John Kippen Watson
John Kippen Watson FRSE (1818-1891) was a 19th-century Scottish businessman. He is associated with major improvements to Edinburgh's gas lighting including the iconic lamp standard found throughout the New Town, Edinburgh, New Town. Life He was born on 26 August 1816 in Edinburgh the son of John Watson and his wife Elizabeth Kippen. From around 1833 his father was manager of the Edinburgh Gas Lighting Company. The family lived at 6 Brunton Place close to Calton Hill. On the death of his father (around 1840) he took on his roles of running the Edinburgh Gas Lighting Company In the 1860s he introduced a new style of gas lamp, specific to Edinburgh, and associated with iconic areas such as Charlotte Square. In 1866 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh his proposer being William Swan (physicist), William Swan. His company was transferred to Edinburgh Corporation in 1889, putting it into public control. This also involved converting the gas lamps to use with el ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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An Early Gas Lamp On Melville Street Edinburgh (converted To Electric Use)
An, AN, aN, or an may refer to: Businesses and organizations * Airlinair (IATA airline code AN) * Alleanza Nazionale, a former political party in Italy * AnimeNEXT, an annual anime convention located in New Jersey * Anime North, a Canadian anime convention * Ansett Australia, a major Australian airline group that is now defunct (IATA designator AN) * Apalachicola Northern Railroad (reporting mark AN) 1903–2002 ** AN Railway, a successor company, 2002– * Aryan Nations, a white supremacist religious organization * Australian National Railways Commission, an Australian rail operator from 1975 until 1987 * Antonov, a Ukrainian (formerly Soviet) aircraft manufacturing and services company, as a model prefix Entertainment and media * Antv, an Indonesian television network * ''Astronomische Nachrichten'', or ''Astronomical Notes'', an international astronomy journal * ''Avisa Nordland'', a Norwegian newspaper * ''Sweet Bean'' (あん), a 2015 Japanese film also known as ''An'' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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William Swan (physicist)
Prof William Swan FRSE PRSSA LLD (13 March 1818 in Edinburgh – 1 March 1894 in Shandon, Argyll) was a Scottish mathematician and physicist best known for his 1856 discovery of the Swan band. Life He was born in Edinburgh the only child of David Swan, engineer, and his wife, Janet Smith. Janet was the daughter of Thomas Smith, lighthouse engineer. Her sister was married to the famous lighthouse engineer, Robert Stevenson. He was privately educated at home, 7 Union Street, and appears to have been both lonely and unhappy. His father died in 1821 when he was only three. His mother took in lodgers to make ends meet, including at one point Thomas Carlyle. William's only childhood friend is said to have been his cousin, Thomas Stevenson (father of Robert Louis Stevenson). At 17 he was sent to Edinburgh University to study divinity. He "came out" during the Disruption of 1843 and became an active member of the Free Church, teaching mathematics and physics at the Free Church ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1891 Deaths
Events January–March * January 1 ** Paying of old age pensions begins in Germany. ** A strike of 500 Hungarian steel workers occurs; 3,000 men are out of work as a consequence. **Germany takes formal possession of its new African territories. * January 2 – A. L. Drummond of New York is appointed Chief of the Treasury Secret Service. * January 4 – The Earl of Zetland issues a declaration regarding the famine in the western counties of Ireland. * January 5 **The Australian shearers' strike, that leads indirectly to the foundation of the Australian Labor Party, begins. **A fight between the United States and Indians breaks out near Pine Ridge agency. **Henry B. Brown, of Michigan, is sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. **A fight between railway strikers and police breaks out at Motherwell, Scotland. * January 6 – Encounters continue, between strikers and the authorities at Glasgow. * January 7 ** General Miles' forces ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1816 Births
This year was known as the ''Year Without a Summer'', because of low temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, possibly the result of the Mount Tambora volcanic eruption in Indonesia in 1815, causing severe global cooling, catastrophic in some locations. Events January–March * December 25 1815–January 6 – Tsar Alexander I of Russia signs an order, expelling the Jesuits from St. Petersburg and Moscow. * January 9 – Sir Humphry Davy's Davy lamp is first tested underground as a coal mining safety lamp, at Hebburn Colliery in northeast England. * January 17 – Fire nearly destroys the city of St. John's, Newfoundland. * February 10 – Friedrich Karl Ludwig, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck, dies and is succeeded by Friedrich Wilhelm, his son and founder of the House of Glücksburg. * February 20 – Gioachino Rossini's opera buffa ''The Barber of Seville'' premières at the Teatro Argentina in Rome. * March 1 – The Gorkha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Princes Street
Princes Street ( gd, Sràid nam Prionnsan) is one of the major thoroughfares in central Edinburgh, Scotland and the main shopping street in the capital. It is the southernmost street of Edinburgh's New Town, stretching around 1.2 km (three quarters of a mile) from Lothian Road in the west, to Leith Street in the east. The street has few buildings on the south side and looks over Princes Street Gardens allowing panoramic views of the Old Town, Edinburgh Castle, as well as the valley between. Most of the street is limited to trams, buses and taxis with only the east end open to all traffic. History 18th century The street lies on the line of a medieval country lane known as the Lang Dykes and under the first plan for the New Town was to have been called St Giles Street after the patron saint of Edinburgh. However, when King George III was shown a print or drawing of the proposed New Town by Sir John Pringle, he objected to the name as he associated it with the notor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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St Cuthbert's Church, Edinburgh
