Black and White Lantern Slide of the Canongate Tolbooth

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

52293

Title

Black and white lantern slide of the Canongate Tolbooth taken by George Washington Wilson, c. 1890-1900

Description

Black and white lantern slide of the Canongate Tolbooth taken by George Washington Wilson, c. 1890-1900

Type

Lantern slide; Photograph

Accession number

HH6219/1/2002-094

Copyright

The City of Edinburgh Council Museums & Galleries

The slide has the initials "G.W.W." written on the back. This is likely to be George Washington Wilson.

George Washington Wilson (1823-1893) was a renowned Aberdeen born photographer who came to prominence following his contract to work with the Royal Family after documenting the building of Balmoral Castle in the mid-1850s.

Originally a portrait photographer Wilson moved into landscape photography pioneering techniques in outdoor, documentary photography and in the mass production of photographic prints. In his own lifetime he achieved great success. The 1881 census records the then 57-year-old Wilson as ‘master photographer’ employing some 15 men, 21 women, two boys and two girls.

In the 1860s Wilson photographed not only his hometown of Aberdeen and the North East but the whole of Scotland, most of England and areas of Wales and Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, Morocco, the South of Spain, colonial South Africa and Australia. In the 1870s he turned to staff photographers to add to the firm’s stock.

The Canongate was a separate burgh from Edinburgh up until the 1800s, and as such it had its own institutions such as magistrate's court and law courts. The Tolbooth is one of the oldest surviving buildings in Edinburgh, and has been used as a prison, a court, a police station, offices, and, in its most recent use, as a museum, housing the People's Story Museum.

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