Whose Town? Hugh Cairns

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.

Hugh Cairns returned to his home city of Edinburgh after the war to live with his wife and family in a prefab in Oxgangs. He got a job driving the trams. Once the trams were stopped, Hugh got a job on the buses. Hugh loved to travel to see different places and in the Fifties his only option was to cycle. He has shared with us some of his personal photographs of life on the trams and from his cycling trips. Hugh's exhibition also contains tickets and images commemorating the last day of the trams in 1956.

Find out more about life in Edinburgh in the 1950s.

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