The Parish Church of St Cuthbert is a parish church of the Church of Scotland in central Edinburgh. Probably founded in the 7th century, the church once covered an extensive parish around the burgh of Edinburgh. The church's current building was designed by Hippolyte Blanc and completed in 1894. St Cuthbert's is situated within a large churchyard that bounds Princes Street Gardens and Lothian Road. A church was probably founded on this site during or shortly after the life of Cuthbert. The church is first recorded in 1128, when David I granted it to Holyrood Abbey. At that time, the church covered an extensive parish, which was gradually reduced until the 20th century by the erection and expansion of other parishes, many of which were founded as chapels of ease of St Cuthbert's. St Cuthbert's became a Protestant church at the Scottish Reformation in 1560: from after the Reformation until the 19th century, the church was usually called the West Kirk. After the Restoration in 1660, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Watson (painter)
George Watson (1767 – 24 August 1837) was a Scottish portrait Painting, painter and the first president of the Royal Scottish Academy. Life and work Watson was born at his father's estate, Overmains, Berwickshire, in 1767, the son of Frances Veitch of Elliott. John Watson. He received his early education in Edinburgh, and got some instruction in painting from Alexander Nasmyth but when 18 years of age he went to London with an introduction to Joshua Reynolds, Sir Joshua Reynolds, who received him as a pupil. After two years spent in Reynolds' studio, he returned to Edinburgh, and established himself as a portrait-painter. In 1808 he was associated with other painters in starting a society of artists, which, however, only lasted a few years. He exhibited frequently at the Royal Academy and the British Institution, and about 1815 was invited to London to paint a number of portraits, including those of the dean of Canterbury and Benjamin West. In 1820, in spite of much opposition ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Telephone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals that are transmitted via cables and other communication channels to another telephone which reproduces the sound to the receiving user. The term is derived from el, τῆλε (''tēle'', ''far'') and φωνή (''phōnē'', ''voice''), together meaning ''distant voice''. A common short form of the term is ''phone'', which came into use early in the telephone's history. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was the first to be granted a United States patent for a device that produced clearly intelligible replication of the human voice at a second device. This instrument was further developed by many others, and became rapidly indispensable in business, government, and in households. The essential elements of a telephone are ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Royal Society Of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established in 1783. , there are around 1,800 Fellows. The Society covers a broader selection of fields than the Royal Society of London, including literature and history. Fellowship includes people from a wide range of disciplines – science & technology, arts, humanities, medicine, social science, business, and public service. History At the start of the 18th century, Edinburgh's intellectual climate fostered many clubs and societies (see Scottish Enlightenment). Though there were several that treated the arts, sciences and medicine, the most prestigious was the Society for the Improvement of Medical Knowledge, commonly referred to as the Medical Society of Edinburgh, co-founded by the mathematician Colin Maclaurin in 1731. Maclaurin was unhap ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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FRSE
Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This society received a royal charter in 1783, allowing for its expansion. Elections Around 50 new fellows are elected each year in March. there are around 1,650 Fellows, including 71 Honorary Fellows and 76 Corresponding Fellows. Fellows are entitled to use the post-nominal letters FRSE, Honorary Fellows HonFRSE, and Corresponding Fellows CorrFRSE. Disciplines The Fellowship is split into four broad sectors, covering the full range of physical and life sciences, arts, humanities, social sciences, education, professions, industry, business and public life. A: Life Sciences * A1: Biomedical and Cognitive Sciences * A2: Clinical Sciences * A3: Organismal and Environmental Biology * A4: Cell and Molecular Biology B: Physical, Engineering an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Charlotte Square
300px, Robert Adam's palace-fronted north side Charlotte Square is a garden square in Edinburgh, Scotland, part of the New Town, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The square is located at the west end of George Street and was intended to mirror St. Andrew Square in the east. The gardens, one of the collection of New Town Gardens, are private and not publicly accessible. History Initially named St. George's Square in James Craig's original plan, it was renamed in 1786 after King George III's Queen and first daughter, to avoid confusion with George Square to the south of the Old Town. Charlotte Square was the last part of the initial phase of the New Town to be "completed" in 1820 (note- the north-west section at Glenfinlas Street was not completed until 1990 due to a long-running boundary dispute). Much of it was to the 1791 design of Robert Adam, who died in 1792, just as building began. In 1939 a very sizable air-raid shelter was created under the south side ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Calton Hill
Calton Hill () is a hill in central Edinburgh, Scotland, situated beyond the east end of Princes Street and included in the city's UNESCO World Heritage Site. Views of, and from, the hill are often used in photographs and paintings of the city. Calton Hill is the headquarters of the Scottish Government, which is based at St Andrew's House,Youngson, A.J. (2001): "The Companion Guide to Edinburgh and the borders", Chapter 9 (Calton Hill), Polygon Books, Edinburgh, UK, on the steep southern slope of the hill. The Scottish Parliament Building and other prominent buildings such as Holyrood Palace lie near the foot of the hill. Calton Hill is also the location of several monuments and buildings: the National Monument,The Calton Hill [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |