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Whose Town? Levi Prinski Scott

Whose Town? Levi Prinski Scott
Whose Town? Levi Prinski Scott
Whose Town? was an educational resource built on the heritage collections of the City of Edinburgh. It was developed by Edinburgh City Libraries in partnership with Edinburgh Museums and Galleries and Edinburgh City Archives. The resource was launched in 2011 and unfortunately is no longer available in its original format, however, we have created exhibitions here on Capital Collections to provide schools with access to even more material and to allow a wider audience access to the fascinating stories told in Whose Town?

We are also working on recreating the life stories as digital trails on Our Town Stories.

Whose Town? looks at Edinburgh from 1850 - 1959 to discover the city's past through the lives of the people who lived there. We have used people who lived in Victorian times, at the beginning of the twentieth century, during the Second World War and in the Fifties. There are fourteen lives to discover as well as exhibitions about each of the four eras.

Levi Prinski Scott was a 15 year old homeless boy living in Edinburgh in 1870. He was taken in by the Edinburgh Industrial Brigade School for Homeless and Destitute Boys, given food, lodging, and the chance to learn a trade. Levi had left Poland with his father aged about 12 or 13, but his father was killed in a mining accident in the English Midlands. He eventually found himself in Edinburgh with nothing to his name. Levi's story can reveal some of the harsh realities of poverty in 1870s Edinburgh, as well as the indomitable nature of the human spirit. This exhibition contains images of Edinburgh's Old Town in the late 1870s and of conditions within an industrial school. Reproductions of Levi's story from a contemporary book on the Edinburgh Industrial Brigade School is also included along with images of Levi and other boys attending the school.

Find out more about life in Victorian Edinburgh.

Whose town? is supported by funding from The Heritage Lottery Fund.