Old Edinburgh Club - December through history

• 3RD – In 1894, Edinburgh-born author Robert Louis Stevenson died in Samoa, at the age of 44.

• 7TH – In 2002, in the evening, a fire started above the Belle Angele nightclub off the Cowgate; it swept up through the eight-storey structure to other buildings on Cowgate and above it on South Bridge; it took more than a day for the fire, to be brought under control, and several days for it to be completely extinguished; thankfully no lives were lost.

• 8TH – In 1669, the Council granted a warrant to Robert Clerk to organise the Pricing Book Lottery.

• 10TH – In 1768, the first volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica edited by William Smellie went on sale in Edinburgh.

• 16TH – In 1601, Andro Turnbull was beheaded at the Mercat Cross for the murder of Thomas Ker the previous month.

• 18TH – In 1780, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland was founded.

• 19TH – In 1887, Rumford Medal-winning Leith-born scientist Balfour Stewart died during a journey from Scotland to his country estates in Ireland. And in 1904, The Scotsman newspaper moved to new offices on North Bridge.

• 20TH – In 1862, surgeon and anatomist Robert Knox died; Knox became notorious as one of the men to whom the murderers Burke and Hare delivered corpses for dissection.

• 21ST – In 1965, Stuart Mitchell, Scottish pianist and composer, best known for his Seven Wonders Suite, was born in Edinburgh. And in 1989, the City Bypass was completed.

• 24TH – In 1650, Edinburgh castle surrendered to Oliver Cromwell.

• 27TH – In 1794, Major Alexander Gordon Laing, the first European to reach Timbuktu via the north/south route, was born in Edinburgh.

Compiled by Jerry Ozaniec, Membership Secretary of the Old Edinburgh Club membership@oldedinburghclub.org.uk