Edinburgh EH2 3AA
Glance up at Edinburgh Castle on its rocky perch and remember that this was where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to a son in 1566. He was crowned King James VI of Scotland barely a year later, and in 1603 he became King of England as well. It was James who granted the charters for the new colonies in America, notably Jamestown in Virginia, which was established in 1607 (that is thirteen years before the Plymouth Colony was founded by the Pilgrim Fathers). James VI was therefore the first British monarch to rule over the new American territories.
Princes Street, 1930s © Lost Edinburgh
Listen to the traffic on Princes Street; a goodly proportion driven along here in the past were Fords. This may not have been the case had it not been for a far-seeing Edinburgh-born industrialist and banker. John Gray, who had emigrated to America, was initially none too impressed by the new contraption about to be manufactured by Henry Ford, the ‘gasoline buggy’ as it was called, and had to be persuaded rather reluctantly to invest $10,000 in its development in 1903. He quickly changed his opinion, however, having been made the new company’s first president, and grossed $36 million!
Up on Lothian Road there are a couple of film complexes, and it is worth remembering that Edinburgh gave Hollywood two of its greatest stars. One was Ernest Torrence, who became one of the great villains of the silver screen in the 1920s. The other, slightly better known nowadays, was Sean Connery, an actor of supreme talent, who skillfully handled a multitude of roles, most notably as Secret Agent 007 in the early James Bond films of the 1960s.
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