Frederick Douglass at Waterloo Rooms

29A Waterloo Place, Edinburgh EH1 3BQ 

On May 1, 1846, a formerly enslaved man from Maryland stood in the Waterloo Rooms at this address and addressed a public breakfast hosted by the Edinburgh Ladies’ Emancipation Society. Frederick Douglass, escaped slave, author, orator, and the most photographed American of the nineteenth century, had come to Scotland as part of a British tour, and Edinburgh became one of his most important platforms.

Douglass spoke here and across the city and Scotland demanding the Free Church of Scotland “send back the money” it had received from slaveholding congregations. His Edinburgh campaign helped turn Scottish opinion against slavery, contributing to the international pressure that contributed to abolition. You can also find a portrait of Douglass at 33 Gilmore Place, near the location of where he stayed while in Edinburgh (see also our Black Live Matters trail).

Sources:

• Bulldozia: “Douglass in Scotland: Spotlight Edinburgh”
• Historic Environment Scotland: Frederick Douglass: Scotland’s Anti-slavery Agent
• The Edinburgh Reporter
• Curious Edinburgh: Edinburgh & America Tour Notes