English and Scottish philanthropists had some degree of success in their attempt to cast ‘fallen’ women as suitable objects of charity. Scotland’s first non-statutory female penitentiary, or magdalene home was opened in Edinburgh in Canongate Street by Philanthropic Society in 1797; called Edinburgh Magdalene Asylum it was originally designed for women of all ages who were recently discharged from prison, but after four-year trial it was concluded that many were too old, and ‘from their inveterate habits’, generally intractable. The institutions favoured women under the age of 24, who were neither pregnant nor diseased at the time of admission, and who were of reasonable intelligence and willing to submit to discipline. Education was supplemented with training for domestic service so that inmates would be able to support themselves after they left the institution. An inmate was considered to be morally reformed when she displayed ‘change of heart’, which was believed to indicate her conversion to middle-class standards of feminine propriety.