Scottish Enlightenment Edinburgh: Clubs, Print Culture and the New Town

In the middle decades of the eighteenth century, a crowded medieval city on a ridge became one of the intellectual centres of Europe. To understand Scottish Enlightenment Edinburgh, it helps to look beyond famous names such as David Hume and Adam Smith to how they met, argued and published. Clubs gathered in taverns, printers and booksellers turned ideas into books, and a new planned town rose across the valley to the north. All three still shape the streets that visitors walk today, including on our Edinburgh Festival Fringe small group tour.

What was the Select Society?

It was the best known of the clubs and societies through which much of Edinburgh’s eighteenth-century intellectual life was organised. Founded in 1754 on the initiative of the painter Allan Ramsay, son of the poet of the same name, it counted David Hume, Adam Smith and Lord Monboddo among its founding members, and its members also included Adam Ferguson, Lord Kames and the Lord Provost, George Drummond. Membership was by invitation, and the society grew from 15 members to 83 by the end of its first year. Its 1755 statement of purpose set out the aim “to discover the most effectual methods of promoting the good of the country”.

Taverns, militias and oysters

Other clubs mixed argument with conviviality. The Poker Club, established in 1762 as the Militia Club to campaign for a Scottish militia, met at a tavern near the mercat cross on the High Street and, from 1769, at Fortune’s Tavern in Stamp Office Close. By 1776 it listed 43 members, among them the chemist Joseph Black. In the 1770s Black, Smith and the geologist James Hutton founded the Oyster Club, which met in rooms in the vaults of the South Bridge and in a changing round of taverns.

From conversation to print

Ideas debated in clubs reached a wider public through print, and Edinburgh’s printers and booksellers made that possible. The first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was issued in Edinburgh in weekly numbers from December 1768 to about 1771, printed by Colin Macfarquhar, compiled almost entirely by William Smellie and illustrated with 160 copperplates engraved by Andrew Bell. In 1802 Francis Jeffrey, Sydney Smith and Henry Brougham founded the Edinburgh Review as an outlet for liberal views; it became highly influential and ran until 1929.

Edinburgh’s lawyers played a part too. The Faculty of Advocates had founded the Advocates Library in 1689, and the Copyright Act of 1710 gave it the right of legal deposit. Hume wrote his History of England, published in six volumes between 1754 and 1762, while he was librarian to the Faculty of Advocates. In 1925 the library’s non-law collections were donated to the newly founded National Library of Scotland. Edinburgh’s public life of books and debate continues today in its August festivals, as our article on how Edinburgh became a festival city explains.

The Royal Society of Edinburgh

The clubs eventually produced a lasting institution. In 1737 a broader society split from a medical one, and the following year it became the Edinburgh Philosophical Society. In 1783 it was succeeded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, founded with a royal charter from George III “for the advancement of learning and useful knowledge”. The society describes itself as the collective heir of the Enlightenment clubs, including the Select Society. It had 179 founding members.

The New Town: a plan for a modern city

Crowding in the Old Town was also the spur for one of the Enlightenment’s most visible achievements. Under Lord Provost George Drummond, the city began to look north across the Nor Loch. Draining of the loch began in 1763, and Drummond laid the foundation stone of the North Bridge in 1765. In 1766 the Town Council announced a competition to design a new town, and it was won by James Craig, an Edinburgh-born architect aged 26, whose simple gridiron plan beat six other entries. The final plan was settled in 1767.

Craig’s street names carried political meaning: George Street honoured King George III, Hanover Street and Frederick Street referred to the ruling dynasty, and Rose Street stood for England. The result, with its wide streets, uniform terraces and garden squares, contrasted sharply with the crowded Old Town. Charlotte Square, designed by Robert Adam for the western end of the plan, became one of its finest set pieces. For more on the style, our article on Georgian architecture explains its principles.

Where can you see the Enlightenment in Edinburgh today?

Start on the Royal Mile, then cross to the New Town. Two bronze statues by the Edinburgh sculptor Alexander Stoddart commemorate the leading figures: David Hume, unveiled in 1996, and Adam Smith, unveiled in 2008 in Parliament Square, where Smith is shown with a lecturer’s gown over his shoulder. Panmure House, which continues Smith’s legacy, hosts research and events and opens to visitors on special occasions, including during the Fringe in August. In the New Town itself, George Street and Charlotte Square show Craig’s and Adam’s plans at full scale. Our guide to Edinburgh’s main sights covers both towns in more detail.

Exploring Enlightenment Edinburgh on a small group tour

The tour is based in Edinburgh for eight nights in August. An orientation walk with the Program Leader introduces the city, the itinerary includes visits to the National Museum of Scotland and the National Galleries of Scotland, and tickets to four Fringe performances are included, with selections confirmed once the programme is published. Two free days leave time to walk the New Town’s streets and squares at your own pace.

How much walking does exploring Enlightenment Edinburgh involve?

A moderate amount, and the New Town is the easier half. Craig’s grid is laid out on gentler ground than the Old Town ridge, with long, straight streets and broad pavements, although the streets running north slope downhill and some connections back to the Old Town are steep. The tour itself is graded Level 1, Introductory to Moderate, with around 3 to 5 kilometres of walking a day, some of it on uneven surfaces.

For quieter corners of the city, our guide to places to visit in Edinburgh off the beaten track suggests where to go, and our country spotlight on Scotland sets the capital in its national context. To walk the streets where Hume, Smith and their clubs once met, join our nine-day Fringe tour in a small group of up to 16, with a Program Leader on hand.