.

New tenements were crammed in wherever they could be. Courtyards were filled until there was nothing left but closes (narrow lanes, from the word 'enclosure', meaning a courtyard). Buildings rose up to meet the sky in a very haphazard fashion - and inside these buildings were equally haphazard chimneys. These chimneys didn't go straight up...they were uneven, twisted and much narrower in some sections than others (sometimes as narrow as 30cms).

It was important that the chimneys were properly cleaned to prevent fire, which would have spread quickly through the cramped Old Town. The easiest way to do it was to send up a small child.

Boys as young as five-years-old were employed by Master sweeps as climbing-boys. They were sent up into endless dark, grimey passages with brushes and scrapers, choking on the soot. When they got stuck in the narrower sections, or were too frightened to go on, the Master sweeps would force them by lighting fires beneath them. Sometimes when they got stuck, no-one could get them out again, and they died. Occasionally, a rotten chimney-stack would collapse and the climbing-boy would be hurt or killed. Working in these filthy conditions also often caused testicular cancer.

One poor lad died after getting stuck inside a chimney in what is now Nichol Edwards, a pub down inside the old vaults. He's been reported by various people, calling for help. 

The Fairy Boy of Leith

Once a week in the 17th century, the Fairy Boy of Leith climbed Calton Hill. He had the ability to see things that others couldn't.

A tree on Calton Hill.

Where most folk saw a hill with fantastic views, the boy saw a whole other world. He walked through giant gates and into the realm of the fairies, where he would play drums for them as they feasted on meat and wine, and celebrated life.

Calton Hill is apparently Tardis-like, in that it's far bigger on the inside than the outside. There are many 'brave large rooms' which - as the boy told a Captain George Burton - are as grand as any in Scotland. Time was different in that world (clearly, wibbly wobbly timey wimey...stuff) too - the fairies would often travel to Holland or France and back in one night. 

Captain Burton, it seems, had been told about the boy by the locals, and had decided he wanted to meet him. The boy agreed to it, and cheerfully told him about his experiences with the fairies (and predicted a couple of people's futures while he was at it). But at 11pm, despite being closely watched by Burton and his friends, he somehow vanished from the room they were in and reappeared on the street outside. They chased him, caught him, and dragged him back in...only for him to vanish again. He's never been seen since.

Edinburgh's First Witch Trial

Although Scotland's witch-hunts started in earnest with King James VI and the North Berwick witches in 1590, the records show that Edinburgh's first witch trial was held eighteen years previously, in 1572.

Jonet Boyman, from Canongate, was a charmer (a Scottish word for someone who uses magic and herb-lore to heal). She'd been asked to cure a local man - Allan Anderson - who was sick, and went to a near-by sacred well (at Arthur's Seat) to ask the resident fairies for their help. They gave her complicated instructions which involved a specific way of washing his shirt among other things, which Jonet passed on to Allan's wife.

That night, the Anderson's house was surrounded by an awful storm, and they heard ghostly howling and hammering all the way through into the wee hours.

Jonet was arrested. It was decided that she'd consulted with the devil. She was convicted of witchcraft and burnt to death.

Anything To Get Out Of Paying Child Maintenance...

John Chiesly had once been married to Margaret Nicholson - he'd had ten children with her - but, he walked out on them. Having done so, he didn't see why he should have to pay for his children's upkeep anymore.

So, when Margaret dragged him through the courts for maintenance, he was a less than happy man.

Finally, after a long, drawn-out battle, the final court hearing went in Margaret's favour. Sir George Lockhart awarded her 1,700 merks per annum.

Chiesly was furious, and told Sir Lockhart to watch his back. Lockhart, used to this sort of thing in his position as the Lord President in the Court of Session, didn't take him seriously.

On the 31st of March, 1689 - Easter Sunday - as Sir Lockhart walked home from church with his brothers, Lord Castlehill and Daniel Lockhart, John Chiesly walked up and shot him with a pistol. Sir Lockhart managed to turn and look at his murderer, and he said, "Hold me, Daniel, hold me.", before he died.

Chiesly was sentenced to be dragged on a hurdle (a wooden frame) from the Tolbooth to the Mercat Cross (not very far!), where his right hand would then be cut off. After that he was to be hanged, and his hand was to be fixed onto the West Port. The pistol he used was to be hung round his neck, and his body was to be displayed in chains between Edinburgh and Leith. His movable goods were to be confiscated. This was done, but his friends cut down his body and took it away to be buried in secret.

Sir Lockhart was buried in Greyfriar's Kirkyard, though his memorial was destroyed in a fire in 1845.

One of John Chiesly's ten children was Rachel Chiesly, also known as Lady Grange.