by Alison Hay Dunlop – Anent Old Edinburgh (1889):
(She was born in Stockbridge in November, 1835. She died in December, 1888.)
Amongst a very host of distinguished residents and indwellers, we note Sir James Young Simpson, not on account of his great discoveries or their application to modern science; not that he was for the district specially, what he was for the sick-poor of humanity generally – a brother born for adversity – that has ever been the attribute of the noble profession and of its members less or more; but we single him out for his loyal love and keen interest in everything that belonged to the history of the Past – tangible or intangible – stone or story – the remains of a kitchen-midden or the ruins of a cathedral minster – all had special charms for him. He was very tender to the theories of the merest tyro in old-world matters, and at the same time he would hobnob with the humblest navvy in archaeology, equally ready to listen or to labour, to handle a pickaxe or to hold a lantern. And his happiness at such times! – gladness covered him about as with a garment! – and his laughter, especially at a good story! – it was a sight to see as well as a sound to hear, for from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot he seemed to laugh all over; but reading now of his life and
over-work, it seems to us that his leisure and his laughter had only been condensed and taken strong. To his last days Sir James had a leal love for Stockbridge, and no one ever saw him drive through ‘the village’ without seeing his face looking brightly out of the carriage windows. He held it to be the most beautiful and the healthiest suburb of Edinburgh, even in spite of the ‘sad detrimental’ of the ill-used Water of Leith. He used to count up its distinguished artists and men of letters, and show how there was an ‘infection of genius – a continuity of fame’ in the clear north light of the place. He used to point out from the height on the Fettes estate, above where the college now stands, that for the greater part of the year Stockbridge stood clear of smoke. ‘I noticed it first,’ he said when I was driving out the shearers’ bread* to Pilton, and I have watched it ever since.’ There are at least eight months of west wind in the year, the very shoulders of the hedgerow trees show it,’ he continued; ‘the smoke never begins to thicken till on the far side of St. Stephen’s Church; the wind from Corstorphine Hill that blows away the smoke from Stockbridge blows away the smells – ERGO’ – the intensity of his conviction and the loudness of the shout are only to be understood by the capitals in which that word ergo is printed. On the other hand, or rather on the other airt, so high an opinion did he hold of St. Bernard’s Row, Malta Terrace, and the lower district generally being sheltered from the east wind by the bluff on which Saxe-Coburg Place is now built, that he recommended two consumptive patients to winter there, instead of going south to Devonshire or Italy ‘Bits o’ orphan lassies,’ he added, ‘with not much siller in their purse.’ There was a wonderful cadence of pity in the Professor’s voice when he fell back unwittingly into the village vernacular. ‘And it was successful, too,’ he continued, ‘for that winter at least. Yes, Stockbridge and Success both begin with ‘S” – with which compliment to an admiring indweller and early friend he hurried into his carriage and was whirled away. That was shortly before the slight of his being refused the Principalship of the Edinburgh University. When the Slight and the Refusal fell upon him, the shroud was far up on his breast, and he was soon to pass into that Land of the inhabitants of which it is written – ‘He shall not say that I am sick,’ and they buried him – all the city mourning, and we of the old village, who knew him and loved him, were pleased that this should not be amid the fame and the far-off solitariness of Westminster Abbey as was offered, but near at hand at Warriston, beside the graves of his children, and below the gowans on the little brae that faces the city and the sun.
*Simpson came from a family of bakers. See Simpson the Obstetrician by Myrtle Simpson:
p47: David Simpson, brother of James, had set up a baker’s shop in Stockbridge, and, for a time, James lived with him. [The shearers to whom James was delivering bread were Highlanders who came south to help bring in the harvest. They would be working in the fields. This has nothing to do with sheep.]
p68: James went to France and his letters home included snippets of information about French bread for his brother David.
p70: In 1835, his first breakthrough was to be elected President of the Royal Medical Society. Great weight was put on the inaugural dissertation. The address was On the Diseases of the Placenta. He wrote to his brother Sandy, as the day of the inauguration drew near, “It is 5 o’clock in the morning and I am confoundedly tired. I have been up all night correcting the last printed sheet of my paper.” David, with whom he still lived, thankfully added in a P.S. that the paper was now finished and “happy we all are at it”.
p72-73: As he wrote to Sandy in June 1836, “I have made up my mind to lecture on midwifery in Edinburgh.” In order to do this, Simpson had to buy a place in the extra-mural field. His old friend John Reid, also from Bathgate, obtained a loan from James’s brothers and James now moved from his brother’s baker’s shop to rooms in Teviot Row.
Bathgate Old Times 