WHISKY HISTORY
Edinburgh’s liquid history
The Edinburgh New Town residence of 10 Scotland Street has been home to booksellers, silk merchants, sailors, preachers, politicians and more since it was first inhabited in the early 19th century. As the home of Pip and Leslie Hills, it also played a key role in the formation of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Now, Leslie has written a history of the house over the course of two centuries, including an intriguing connection with The Vaults in Leith
WORDS: LESLIE HILLS
We moved into 10 Scotland Street, birthplace of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, in January 1974. When the mortgage was finally paid off, our solicitor handed me a bundle of vellum deeds, dating back to 1824 and the first owner of the house, David Kedie Whytt.
I laid them out on the floor of his drawing room and read until I reached 1974. It took a long time. The penmanship was cramped and difficult, but with a bit of perseverance, a story unfolded. Vaguely, I decided I would investigate, someday, Mr Whytt. Much later, I was researching a film in the National Archives in Kew. Finished early, I idly looked up David Kedie Whytt in the catalogue. And there he was. I was handed a very dusty box. Inside, wrapped in a roll of cracked oilskin, was a letter dated May 1836. In an elegant hand, David Kedie Whytt, retired paymaster and purser of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, is writing from 10 Scotland Street, to the Lords of the Admiralty in London, to claim the half-pay to which he is entitled, by virtue of his 31 years’ service, during and after the Napoleonic War. It’s a beautiful letter. I started digging.
In pre-internet days, research took much longer. Gradually, in David, I discovered a complex, energetic, essentially likeable character. And then I realised, that before and throughout the war, he was a wine and spirit merchant at his Giles Street warehouse which he rented from his neighbours, the Gibsons and Thomsons at their Vaults. The man who lived in my house for over 30 years, was, without doubt, in and out of The Vaults, the home of the SMWS.
As the war progressed, David joined the Navy as a purser. He used his own credit to supply victuals, clothes, coals for the galley and the officers’ quarters, wood, candles, lanterns, turned wooden bowls and more, and also to act as the officers’ banker. David had 12 pence a day – 14p at sea – for each man. Before I explored the role, I had no idea of the crucial part played by the huge, unsung, administrative departments, quietly hidden in the apparatus of war. The pursers of my acquaintance sold tickets from a cubby-hole on Clyde steamers.
Simultaneously, David was Secretary Clerk in succession to three admirals at the Northern Station at Leith. For them, men who went to sea as boys, he wrote letters to the Admiralty in London which they signed in shaky hands. If that were not enough, David was also a naval agent, selling off prize ships and their contents, in Leith and London. In the spring of 1808, at Grinly’s Saleroom, David auctioned the fast Danish Sailing Gallias, Christina, and her cargo of fish, nails, iron, stores etc... She had been cut out of a Norwegian harbour by his Majesty’s sloop Childers, and adjudged by the High Court of Admiralty as Childers’ prize. Through the autumn, David and his father, James, advertised Norwegian yachts and sloops, barleymeal, sails, anchors, cables and ropes. In December, there were more prize ships, including a Danish ship captured by his Majesty’s gun brig, Basilisk. In 1809 their sales included 840 bags of coffee, 11 prize ships with wines, fox skins, sugar, hand spokes, otter skins and a quantity of cordage, sails and small arms belonging to a Russian brig destroyed by HMS Snake. The Gibsons were also offering coffee for sale at The Vaults, remarking that coffee, ‘that article’, appears to be on the rise. In 1810, there were captures made by HM ships Clio and Erebus – six Danish prize vessels and cargoes, five other prize vessels and a Russian Galliot.
In 1811 at The Vaults, Thompson Gibson and Company were selling sails and rigging in the loft, which was presumably less perilous than when I explored it first in 1982. Even then, it was an utterly memorable, long, wide, dusty space shot through with sunlight and perfect for storing sails. In the summer, the Whytts sold the coppered Danish Privateer Torden Dkjol, with all her guns, shot, rigging, apparelling. She had been causing grief to British ships in the Mediterranean and had been captured, after a long chase, by HM sloop Ringdove.
Jessy Allan, daughter of Robert Allan, the proprietor of the Caledonian Mercury, wrote from her home at 28 Queen Street – later to become SMWS Queen Street – to her sister, Agnes, in Allahabad, British India. Everyone was so weary of the war, said Jessy – but that it was necessary as no-one could put up with Bonaparte’s insolence. Robert Allan, the first owner of 28 Queen Street, made a loan to the Thomsons at The Vaults when they needed money. He would have known the Whytts, who later became prosperous booksellers in George Street. David’s brother, William, sat on the City Council with JG Thomson of The Vaults.
In London David’s business address was 22 Essex Street, a narrow street of elegant brick houses, running south from the Strand. Number 22 is at the rounded end, where the Watergate, an arched opening, leads down narrow steps to Milford Lane which debouched, in David’s time, onto a wharf and warehouses, piers and docks. The river was a field of wooden masts. I’ve stood, at night, looking up at number 22 Essex Street, a three-storey Georgian house, little changed since David ran up the stairs. Of course, I don’t know if he ran up the stairs, but it’s beyond me how he could have done what he did in those years except at a run. David did me an immense favour by living and working in buildings which still exist, allowing me to trace him on his energetic way.
In April 1813, the Whytts advertised in the Mercury, Danish Galliat Splied and all her stores. She was 65 feet long by 15 feet across, with a hold depth of 6 feet. To my 21st century mind, this is a wee boat in which to trust your life and fortune in the North Sea. Just above is a notice from J Thomson, Gibson and Co, selling the Danish schooner Syerstadt and her cargo of salt, rose copper, barley, caraway seeds, barrels and firkins of herring, stock fish, and half a barrel of tar, to be examined in the warehouse at The Vaults.
I am delighted with these connections among The Vaults, David Kedie Whytt, and 10 Scotland Street. There is a great deal more about David and the house in my book – 10 Scotland Street, an opinionated history of one house through two centuries – available in bookshops and from Amazon.
10 Scotland Street by Leslie Hills is published by Scotland Street Press (£24.99). https://www.scotlandstreetpress.com/product/10-scotland-street