ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how class, gender and site intersected in the pursuit of urban and social reform in Edwardian Edinburgh, particularly as it related to women and children. Through a discussion of three protagonists – Jane Whyte, Lileen Hardy and an unknown tenement dweller – and the places they occupied – Charlotte Square, Brown’s Close and Chessel’s Court in Edinburgh’s Canongate and an unidentified tenement on the Canongate – the discussion shows how these women’s activities demonstrated contemporary ideas about women’s and children’s rights and their consequent impact on the built environment; how class could be both a liberating device and an inhibiting one; and how much women’s gender affects our ability to tell their history.
