ABSTRACT
The Edinburgh the family found when they alighted from their Fly in December 1813 was hardly the Eldorado of their dreams; though how far the adult members of the family, James and Jean Chambers, had deluded themselves about its beauty and opportunities is hard to say. ‘Families with limited means from the southern counties of Scotland who seek a home in the capital sagaciously pitch on one of the secondrate streets in the southern suburbs’ William wrote, though it is doubtful if sagacity had much to do with it, more a sort of gravitation to a place where there are others like yourself, people who have known ‘better days’ and are sensitive about it. The Sanctuary was quite a cosy place, almost ‘a union of lodging house and tavern’ where inmates entertained their friends, and if they felt homesick, gave five shillings and a dram to the doctor to give them a sick certificate to leave.
