National Museums of Scotland

 History of Science, Natural History, Technology  No Responses »
Apr 192016
 

Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1JF

National Museum of Scotland

The oldest part of the building that houses the National Museum of Scotland was called the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art when it was opened by Prince Albert in 1866. Construction had began in 1861 and work was to continue on the first phase of the building until 1888. It was renamed the Royal Scottish Museum in 1904 and became the National Museum of Scotland in 2004. Initially much of the collection came from the University of Edinburgh’s natural history collection, which had become too big for the University’s own museum in what is now the Talbot Rice Gallery.

Free entry, although some temporary exhibitions may charge.

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General Register House

 History of Science, Technology  No Responses »
Apr 192016
 

General Register House, 2 Princes Street, Edinburgh EH1 3YY

General Register House

James Tytler, who made the first successful balloon ascent in Britain in Edinburgh, exhibited and tested his ‘Grand Edinburgh Fire Balloon’  in the uncompleted dome of Robert Adam’s Register House in 1784 before making a successful public ascent at Comely Garden on 6 August.  Tytler was a multi-talented individual who had made a living at various times as a surgeon, writer, publisher, composer and poet before his foray into aeronautics. He had to flee to Ireland in 1792 after being arrested for producing subversive pamphlets, before emigrating to America a few years later.

The General Register House houses the National Records of Scotland and is open to the public.

James Tytler (1745–1804).

James Tytler (1745–1804).

James Tytler's 'Edinburgh Fire Balloon', 1784.

James Tytler’s ‘Edinburgh Fire Balloon’, 1784.

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Old Edinburgh cistern, Castlehill

 History of Science, Mathematics, Technology  No Responses »
Apr 192016
 

555  Castlehill, Edinburgh EH1 2ND

Old Edinburgh cistern

This ornate drinking fountain marks the site on Castle Hill where the mathematician George Sinclair constructed a cistern to supply water to the city of Edinburgh in around 1675. The original reservoir was demolished to make way for a new, larger one in 1849. Sinclair was professor of Mathematics at the University of Glasgow from 1654 to 1666.  In 1655 he made some very early descents in a diving bell off the Isle of Mull. He was not only a leading mathematician and engineer, but also an expert on demonology and author of Satan’s Invisible Works Discovered (c.1685).

Nineteenth-century drinking fountain on the site of the old Edinburgh cistern.

Nineteenth-century drinking fountain on the site of the old Edinburgh cistern.

 

High Street cistern, 1675

The one surviving wellhead on the High Street, originally connected to Sinclair’s Castlehill cistern. It was designed by Sir William Bruce to provide water to the people of the Old Town and built in around 1675.