Eighteenth Century
1700: The estimated population is 60,000; a severe fire leads to new buildings, built in stone; Darien venture fails when colony is abandoned
1702: Advocates' Library moved from Faculty of Advocates to Parliament House
1706: Framework knitters from Haddington are working in Edinburgh
1707: Act of Union passed by the Parliament of Scotland
1711: David Hume, philosopher, is born
1713: The main radial roads into Edinburgh are turnpiked
1715: Jacobites in Leith, but make no attempt to enter Edinburgh
1718: Edinburgh Evening Courant newspaper is launched; damasks are woven at Drumsheugh
1720s: Daniel Defoe praises the High Street, decries Old Tolbooth, notes sales of woollens, linens, drapery and mercery
1722: The Signet Library is founded
1725: Barony of Calton (including Calton Hill) purchased by the city
1726: The first circulating library is established; medical school founded at the town's college; James Hutton, geologist, is born
1727: Royal Bank of Scotland established
1729: The city's first infirmary is opened
1733: Alexander Monro, discoverer of lymphatic and nervous systems, is born
1735: Golf is played on Bruntsfield links; also the traditional date for the founding of the Royal Burgess Golfing Society
1736: The Royal Infirmary is incorporated; Porteous Riots shake the city
1737: The Lord Provost is ousted following the riots
1738: Edinburgh is described as the "world's leading medical centre"; George Watson's College is founded
1739: The Scots Magazine is first published in the city
1740: There are four printing firms in Edinburgh; the biographer James Boswell is born
1741: Royal Infirmary designed by William Adam opens in, what became, Infirmary Street
1744: The first premises at Fountainbridge are built, with more than five looms
1745: Charles Edward Stuart enters the city and proclaims his father James VIII and III
1746: The British Linen Company is formed
1747: A theatre is established at Playhouse Close in the Canongate
1748: Moral philosopher and political economist Adam Smith delivers his first series of public lectures at the University
1749: A stagecoach service opens between Edinburgh and Glasgow
1750: A ropery is established in the city
1751: A survey shows a severe state of dilapidation in the Old Town
1752: Convention of Royal Burghs publishes proposals for new public buildings, the draining of the Nor Loch and the city's expansion, which are accepted and implemented by the Town Council
1753: Stagecoach services are introduced to London (taking two weeks)
1754: Building of the Royal Exchange (later Edinburgh City Chambers) in the High Street begins; the Select Society is founded; Mons Meg removed from the castle to the Tower of London
1755: Dr. Webster's census puts the population of Edinburgh, Canongate, St Cuthbert's and Leith at 57,195
1757–1770: Linen weaving works in Canongate
1758: Stagecoach services are introduced to Newcastle (taking one week)
1760: Thomas Braidwood establishes a school for deaf children; the main linen stamping office is in the city
1760s: Woollen cloth is beetled in a lapping house in Edinburgh
1761: The Bruntsfield Golfing Society is formed
1763: Construction of the North Bridge, designed by William Mylne, begins; St Cecilia's Hall, by Robert Mylne, Scotland's first purpose-built concert hall, erected; a four-horse coach runs to Glasgow three times a week
1764: Netherbow Port demolished to facilitate traffic flow
1765: The Glasgow coach now runs daily
1766: The competition to design the New Town is won by James Craig
1767: Construction of the New Town begins
1768-71: First edition of Encyclopædia Britannica produced in Anchor Close
1769: Opening of the first Theatre Royal at the north end of the North Bridge; Society of Bowlers founded and draws up rules of the game
1770: The British Linen Company switches to banking
1770s: There are 27 competing printing firms in the city
1771: Sir Walter Scott is born in College Wynd
1772: Construction of the North Bridge is completed; building of Dundas House, on St Andrew Square, designed by Sir William Chambers begins
1773: Dr Johnson visits Edinburgh; Penny Post service begun by Peter Williamson
1774: Construction of Robert Adam's Register House at east end of Princes Street begins
1775: Population of Edinburgh, Canongate, St Cuthbert's and Leith is 70,430; new St Cuthbert's Church opens; a directory of brothels and prostitutes is published
1777: A new High School building opens in High School Yards; 8 legal and 400 illegal distilleries in the city
1778: Younger's brewery established within the precincts of Holyrood Abbey
1780: National Museum of Antiquities established as part of Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (later housed on the Mound in 1827 and in Queen Street in 1891)
1781: Construction of the "Earthen Mound" begins
1782: The voting system is criticised by Thomas McGrugar in "Letters of Zeno"
1783: Royal Society of Edinburgh created by Royal Charter for "the advancement of learning and useful knowledge"; Society of Antiquaries of Scotland incorporated by Royal Charter for "the study of the antiquities and history of Scotland..."
1784: James Tytler makes the first hot-air balloon ascent in Britain from Comely Gardens to Restalrig village; Meeting discusses corrupt electoral system
1785: Italian balloonist Vincent Lunardi makes his first Scottish hydrogen balloon flight from the grounds of Heriot's School, landing 46 miles away in Ceres, Fife
1785–1786: Stone bridge at Stockbridge
1785–1788: The South Bridge is built
1786: The Ayrshire poet Robert Burns is fêted by the city's social elite
1787: New Assembly Rooms opened in George Street
1788: William "Deacon" Brodie is executed – leader of a gang of robbers; the first stone of Edinburgh University's Old College is laid
1791: A census puts the population of the city at 82,706 with 29,718 in the City of Edinburgh (22,512 in the Old Town and 7,206 in the New Town), 6,200 in Canongate Parish, 32,947 in St Cuthbert's Parish, 11,432 in South Leith Parish and 2,409 in North Leith Parish; Robert Burns visits the city for the second and last time
1792: The Friends of the People Society meets for the first time; Charlotte Square designed by Robert Adam; James Craig's Old Observatory completed on Calton Hill
1793: Sedition trials held:Thomas Muir of Huntershill and other radical reformers are sentenced to transportation
1794: Robert Watt, a former spy, is sentenced to death for "Pike Plot"
1797: Snuff manufacturer James Gillespie dies after bequeathing a hospital for the aged and a "free school for the education of poor boys"
1799: City has access to 3 million litres of drinking water a day
Read more about this topic: Timeline Of Edinburgh History
Famous quotes related to eighteenth century:
“Our age is pre-eminently the age of sympathy, as the eighteenth century was the age of reason. Our ideal men and women are they, whose sympathies have had the widest culture, whose aims do not end with self, whose philanthropy, though centrifugal, reaches around the globe.”
—Frances E. Willard 1839–1898, U.S. president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1879-1891, author, activist. The Woman’s Magazine, pp. 137-40 (January 1887)
“F.R. Leavis’s ‘eat up your broccoli’ approach to fiction emphasises this junkfood/wholefood dichotomy. If reading a novel—for the eighteenth century reader, the most frivolous of diversions—did not, by the middle of the twentieth century, make you a better person in some way, then you might as well flush the offending volume down the toilet, which was by far the best place for the undigested excreta of dubious nourishment.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)