This meeting, held on April 30 2020 several weeks into the coronavirus lockdown, was the second online meeting of the group. In spite of a few little problems with sound, the Teams format worked well on the whole – our thanks to Andy for arranging this. One good thing – one of the email members of the group, currently based in Sweden, was able to participate for the first time – and did so to very good effect.
The proposer offered the following details on the author:
John Fulton, W.S. John David Orchard Fulton, was born in Edinburgh in 1954, spending his childhood in Inverleith. He attended the Edinburgh Academy and studied law at Edinburgh University. John’s father, David, had a distinguished war career being awarded an MC at the battle for Monte Cassino. Later that year he lost his leg when his sergeant stood on a mine.
In 1978 John joined Tods Murray, W.S. where his father was senior partner. He worked for 27 years from the building at 66 Queen Street until the firm moved to new purpose built premises at Edinburgh Quay, Fountainbridge in 2005. John spent much of his working life with a client base in the Far East, mainly Hong Kong, Singapore and China. He later became a partner with Anderson Strathearn where he continues as a consultant.
He has four adult children and lives with his partner in Moray Place.
On his reasons for suggesting this book, the proposer notes: ‘I was intrigued by the stories of the extraordinary people and events associated with the house from its building in 1792, covering the Scottish Enlightenment to the banking crisis in 2007. The book covered many aspects of Scottish history, history of the New Town, and characters connected with many of the cities professions. I found it an enjoyable and most fascinating read.’
The book had received favourable notices in the press, a recent review in the Law Society Review concluding: ‘ There is only one recommendation. In these uncertain and unsettling times, buy a copy and relish all that Mr Fulton offers in this superb book.’
There was quite a lively discussion, in which the book got a more mixed reception than the reviewer’s comments would suggest. Many of the group had enjoyed the engaging stories and the colourful characters, heroes and villains and plenty in between, but there was a general agreement that the most attractive chapters were the earlier ones, with a feeling that there was rather too much about Tods Murray in what followed. The book was written out of enthusiasm, and it was felt that it might have been better served by more rigorous editing.
We wondered whether 66: The House that viewed the World had been written with a particular audience in mind. It was not intended as an academic study, and indeed various sections (e/g the Enlightenment or the Wars in Bengal) struck those who knew the subjects well as rather flimsily researched – on the Enlightenment, for instance, most of the references were to Arthur Herman’s How the Scots invented the modern world, taking little account of the rest of the voluminous literature on the subject. The book seemed most likely to appeal to the legal community and to residents of the New Town – but perhaps also to visitors to the city who would be attracted by famous names and well-known stories, even if their connection to 66 Queens Street was sometimes a bit thin.
One of the participants, trying to discern a ‘red thread’ that connected the various stories in the book, had done a chart in which the main themes of each chapter were listed; he found that the two most constant subjects of interest were the firm of Tods Murray, and the aristocracy or social elite. As a result, the book offered only a very partial view of Edinburgh’s social history, concentrating on the ‘high heid yins’. It was interesting to compare it with some recent TV programmes devoted to the history of single houses in Liverpool and Newcastle, where one was able to track something of the economic and social history of the place through the very different people who successively lived there. In this book there was disappointingly little on the actual house and those who occupied it – it was more a question of the cases dealt with by Tods Murray. Maybe another house, perhaps in a different part of town, might have been more productive?
Overall, this varied collection of historical cases was enjoyed by most of the group, in whole or in part. And it certainly gave rise to some interesting, wide-ranging discussions, some closely related to the book, others more tangential: e.g. on Catholic and Protestant views of Scottish history, or on the peer review system for scientific publishing and the way this has been affected by the new possibilities offered by the Internet.
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